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PART TWO

INTRAPSYCHIC
PROCESSES
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CHAPTER ELEVEN

Judgmental Biases
in Conflict Resolution and
How to Overcome Them
Leigh Thompson
Janice Nadler
Robert B. Lount, Jr.

common misconception held by negotiators and dispute resolution

A professionals is that conflict escalation, stalemates, impasses, and lose-

lose agreements are driven by intransigence and self-interested motiva-
tion. Whereas self-interest and opposing motivations do interfere with
productively resolving conflict, there are many seemingly benign beliefs and
cognitions that also interfere with effective conflict resolution but often go
undetected. Unfortunately, these beliefs are not easily corrected during the
process of conflict resolution itself because it is difficult for negotiators to mon-
itor them. Furthermore, third-party intervention is no guarantee that erroneous
beliefs and cognitions will be adequately identified and eliminated. In fact, the
mere presence of a third party may exaggerate the tendency of these faulty and
erroneous beliefs to disturb the otherwise effective resolution of conflict.
Further, third parties, and other self-proclaimed neutrals, often fall prey to sim-
ilar cognitive bias.
We argue in this chapter that identifying and challenging negotiator biases
can do much to effectively resolve dispute and conflict of interest. Unfortunately,
most negotiators are not aware of the existence of cognitive biases and their
deleterious effects. In the first section, we introduce our basic framework and
key assumptions. In the second section, we provide illustrative examples of the
effects of cognitive bias on conflict management. Finally, we examine methods
for eliminating or reducing cognitive bias at the bargaining table.

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244 THE HANDBOOK OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION: THEORY AND PRACTICE

COGNITIVE BIASES AND THEIR EFFECTS ON

CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
In contrast to perception of external physical events (which usually can be
directly observed), much of the information we need to know about people is
not directly accessible; rather, we must infer it on the basis of their behavior
and spoken words. As is easily imagined, this can lead to misperception and
misunderstanding because of differences in background (gender, class, culture,
ethnicity, social roles, and so on) between the target and the perceiver.
Given the complexity of the task, it is not surprising that misunderstanding,
error, and bias in judgment occur naturally even under favorable circum-
stances. In conflict, bias is apt to occur because conflict often leads to
inadequate communication between the negotiating parties; arousal of emo-
tional tensions that constrict thinking to stereotypes and to black-and-white
viewpoints; primary focus on opposed interests; and anxiety, which may pro-
pel one to deny the conflict or flee into agreement before thinking through its
consequences.
This tendency to use shortcuts, or heuristics, when we process information
is an extremely cost-effective strategy, and much of the time heuristic processing
provides us with accurate information. It may seem peculiar that heuristics—
cognitive shortcuts—are cost-effective, because they lead to biases and hinder
effective conflict resolution; however, our point is that much of the time, these
shortcuts may be effective when used in nonconflict situations because they can
lead to an answer or solution that is acceptable and efficient. For example, in
forming an impression of a new next-door neighbor, one could do an extensive
search (interviewing friends and relatives, perhaps even hiring a private
investigator); or one could simply rely on gut impression. The former strategy
is obviously costly and time consuming; the second strategy is simple, but prone
to bias.
In competitive encounters such as negotiation, though, the heuristic-based
judgments we make are often wrong. Furthermore, the nature of our errors is not
random but instead systematic. For the purposes of our discussion, we focus on
systematic error and patterned fallacy; these are known as biases. Biases come
in many forms and shapes. For instance, people can be biased about other
people, as when they use stereotypes (someone might perceive all New Yorkers
as pushy). People can also be biased about situations (the gambler’s fallacy—
having lost so many times in a row they are “due” to win) (Tversky and
Kahneman, 1974). Paradoxically, people can also be biased about themselves
(the vast majority of people judge themselves to be above average on many
positive characteristics and abilities, even though it is logically impossible for
most people to be above average).
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JUDGMENTAL BIASES IN CONFLICT RESOLUTION AND HOW TO OVERCOME THEM 245

Table 11.1. Core Biases and Their Effects.

Core Bias Effects

Need to simplify conflict situations Stereotyping

Ignoring inconsistent information
Confusing cause and effect relations
Perception of opposing forces Fixed-pie perception
Lose-lose outcomes
Exaggeration of conflict
Reactive devaluation
False dichotomy between cooperation Overly tough (escalatory) strategies
and competition Overly concessionary strategies
Suboptimal solutions
Egocentric judgment Biased judgments of fairness
Invalid perceptions of control
Illusion of transparency
Higher likelihood of impasse

Source: Author.

In this chapter, we focus on four key biases selected for special emphasis
because of their fundamental pervasiveness in many kinds of conflict situations.
We list these in Table 11.1. We regard these biases to be at the core of others that
may crop up in conflict situations. In describing each bias, we offer relevant exam-
ples from empirical research and set forth some implications for conflict
management. Because the first step in effectively managing conflict is to be aware
of the existence of these particular biases, we discuss them in turn below.

Need to Simplify Conflict

It may often seem that parties interlocked in conflict at the bargaining table are
purposefully attempting to complicate matters. In fact, people tend do the oppo-
site: they dramatically oversimplify situations. At the negotiating table, as in
many other situations, people form judgments and attitudes without much
deliberation and without the benefit of complete evidence. There are a number
of reasons, notably that the human mind—though highly evolved—is simply
not a computer, capable of endless processing of full information. Rather, peo-
ple focus on one or two salient points in a situation. In this sense, people do
not pay attention to every detail; rather, they look for a few salient cues and
then make an assumption about how to act.
In addition to the general problem of stereotyping (which we discuss further
in this chapter), the need to simplify the conflict situation also can result in other
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246 THE HANDBOOK OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION: THEORY AND PRACTICE

