EMPATHIC ACCURACY DURING A NEGOTIATION by DEVIN E. HOWINGTON A DISSERTATION

90 Pages·2017·3.28 MB·English

by  Devin Howington

WHAT DOES ACCURACY GET YOU?
EMPATHIC ACCURACY DURING
A NEGOTIATION

by

DEVIN E. HOWINGTON

A DISSERTATION

Presented to the Department of Psychology
and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

December 2016
DISSERTATION APPROVAL PAGE

Student: Devin E. Howington

Title: What Does Accuracy Get You? Empathic Accuracy During a Negotiation

This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the Department of Psychology by:

Sara D. Hodges Chairperson
Sanjay Srivastava Core Member
Pranjal Mehta Core Member
Erik Girvan Institutional Representative

and

Scott L. Pratt Dean of the Graduate School

Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School.

Degree awarded December 2016

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© 2016 Devin E. Howington
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs (United States) License.

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DISSERTATION ABSTRACT

Devin E. Howington

Doctor of Philosophy

Department of Psychology

December 2016

Title: What Does Accuracy Get You? Empathic Accuracy During a Negotiation

Accurately guessing the thoughts and feelings of another person, known as
empathic accuracy, is thought to be a useful skill across many domains. However, the
evidence supporting the value of empathic accuracy has been mixed, perhaps because the
domains previously examined did not require accuracy for functionality. Negotiation may
be one domain in which being accurate really matters for positive outcomes for the
perceiver. Additionally, men and women may have different motivations to be accurate,
including the presence of a competitive or cooperative situation. The primary research
questions of this study are: 1) Is empathic accuracy related to outcomes in the
negotiation?; 2) Is accuracy dependent on how the negotiation is framed?; and 3) Does
how the negotiation is framed affect men’s and women’s empathic accuracy differently?
Individual differences in personal power and Machiavellianism are also examined in
relation to accuracy in this context.
In this study, 336 participants interacted in same-sex dyads to negotiate over
small items in either a competitive or cooperative context, resulting in a 2 (gender) x 2
(context) design. Accuracy was measured both as empathic accuracy for partner’s
thoughts during the negotiation as well as accuracy for guessing their partner’s
idiosyncratic item preferences (provided prior to the negotiation). Actor-Partner
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Interdependence models were used to estimate the contributions of each person in the
dyad to the outcome of interest. Neither empathic accuracy nor accuracy for guessing
item values led to any increases in personal gain in the negotiation. However, empathic
accuracy was predictive of satisfaction with the outcome of the negotiation, such that
more accurate actors and having more accurate partners both led to significantly
increased satisfaction with the outcome. Contrary to the hypotheses, accuracy was not
affected by gender or the framing of the negotiation or any interactions between the two
variables. Individual differences in power and Machiavellianism did not lead to increases
in perceiver empathic accuracy, but rather led to decreases in partner’s accuracy: actors
that had partners who were high in power or high in Machiavellianism were less
empathically accurate. The implications for negotiation research and future empathic
accuracy research are discussed.

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CURRICULUM VITAE

NAME OF AUTHOR: Devin E. Howington

GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED:

University of Oregon, Eugene
Hendrix College, Conway

DEGREES AWARDED:

Doctor of Philosophy, Social Psychology, 2016, University of Oregon
Master of Science, Conflict and Dispute Resolution, 2016, University of Oregon
Master of Science, Social Psychology, 2011, University of Oregon
Bachelor of Arts, Psychology, 2007, Hendrix College

AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST:

Social Psychology
Mediation and Negotiation

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:

Graduate Teaching Fellow, Department of Psychology, University of Oregon,
September 2011 - December 2016

Volunteer Mediator, Lane County Circuit Court, August 2015 – June 2016

Family Mediation Intern, Lane County Family Mediation, September 2015 –
December 2015

GRANTS, AWARDS, AND HONORS:

Dixon Award, Graduate School, University of Oregon, 2015

Graduate Education Committee Research Travel Award, Department of
Psychology, University of Oregon, 2012-2015.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I cannot express enough how thankful I am to have such a wonderful advisor in
Sara Hodges. Her knowledge, her guidance, and most importantly, her unwavering
support made this accomplishment possible. I am truly lucky that I can count her among
my friends. I would like to thank Sanjay Srivastava, Pranjal Mehta, and Erik Girvan as
well, each of whom helped shape this project and make everything better. A huge thank
you also to my Hodges lab mates and my many friends who helped me along the way, but
most of all to Nicole Lawless DesJardins and Carly Smith for their help with this project
and for their friendship. I would also like to give special thanks to Lori Olsen for making
sure all my requirements were met in the most delightful way.
Finally, I want to express my deepest gratitude to my wonderful husband, Kyle,
for being my biggest cheerleader and for helping me believe in myself.

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For anyone who has ever told someone “You can do it!”

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Page

I. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 1
Empathic Accuracy ................................................................................................ 2
Negotiation and Accuracy ...................................................................................... 4
Negotiation Context ............................................................................................... 7
Secondary Aims ..................................................................................................... 13
II. METHOD ................................................................................................................ 16
Overview ................................................................................................................ 16
Participants ............................................................................................................. 16
Materials ................................................................................................................ 18
Items ..............................................................................................................…18
Item Rating Scale ............................................................................................. 18
Negotiation Outcome Questionnaire ................................................................ 18
Individual Difference Measures ....................................................................... 19
Procedure ............................................................................................................... 20
III. RESULTS .............................................................................................................. 23
Coding Schemes ..................................................................................................... 23
Empathic Accuracy .......................................................................................... 23
Item Relevancy ................................................................................................ 23
Preliminary Analyses and Manipulation Check .................................................... 27
Analytic Strategy ................................................................................................... 29

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Chapter Page

Empathic Accuracy and Negotiation Success .............................................................. 29
Empathic Accuracy and Item Accuracy ................................................................ 34
Effects of Gender and Condition on Accuracy ...................................................... 36
Empathic Accuracy .......................................................................................... 36
Item Accuracy .................................................................................................. 37
Individual Differences ........................................................................................... 38
Power ............................................................................................................... 38
Machiavellianism ............................................................................................. 39
IV. DISCUSSION ........................................................................................................ 41
Methodological Considerations ............................................................................. 48
V. CONCLUSIONS ..................................................................................................... 53
APPENDICES ............................................................................................................. 54
A. NEGOTIATION QUESTIONNAIRE .............................................................. 54
B. COMPETE AND COOPERATE MANIPULATION ...................................... 55
C. TABLES ............................................................................................................ 56
D. FIGURES .......................................................................................................... 70
REFERENCES CITED ................................................................................................ 74

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