biases or poor gathering of crucial information needed to optimally resolve con-

flict. The desire to simplify the situation leads us to ignore information that is
inconsistent with our initial beliefs, and in some cases, to interpret ambiguous
information as being consistent with them. For example, we often associate the
color black with negative ideas: death, evil, or “bad guys” wearing black hats.
As an illustration of how prior beliefs about the color black can influence per-
ception, consider two groups of trained referees who were shown videotapes of
the same aggressive play in a football game (Frank and Gilovich, 1988). One
group of referees viewed a version of the tape in which the aggressive team wore
white uniforms, whereas the other referees saw the aggressive team wearing
black. The referees who watched the black-uniformed version rated the play as
much more aggressive and deserving of a penalty than did referees who judged
the white-uniformed team. Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that in professional
football and hockey, teams that wear black uniforms are penalized significantly
more than average (Frank and Gilovich, 1988). If our initial beliefs about the
color black are negative, then we tend to interpret ambiguous information as
being consistent with those beliefs.
Further, the need to simplify a conflict situation can lead to faulty percep-
tion about cause-and-effect relationships. People may falsely infer a causal
relationship where none exists, or they may assume that a given action by one
person results in an action by the other person. This effect, known as the
“biased punctuation of conflict,” occurs when people interpret interaction with
their adversaries in other-derogating terms (Kahn and Kramer, 1990). Actor A
perceives the history of conflict with another actor, B, as a sequence of B-A,
B-A, B-A, in which the initial hostile or aggressive move was always made by
B, obliging A to engage in defensive and legitimate retaliatory action. Actor B
punctuates the same history of interaction as A-B, A-B, A-B, however, revers-
ing the roles of aggressor and defender. Disagreement about how to punctuate
a sequence of events in a conflict relationship is at the root of many disputes.
When each side to the dispute is queried, they explain their frustrations and
actions as defenses against the acts of the other party. As a result, conflict
escalates unnecessarily.

Opposing Forces
In very general terms, people in negotiation and conflict situations tend to
assume that the degree of opposition between themselves and other parties
is greater than it actually is. A classic root cause of most ill-fated negotiations is
the fixed-pie perception: the belief that the other party’s gain comes at our
expense, and our gain at theirs (Bazerman and Neale, 1992; Thompson and
Hastie, 1990). The fixed-pie perception simply means that most negotiators
work under the assumption that the other party’s gain is one’s own loss, and
vice versa. In one investigation, for example, more than two-thirds of the
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JUDGMENTAL BIASES IN CONFLICT RESOLUTION AND HOW TO OVERCOME THEM 247

negotiators assumed that the amount of available resources was fixed, even
though this was not the case (Thompson and Hastie, 1990).
A close cousin of the fixed-pie perception is the lose-lose outcome (Thompson
and Hrebec, 1996). The possibility of lose-lose negotiations often goes unchecked,
because most people tend to view the opposite of win-win as win-lose; however,
lose-lose negotiations do exist (Thompson, 1990). They occur if both parties settle
for something that both prefer less than what they can readily have. Consider the
following lose-lose situations:

• Two countries have been in conflict for decades. Each would benefit
from peaceful coexistence, but their attempts at peace talks never
achieve substantive progress, and the conflict rages on.
• The management and labor representatives for a local industry
embroiled in contract-renewal talks both realize that, if the union goes
on strike, company owners and union membership alike will suffer. But
no agreement is reached by the time the contract expires.

False Dichotomy: Choosing Between

Cooperation and Competition
If you view the world through the lens of a fixed-pie vision, the choices are
pretty clear: either hold out to protect your own interests, which are by defini-
tion opposed to the other’s, or cooperate with the other party so that some kind
of compromise can be reached. Cooperation and competition are thought to be
the yin and yang of conflict resolution, and it is true that most conflicts are
mixed-motive in the sense that we are motivated to get as much of the pie as
we can for ourselves, but at the same time motivated to work together with the
other person to ensure we reach mutual agreement. We argue, though, that this
is a false dichotomy in most instances, because we need not choose to behave
purely cooperatively or purely competitively. There is a third, enlightened strat-
egy, which we call strategic creativity (Neale and Bazerman, 1991; Thompson,
2005).
Strategic creativity involves using both cooperation and competition. Specif-
ically, cooperation is needed to reach some kind of mutual agreement with the
other party. Fundamentally, cooperation implies concern for your own interests
as well as those of the other party. Furthermore, pure cooperation also implies
that the other party feels the same way about you. This, of course, is the
basis for trust. Yet, it is often unrealistic or inappropriate to assume that people
are concerned with the other party’s interests. This is true in conflict situations,
as when two neighbors have a dispute about a fallen tree on the property line;
it is also true in negotiation situations, as when an employer and an employee
discuss the terms of employment. In most cases, the primary objective of the
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248 THE HANDBOOK OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION: THEORY AND PRACTICE

parties is to further their own interests. Thus, we do not encourage parties to

expect that others have their best interests in mind. Rather, we suggest that par-
ties in conflict and negotiation situations attempt to discover points of mutual
interest and use them to leverage mutually acceptable resolutions.
In addition, strategic creativity assumes that parties’ interests, though partially
opposed, are not completely opposed. The strategically creative negotiators search
for opportunities to satisfy the other party’s interests as well as their own.
One way to accomplish a mutually beneficial situation is to identify the issues
at hand, and then assess which are important to oneself, and which are impor-
tant to the other party. For example, in the peace treaty talks between Syria and
Israel, technical experts formed committees to identify several key issues, includ-
ing the extent of an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, water rights,
security measures, and the timetable for implementing an agreement. After
these separate issues were identified, it became clear that Israel put a greater
emphasis on security guarantees, and Syria placed greater weight on the with-
drawal from the Golan Heights, thus allowing a more integrative agreement to
emerge (USA Today, January 5, 2000).

Egocentric Judgment: “I Only Want What’s Fair (for Me)”

Underlying all of the biases we have discussed thus far is a basic tendency for
people to protect their own egos and interests. Our psychological immune sys-
tem is so efficient that we do not even realize our judgments are tainted with
self-interest. For example, consider a husband and wife reflecting on their per-
ceptions of responsibility for cleaning dishes, shopping, child care, and other
household and relationship activities. Imagine asking each spouse indepen-
dently to score who does what percentage of the work. In such a case, both
partners generally assume themselves to be more responsible than the other
(Ross and Sicoly, 1979). When both spouses’ contributions are totaled for a
“couple” score, the perceived contributions frequently amount to more than
100 percent! The same pattern can occur in product development teams and
numerous other settings. Such differences in perception undoubtedly exacer-
bate conflict, at home, in the workplace, and elsewhere. For example, the
presence of egocentric biases played an important role in the American Airlines
negotiations in April 2003, in which bankruptcy was narrowly avoided.
American said it had to have $1.8 billion in annual cuts from all employee
groups as a part of a $4 billion effort to restructure the company. The airline
was losing $5 million a day. The three major groups involved—the pilots union,
the professional flight attendants, and the transport workers union all believed
that they deserved more than what they believed others were entitled to (Dallas
Morning News, April 3, 2003).
Yet despite the egocentric bias, most negotiators describe themselves as want-
ing to be “fair” (Loewenstein, Thompson, and Bazerman, 1989). Most people
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JUDGMENTAL BIASES IN CONFLICT RESOLUTION AND HOW TO OVERCOME THEM 249

also prefer to divide resources “fairly” (Messick, 1993). The problem is that self-
interest tinges otherwise fair allocation of resources. This is because fairness is not
an absolute construct, but highly subjective. What is fair to one person may not be
fair in the eyes of another. Multiple interpretations of fairness are equally valid
in various situations.

Summary
The findings we have described represent four important and pervasive biases
that occur in negotiation and conflict resolution. These four findings are ene-
mies that theorists and practitioners must fight to eliminate. In the next section,
we elaborate further on the biases that threaten successful dispute resolution in
negotiation, focusing specifically on their impact on conflict management.

IMPLICATIONS FOR CONFLICT MANAGEMENT

Practitioners and laypersons have neither the time nor the inclination to read
the vast body of empirical research literature on negotiator bias and cognition.
In this section, we distill decades of research into a few key principles that are
best illustrated by real examples. We deliberately focus on the research litera-
ture that has proved to be reliable (replicable and generalizable across a vari-
ety of conflict situations, people, and domains) and valid (causal relationships,
not just post hoc observation or intuition). We review the four key findings on
bias already outlined in the context of conflict situations. At the end of each
review, we describe what we think are the key implications for practitioners.

Exaggeration of Conflict
People involved in social or political conflict tend to overestimate the extremity
of the other side’s beliefs, a reflection of the first bias: opposing forces.
Consider the reactions to the real-life conflict commonly referred to as the
Howard Beach incident, in which a young black man, Michael Griffith, was
struck and killed by a passing car as he attempted to escape a group of white
pursuers in the Howard Beach neighborhood of Queens in New York City. In
one study, people who characterized themselves as liberals or conservatives
were asked to rate the extent to which they believed in the truth of certain
statements about the case (“The white pursuers deliberately chased Michael
Griffith into the path of oncoming traffic”; “Michael Griffith had consumed
cocaine on the night in question”; Robinson, Keltner, Ward, and Ross, 1995).
The same people were then asked to predict how “the other side” would
rate the truth of the same statements. That is, conservatives were asked to
predict liberals’ ratings for each question, as were liberals asked to predict
conservatives’ ratings. Both liberals and conservatives overestimated the
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250 THE HANDBOOK OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION: THEORY AND PRACTICE

difference between their side and the other. Liberals overestimated the extent
to which conservatives believed in the truth of statements favoring the white
perpetrators; conservatives overestimated the extent to which liberals believed
in the truth of statements favoring the black victim. Thus, the partisans in this
case believed that the distance between their positions was greater than it
really was.
Perhaps most surprising, neutrals (people who described themselves as
neither liberal nor conservative) also succumbed to this mistake; they too over-
estimated the gap between liberals’ and conservatives’ beliefs about the Howard
Beach incident. All three groups (liberals, conservatives, and neutrals) exag-
gerated the extent of conflict: all three groups overestimated first the extent to
which conservatives would interpret the events in ways that blamed the black
victim, and second the extent to which liberals would interpret events in ways
that favored the black victim.
The pattern of results is not unique to this incident. Exaggeration of perceived
conflict exists in many other domains: abortion, the death penalty, the arms
race, and even the “Western canon debate” (the dispute among educators about
the choice of books in introductory college-level civilization and literature
courses).
It is important to consider the implications of the tendency for people to
exaggerate conflict. If the partisans in a conflict perceive their differences as
greater than they really are, then they might be overly pessimistic about finding
common ground. If people hold erroneous assumptions about the gap between
their own position and that of the other side, then people might decide that it
is not worth even sitting down at the bargaining table on the grounds that any
discussion is fruitless (Robinson, Keltner, Ward, and Ross, 1995).
The fact that we exaggerate the extent of conflict means that information
exchange among parties is crucial. Unless both sides to a conflict discuss the
nature of their beliefs, assumptions, and concerns, each side continues to per-
ceive the other as unreasonable and extreme. Because neutral third parties also
tend to exaggerate conflict, these results have important implications for medi-
ators as well. To be effective, mediators must understand the true nature of each
side’s position. If a mediator relies on her preconceived assumptions about
each party’s position, she is likely to overestimate the extremity of each party’s
position, and to overestimate the gap between the parties.
In addition to forming an accurate understanding of the conflict, mediators
have an important role to play in helping parties overcome their own percep-
tion of exaggerated conflict. Exaggeration of conflict comes in two forms: each
side tends to see the other side’s position as more extreme than it really is, and
one’s own side is also seen as more extreme than it really is. Mediators can help
parties see that their own position does not need to be as extreme as they think
it needs to be.
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Lose-Lose Outcomes
Sometimes all of the people in an interdependent decision-making situation pre-
fer one settlement to another but nevertheless fail to achieve it.
In February 2005, the National Hockey League (NHL) Commissioner Gary
Bettman officially cancelled the hockey season after a five-month player lockout.
Because a new labor agreement could not be reached between the players union
and the league, several billion dollars of revenue were lost. Furthermore, almost
four hundred of the league’s seven hundred players decided to move to Europe to
play hockey (often earning less than half of what they made annually playing in
the NHL)(New York Times, February 17, 2005). This is called a lose-lose
agreement, because both sides have settled for an outcome that is clearly worse
for both sides as compared to coming to an agreement.
The frequency with which lose-lose agreements occur is both surprising and
alarming. One statistical analysis involving more than five thousand participants
revealed that lose-lose agreements occurred 20 percent of the time (Thompson
and Hrebec, 1996). That is, in cases where the parties have compatible prefer-
ences with regard to a particular issue, fully one time in five they agree on an
alternative that both prefer less than another outcome.
Moreover, it is unlikely that the lose-lose agreement is an artifact of the
laboratory, with no real-world significance. Balke, Hammond, and Meyer’s
examination (1973) of labor-management negotiations at Dow Chemical is a
case in point. Analysis of that dispute revealed that labor and management both
preferred the same wage increase; yet neither party realized it until after a costly
two-month strike.
Another example is illustrated in Walton and McKersie’s analysis (1965) of the
Cuban missile crisis, which stemmed from the Soviet Union’s buildup of missile
bases in Cuba during the Cold War. The crisis had reached dangerous proportions
when the United States threatened to retaliate against the Soviet Union when
Cuba fired on American airplanes. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union, unbeknown to
the United States, also preferred that Cuba refrain from provoking the United
States, because there was a danger that Cuba’s behavior would incite a war over
issues not important to Soviet interests. The parties that had come to the brink
of nuclear war shared compatible interests without realizing it.
Why does this happen? As discussed earlier, people sometimes adopt a fixed-pie
perception in which they believe that the other person’s interests are completely
opposed to their own. This belief is established at the outset, before people even
have the opportunity to meet or talk with each other. In addition, the fixed-pie per-
ception is remarkably durable; it remains even when people have high incentives
and ample feedback is available to challenge the perception.
But sometimes people do realize their preferences are compatible with the
other party’s, and yet still fail to capitalize on shared interests. Political pressures,
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situational norms, and organizational constraints can prevent people from opti-
mizing their compatible interests. A vacation rental company with a weeklong
rental policy gets a call, late in the week, from a renter requesting a midweek
stay. It would be better for both parties to rent the property. But this means that
company policy would be broken, so the agency refuses. Parties may face similar
kinds of social pressure in other situations, and the desire to save face may pre-
vent a person from settling on what is obviously a better deal (Rubin, Pruitt, and
Kim, 1994).

Invalid Perceptions of Control

We all like to think that we have control over our environment. To some degree,
this is certainly true; when we pull on a door it usually opens, and when we say
hello to a colleague we usually receive a hello in response. Theorists from several
domains conclude that this sense of personal control is necessary to a healthy self-
concept; without some sense of control over outcomes in our environment, we
would feel helpless and worthless. But we easily become so accustomed to feel-
ing in control that we automatically, egocentrically assume we have causal influ-
ence over certain events in our environment when, in fact, we have no such
influence. As an intriguing example, craps players act as though they control the
dice by throwing them softly to produce low numbers or throwing hard for high
numbers (Henslin, 1967). As another, a baseball player on a hitting streak might
wear the same pair of socks in every game for fear of jinxing the streak.
Inflated perceptions of control generally stem from the same sort of egocen-
tric bias that we described earlier. In short, people are acutely aware of their
own actions, thoughts, and feelings and less aware of those of others. Moreover,
we have a poor memory for contingency information, and our judgments are
biased by self-serving motivations. Although people who are given a lottery
ticket with a pre-assigned number gladly accept the opportunity to trade
the ticket for one from a different lottery with a better chance of winning
(Langer, 1975), those who choose their own number prefer to hold on to the
ticket and forgo the opportunity to enter a lottery with a better chance of win-
ning. Why? Because picking their own lottery number gives people an illusion
of control; they try to choose a “good” number thinking it is more likely to win,
even though in reality all numbers have equal likelihood. Thus, when it comes
to causal relationships between events, people often falsely believe they exert
more control than is actually the case.
Conflict situations often present circumstances that encourage people to
adopt invalid perceptions of control. In one study, negotiators faced an oppo-
nent who was (unbeknown to the negotiator participating in the study) actu-
ally a confederate of the experimenter. During the negotiation, the confederate
strictly follows a preset schedule of concessions. When the preprogrammed
schedule called for the confederate to make an extreme initial demand followed
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JUDGMENTAL BIASES IN CONFLICT RESOLUTION AND HOW TO OVERCOME THEM 253

by retreats to a moderate demand, the participants felt they had control over
the opponent and the final settlement. But when the schedule called for the con-
federate to make a moderate initial demand and then refuse to retreat, negotia-
tors reacted unfavorably because they felt they had no causal influence on the
outcome of the negotiation (Benton, Kelley, and Liebling, 1972).
In another study, participants played a game in which they had a choice of
cooperating or competing with the other party. The other party faced a similar
choice. The worst outcome for a player is to cooperate while the opponent com-
petes. The best outcome for both players together is if both cooperate. As a
player in this game, you are told either that your opponent has already made
a choice, or that your opponent will make a choice at the same time you do. In
either case, you do not know your opponent’s choice before making your own,
and your opponent does not know your choice before making his own. Faced
with this situation, people are more likely to cooperate if the opponent’s deci-
sion is made at the same time as their own (Morris, Sim, and Girrotto, 1998).
In this situation, players have the causal illusion that they can influence oppo-
nents who have not yet decided by “showing” their opponent that they are
cooperating. On the other hand, if the opponent has already made a decision,
the player knows there is no way of influencing it, because causation cannot
work backward in time. Of course, in either case, the opponent has no way of
knowing the player’s choice until after making his, so the player is unable to
show the opponent anything about his choice.
These results suggest a tactic for concession-making during conflict resolution:
inform the opponent of an imminent concession simultaneously with, or just after,
the opponent makes a concession. This fosters the illusion of control in your
opponent; he reasons that by showing you he is making a generous concession,
you will reciprocate and do the same. In the meantime, regardless of what you
decide to do, you can benefit from the opponent’s generous concession. Similarly,
mediators can suggest to each party that the other party is ripe for influence—
and suggest that a concession will greatly influence the other party.

Biased Judgments of Fairness

We have made the point that fairness is not an absolute construct; instead, it is
socially defined. What is fair to one person may not be fair in the eyes of
another. Consider what happened when two vice presidents of a major Fortune
100 company were promoted to senior vice president at about the same time in
the late 1990s (Washington Post, June 15, 2003). Both of them moved into new
offices, but one of them suspected an inequity. He pulled out blueprints and
measured the square footage of each office. His suspicions were confirmed
when it turned out the other’s office was bigger than his by a few feet. A for-
mer employee said, “He blew a gasket.” Walls were removed, and his office was
reconfigured to make it as large as his counterpart’s. This example illustrates
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that in any situation, there are as many interpretations of fairness as there are
parties involved. Here, equality, equity, and need are all plausible principles on
which a decision can be made. Hence, in conflict resolution, two people may
both truly want a fair settlement, but they may have very different and equally
justifiable ideas about what is fair.
Although people generally want what is fair, their assessments of fairness are
often self-serving (Messick and Sentis, 1979). Moreover, the fact that we have
little or no self-awareness of this influence on our otherwise sound judgment
heightens the intransigence of our views. Suppose you have worked for seven
hours and have been paid $25. Another person has worked for ten hours doing
the same work. How much do you think the other person should get paid? If
you’re like most people, you believe the other person should get paid more for
doing more work—about $30, on average (Messick and Sentis, 1979). This is
hardly a self-serving response. Now, consider the reverse situation: the other
person has worked for seven hours and been paid $25. You have worked for ten
hours. What is a fair wage for you to be paid? Messick and Sentis found the
average response to be about $35. The difference is about $10, and it illustrates
the phenomenon of egocentric bias: people pay themselves substantially more
than they are willing to pay others for doing the same task.
Consider another example. You are told about an accident in which a motor-
cyclist was injured after being hit by a car. After learning all the facts, you are
asked to make a judgment of how much money you think is a fair settlement
to compensate the motorcyclist for his injuries. Then, you are asked to play the
role of either the injured motorcyclist or the driver of the car and to negotiate a
settlement. Most of the time, people in this situation have no trouble coming to
an agreement (Babcock, Loewenstein, Issacharoff, and Camerer, 1995).
Now imagine doing the same thing, except that your role assignment comes
first. That is, first you are asked to play the role of the motorcyclist or the dri-
ver, and then you learn all the facts, decide on a fair settlement, and finally
negotiate. In this situation, the only thing that changes is that you learn the facts
and make a fair settlement judgment through the eyes of one of the parties,
instead of from the standpoint of a neutral observer. As it turns out, this differ-
ence is crucial. Instead of having no trouble coming to an agreement (as do the
people who do not know their roles until just prior to the negotiation), people
who know their roles from the beginning have a very difficult time coming to
an agreement (Babcock, Loewenstein, Issacharoff, and Camerer, 1995). The high
impasse rate among people who know their roles from the beginning is linked
to self-serving judgments of fairness. The more biased the prenegotiation fair-
settlement judgment, the more likely the later negotiation will result in impasse.
Thus, a person who knows she is playing the role of motorcyclist before mak-
ing a fair-settlement judgment is likely to assess a large damage award (in her
own favor). A person who knows he is playing the role of the car driver before
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JUDGMENTAL BIASES IN CONFLICT RESOLUTION AND HOW TO OVERCOME THEM 255

making a fair-settlement judgment is more likely to assess a small damage

award (in his own favor). The result is that these two people have quite a hard
time negotiating an agreement, because their assessments of what is fair are so
far apart.
Although biased perceptions of fairness are quite common (Babcock,
Loewenstein, Issacharoff, and Camerer, 1995), cultural factors can worsen or
lessen these biases. In comparison to negotiators from individualistic cultures
(for example, the United States), negotiators from collectivist cultures (for exam-
ple, Japan) are less likely to hold such extreme biased perceptions of fairness
(Gefland and others, 2002). In one investigation, Gefland and associates (2002)
found that, because of their higher levels of biased perceptions of fairness, U.S.
negotiators experienced impasse more often compared to Japanese negotiators.
In general, there are often as many proposed solutions as there are parties to
the conflict. Each party sincerely believes its own proposed outcome is fair for
everyone. At the same time, each party’s conception of fairness is tainted by
self-interest, so that each solution is most favorable to the party proposing it.

The Illusion of Transparency

In our daily interactions with others, we tend to assume that when we express
particular emotions or preferences, the people with whom we are interacting
will accurately pick up on these cues. Yet, this is not necessarily the case. We
often overestimate the degree to which others have access to our internal states.
The tendency to overestimate the degree to which others understand what is on
our minds is referred to as the illusion of transparency (Gilovich, Savitsky, and
Medvec, 1998). In other words, the illusion of transparency means that nego-
tiators believe that they are revealing more than they actually are. (In other
words, they believe that others have access to information about them when in
fact they do not.) For example, in one investigation, negotiators judged whether
an observer to the negotiation would be able to accurately discern their nego-
tiation goals from their behavior (Vorauer and Claude, 1998). Negotiators con-
sistently overestimated the transparency of their objectives. Thus, people feel
more like an “open book” with respect to their goals and interests in negotia-
tions than they actually are.
In certain negotiations, one may stand to receive a better outcome if one does
not show too much excitement over closing a deal. For instance, if a prospective
home buyer is so enamored with the house that he would be willing to pay the
asking price, then communicating this level of enthusiasm to the seller would
put the buyer at a disadvantage. If the seller were aware of the buyer’s exuber-
ance, she may simply refuse to lower the price at all, knowing that the buyer
would likely be willing to settle for the asking price. In this case, it is in the
buyer’s best interest to not let his enthusiasm for the home “leak out.” Yet, even
when we are consciously trying to hide our true preferences, we still experience
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the illusion of transparency. In one investigation, Van Boven, Gilovich, and

Medvec (2003) found that negotiators who were consciously trying to conceal
their preferences imagined that they had “tipped their hand” to the other party
more than they actually had. “The illusion of transparency is thus due to the
sense that one’s specific actions and reactions that arise in the give-and-take of
negotiation—a blush here, an averted gaze there—are more telling than they
actually are.” (Van Boven, Gilovich, and Medvec (2003), p. 128).
Sometimes, there are advantages to revealing information. For example, when
negotiators have different priorities, negotiators who share information are more
likely to reach integrative agreements than those who do not (Thompson, 1991).
This is partly because of our inclination to reciprocate: if you share information,
chances are that the other party will share information as well (Thompson, 1991).
But the illusion of transparency can discourage beneficial information sharing,
because it can mislead negotiators into falsely believing that the other party has
enough (or too much) information already (Van Boven, Gilovich, and Medvec,
2003). Alternatively, a negotiator who is aware that he might fall prey to the illu-
sion of transparency can make a conscious effort to share information with the
other party, thereby increasing the likelihood of resolving a conflict in a mutually
beneficial way.

Liking, Respect, and Collective Interests

Choices made by organizational decision-makers often have implications for
the choices made by other organizations within the same industry (for exam-
ple, product pricing, employee salaries, and marketing strategy). These decision
makers often must decide between pursuing a course of action that benefits
their own organizations only, and choices that also provide benefit to other orga-
nizations. Rather than engaging in mutually competitive actions that ultimately
hurt each other (for example, engaging in a negative advertising campaign),
some organizations have attempted to find points of cooperation that can align
their competitive goals. For example, in 1998, two national dairy companies
using separate advertising campaigns agreed to create a single marketing plan
to increase milk sales in the United States. Dairy Management, Inc., which used
the “Got Milk?” campaign and the National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion
Board, which used a popular collection of advertisements in which celebrities
wear milk mustaches, coordinated campaigns to increase total fluid milk sales
by 4 percent by the year 2000 (New York Times, Feb. 6, 1998).
This classic problem of choosing between furthering one’s own interests and
those of the larger group or collective is at the heart of many conflicts. Our ear-
lier discussion of egocentric judgment processes revealed that people tend to
serve their own interests not necessarily because they are selfish and greedy,
but because their own interests are immediately accessible to them. Thus, even
people who truly desire to be evenhanded often behave in what may seem, to
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JUDGMENTAL BIASES IN CONFLICT RESOLUTION AND HOW TO OVERCOME THEM 257

a neutral observer, as self-interest. The question, of course, is how to mitigate

this undesirable impulse. Merely telling people to monitor their own behavior
is surely insufficient—and it may even increase self-interested behavior. Rather,
to the extent that people can develop and enhance a sense of social identity—
that is, derive meaning and identity from relationships with others—the
egocentric effect may be mitigated.
The importance of social relationships in curbing self-interested behavior
was illustrated in a study in which people were asked to decide between keep-
ing resources for themselves and contributing to the organization as a whole
(Thompson, Kray, and Lind, 1998). Not surprisingly, the better the relationship
among the decision makers (the more they knew and liked each other), the
more likely they were to agree to contribute resources to the organization as a
whole. Remarkably, there was another important factor that affected people’s
decisions to contribute to the organization: how much respect was bestowed
by organizational authorities. People who were granted high respect from
relevant organizational authorities (and who also knew and liked their fellow
decision makers) contributed the most resources to the organization as a
whole. Thus, in the team management example considered earlier, a group of
managers who know and like each other, and who also feel that upper man-
agement respects and carefully considers their decisions, contributes the most
team resources for the good of the organization as a whole. On the other hand,
if managers do not know and like each other, or if they are not accorded
respect from upper management, they are likely to contribute the least to
organization-wide concerns.

I’m Happy Only If You’re Sad

When a conflict is resolved, the parties often assess how satisfied they are with
the outcome of the resolution. But parties to a conflict do not measure their out-
comes on an absolute scale. Instead, success is a socially determined construct,
measured by many factors, including comparison with similar others, views of
significant others, and the outcomes of one’s opponent. In fact, there is little or
no relationship between how good people feel and their actual outcomes. In
conflict situations in which parties’ interests are not completely aligned, how
good people feel is a converse function of the emotions displayed by the other
person: when the other is sad, we feel good; when they are happy, we feel bad
(Thompson, Valley, and Kramer, 1995).
Consider what happened to Joseph Bachelder, who was representing a
grocery executive in critical negotiations. Bachelder demanded that his client—
the grocer—get a 4.9 percent stake in the business. The words barely left his
mouth when the company’s controlling shareholder jubilantly agreed. Says
Bachelder, “I just died. I knew right away that I had underbid. We could have
had more if I had just asked for it” (The Wall Street Journal, June 25, 2003).
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Our feelings of satisfaction after the fact are not the only way we are affected
by our opponent. Our preferences during an ongoing dispute can also be
affected by the opponent’s expressed preferences. For example, in a survey of
opinions regarding possible arms reductions by the United States and the Soviet
Union, respondents were asked to evaluate the terms of a nuclear disarmament
proposal, a proposal that was either allegedly initiated by the United States,
Soviet Union, or a neutral third party (Ross and Stillinger, 1991). In all cases,
the proposal was identical; however, reactions to it depended upon who
allegedly initiated it. The terms were seen as unfavorable to the United States
when the Soviets were the initiators, even though the same terms appeared
moderately favorable when attributed to a neutral third party and quite favor-
able when attributed to the United States. (See also Oskamp, 1965.)
This case is an example of reactive devaluation, which is the tendency for a
party to undervalue an offer just because it was the other party who offered it
(Oskamp, 1965; Ross and Stillinger, 1991). The reasoning behind reactive deval-
uation might sound like: “My opponent wouldn’t make this offer unless it’s
good for him. But if it’s good for him, then it’s probably bad for me, so I’ll
refuse to accept it.” The examples of respondents to the arms reduction pro-
posals and Bachelder’s displeasure in the other party’s immediate acceptance
of his offer illustrate that our preferences and our evaluation of a dispute can
be determined by the other party’s preferences and reactions. When the other
party is happy, we are sad; when the other party seems to favor a particular
outcome, we devalue it.
Curhan, Neale, and Ross (2004) have demonstrated that in typical negotia-
tion formats, in which negotiators begin by simply exchanging initial proposals
with one another, reactive devaluation of initial offers is a common response.
By engaging in reactive devaluation—assuming the other party’s offer was
primarily beneficial for the other party—many of these negotiators failed to
reach agreement with one another. Two techniques helped to prevent reactive
devaluation. First, asking negotiators to assign a rating to a variety of propos-
als reduced reactive devaluation by motivating negotiators to remain consistent
with their original assessment even after one of the previously rated proposals
is endorsed by the opponent. Second, asking negotiators to have a general dis-
cussion about the issues on the table, without making any proposals or offers,
also reduced reactive devaluation. During these discussions, negotiators were
able to express their needs and priorities, leading their counterparts
subsequently to make more charitable attributions about the offers they
received. Both pre-rating proposals and prior discussion are techniques that
can be easily implemented by a mediator; if no mediator is present, the parties can
try to structure the negotiation so that pre-discussion of needs and priorities
takes place before any specific offers are exchanged.
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The Schmooze Effect

When people negotiate face-to-face, they rely on subtle behavior cues—posture,
intonation, facial expression—to understand what the opponent is thinking and
feeling. In fact, the credibility of a message is much affected by whether the
nonverbal cues are consistent or inconsistent with the verbal message. We
understand our opponent’s behavioral synchrony cues automatically; this is
not something we are necessarily aware of. Yet this subtle process helps nego-
tiators build rapport and trust, which can lead to favorable agreements for all
parties.
When behavioral synchrony cues are absent—as when negotiators com-
municate via some method other than face-to-face contact—then rapport and
trust must be built in some other way. In the absence of any rapport-building
mechanism, negotiators endure strained and tense interactions, and they
attribute their own feeling of ill ease to the malevolent intentions of the other
party.
In recent years, changing organizational structures have created social net-
works composed of organization members who are physically separated, as in
multinational corporations. Members of these organizations come to rely
increasingly on electronically mediated communication methods (e-mail, fax,
and phone) to conduct negotiations. But unless negotiators make a conscious
effort to develop mutual cooperation and rapport, the absence of social cues in
electronically mediated negotiations can lead to uncertainty about social norms
and increased risk taking.
Developing rapport before plunging into an electronic negotiation
(“e-negotiation”) can help avoid misunderstandings and misattributions. Strangers
conducting e-negotiations are more likely to avoid impasse, to feel good about
their negotiation counterpart, and to want to negotiate with the same counterpart
again in the future if they make efforts to develop rapport prior to negotiating
(Moore, Kurtzberg, Thompson, and Morris, 1999; Morris, Nadler, Kurtzberg, and
Thompson, 2002; Nadler, 2004). Developing rapport can be accomplished by
using surprisingly simple techniques. In one study, e-negotiators exchanged pho-
tographs and biographical information, and had an initial “getting to know you”
chat with their counterpart via email prior to beginning the negotiation (Moore
Kurtzberg, Thompson, and Morris, 1999). In other studies, e-negotiators simply
picked up the telephone and had a five minute “getting to know you chat” with
their counterpart prior to negotiating (Morris, Nadler, Kurtzberg, and Thompson,
2002; Nadler, 2004). In all three studies, these simple “schmoozing” techniques
had dramatic effects: negotiators who did not “schmooze” were much less suc-
cessful than those who did. Non-schmoozers were angry and frustrated with their
counterpart, trusted their counterpart less, and were less likely to reach an agree-
ment than schmoozers were.
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260 THE HANDBOOK OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION: THEORY AND PRACTICE

IMPLICATIONS FOR TRAINING PEOPLE

As contributors to the body of scientific empirical research on negotiation and
conflict resolution, we admit with some embarrassment that much more thought
goes into examining the nature of bias and error at the bargaining table than to
solutions as to how to eliminate or reduce it. Perhaps this reflects the fundamental
tension between basic and applied research. However, we are not content to
naïvely suggest that mere awareness of bias is sufficient to deal with it. Thus, we
have undertaken a line of empirical investigation that asks how negotiators learn
and apply principles at the bargaining table; we review the highlights here. Our
conclusion about learning to reduce cognitive bias and error at the bargaining
table is based on three principles: feedback, analogical reasoning, and behavioral
skills.

The Importance of Feedback

Most people do not get timely or accurate feedback about their performance.
Thus, they continue to make the same mistakes time and again. To return to the
fixed-pie perception, we enter the negotiation assuming that the other party’s
gain comes at our expense, and vice versa. Even if this assumption is false (as
it often is), chances are good that we do not realize it and enter our next nego-
tiation with the same fixed-pie assumption. Even if people receive feedback, it
is often incomplete or misconstrued, whether by the sender or the recipient.
This, of course, is completely consistent with the egocentric biases we discussed
earlier.
As a way of combating bias, Thompson and De Harpport (1994) examined
the effects of three feedback situations: process feedback, outcome feedback,
and no feedback. Negotiators who received no feedback knew nothing about
the other party or the underlying structure of the negotiation. They were given
a blank sheet of paper and asked to write some comments about the nature of
their experience in the negotiation they had just completed. Negotiators who
received outcome feedback were told the value of the overall package to the
other party in the completed negotiation. This feedback provided important
information about the underlying structure of the negotiation. Finally, negotia-
tors who received process feedback were given complete information about their
opponent’s preferences for each issue negotiated. As an example, for a company
representative who negotiated an employment contract, process feedback
imparted information about how the employee subjectively valued the various
issues discussed (salary, vacation, annual raise, and so on).
Negotiators who received process feedback were most likely to abandon the
pervasive fixed-pie assumption in subsequent negotiations, and to recognize
trade-offs that were mutually beneficial for both parties. Suppose two negotiators
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JUDGMENTAL BIASES IN CONFLICT RESOLUTION AND HOW TO OVERCOME THEM 261

have just received process feedback after negotiating a job contract. Assume these
same parties are to negotiate again about a completely different set of issues, say,
regarding a house rental. Having received process feedback, they are likely to
assume correctly that not every gain for the other party constitutes an equal loss
for themselves. Furthermore, they recognize that mutually beneficial exchanges
can be made: if the landlord is to concede on an issue important to the tenant
(say, monthly rent), then in exchange the tenant can concede on an issue impor-
tant to the landlord (lease length). In this way, negotiators who receive process
feedback reach agreements that are satisfactory to both parties. By contrast,
negotiators who receive only outcome feedback are not as successful in recog-
nizing this integrative potential, and those who receive no feedback are the least
successful of all.

Analogical Reasoning
One of the most effective means by which people solve problems is analogical
reasoning (Gick and Holyoak, 1983). Analogy is the process of mapping the
solution for one problem into a solution for another problem. This involves
noticing that a solution to a problem from the past is relevant, and then map-
ping the elements from that solution to the target problem. For example, a stu-
dent learning about the structure of the atom enhances her understanding by
drawing on her prior knowledge of the structure of the solar system.
In many instances, experienced negotiators have occasion to reason by anal-
ogy from a previous negotiation experience but often fail to do so. This prob-
lem of failing to capitalize on opportunities to learn by analogy is not limited to
negotiators; in general, people’s ability to take full advantage of prior experi-
ence is highly limited (Loewenstein, Thompson, and Gentner, 1999). Having
solved one problem does not always help in solving an analogous problem if
the two come from different contexts. We do not always access prior knowledge,
given an analogous situation.
In a study of learning by analogy (Gick and Holyoak, 1983), students were
given a problem about how to use radiation to destroy a patient’s tumor, given
that the stream of rays at full strength will destroy the healthy tissue en route to
the tumor. The solution is to converge on the tumor with low-strength radiation
from multiple directions. Having been given this problem and learned the solu-
tion, people are then given an analogous one: a general needs to capture a
fortress but finds he cannot use his entire army to make a frontal attack. One
solution is to divide the army and converge on the fortress from many directions.
Even when the tumor problem and the fortress problem are presented in the
same session, only about 41 percent of students spontaneously applied the con-
vergence solution to the radiation problem. Though they retained the knowledge
about the first solution, they failed to access it. Yet, when simply told to “think
about the earlier [tumor] problem,” a full 85 percent of students applied the
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262 THE HANDBOOK OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION: THEORY AND PRACTICE

convergence solution to the new problem. Simply reminding people of an

analogous problem helps them map the solution onto the new problem.
The good news for negotiators is that analogy training can substantially
improve negotiation performance. In one study, managers who received anal-
ogy training were nearly three times as likely to recognize and apply the appro-
priate principle in future negotiations (Loewenstein, Thompson, and Gentner,
1999). As a result, negotiators who had analogy training outperformed those
who did not. For example, in negotiating a deal for a Broadway production,
negotiation dyads with analogy training gained an average of $21,000 over their
untrained counterparts, who made suboptimal agreements and left large
amounts of money on the bargaining table—wasted, as far as both parties were
concerned.
In another study of negotiator training, four other learning principles were
compared to learning by analogy (Nadler, Thompson, and Van Boven, 2003):
(1) learning by observation (watching other negotiators), (2) textbook learning
(reading about negotiation principles), (3) learning by feedback (process feed-
back, as described in the previous section), and (4) learning by experience only
(no explicit training). The greatest improvement in negotiator performance was
seen with negotiators who had analogy training or observation training. Per-
formance also improved, albeit to a lesser extent, when negotiators learned
through feedback. Those exposed to textbook learning or to learning by expe-
rience alone showed no measurable improvement in performance. Thus, the
picture emerging from this research is that training programs teaching negotia-
tors how to make relevant comparisons between prior and current negotiation
experiences is an extremely effective method for improving outcomes.

Behavioral Skills
To be effective at conflict resolution, people need to have strategies that work.
Further, the strategies need to be general enough to apply to varying situations.
Yet they cannot be so general as to be useless. In this subsection, we identify
and discuss five key strategies in the bargaining literature that withstand the
difficult test of empirical investigation. (See also Bazerman and Neale, 1992.)

Build Trust and Share Information. In long-term relationships, people learn

to build trust as a way of responding to uncertainty. Even though we lack a
close relationship with someone, we might expect to have future interactions:
a car dealer who makes a sale might expect the customer to refer friends or
engage in repeat business; a job candidate negotiating terms with an interviewer
expects to interact with the same person after beginning the job; two managers
from different divisions working together toward an organizational goal know
they will inevitably have future contact. In all of these situations, opportunity
for deceit exists because of informational uncertainty or asymmetry. One way
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JUDGMENTAL BIASES IN CONFLICT RESOLUTION AND HOW TO OVERCOME THEM 263

of dealing with this uncertainty is to build trust through sharing information of

the sort that clearly indicates an interest in mutual well-being. Sharing such
information helps ensure that the parties can continue to develop good work-
ing relations for the future.

Ask Questions. Building trust is not always possible. Sometimes negotiations are
a one-shot deal, where the parties are aware they will never see one another again.
Even where future interaction is possible, building trust is still difficult. If trust is
absent or unclear, one of the most important strategies to pursue is to ask
questions—specifically, to gather information about the opponent’s preferences
to ascertain which issues the opponent values most, which option is most
preferred on each specific issue, and whether the opponent’s expectations regard-
ing the future differ from your own. Ideally, the issue most valued by your
opponent is different from yours, in which case both parties can get what is most
wanted by giving up something considered less valuable. But it is difficult to
achieve trade-offs without asking about the opponent’s priorities.

Provide Information. If the opponent is reluctant to answer any questions,

there is an alternative strategy available: share some information first. Offering
information is usually an effective strategy because it invariably triggers the rec-
iprocity principle. We often feel obligated to return in kind what others have
offered or given to us. Reciprocity is a powerful behavioral tendency observable
in all human societies. People feel upset and distressed if they receive a favor—
or a slight—from another person but are prevented from returning it.
Negotiators who extend information about their own interests or priorities
are likely to receive some information in return. Although they may not want
to reveal their reservation price (the minimum for which they will settle) or their
best alternative option, they can still offer information about the relative impor-
tance of the issues as they see them. The goal is to exchange just enough infor-
mation so that the final agreement is maximally beneficial for both parties and
divides all resources available without leaving anything left over on the bar-
gaining table.

Make Multiple Offers Simultaneously. Sometimes, negotiators are disap-

pointed to find that their attempts to obtain and seek information are not
effective. There is an alternative strategy: make one offer, and wait to hear the
opponent’s response. Little can be learned, though, about the opponent’s
interests and preferences simply from a single offer that is rejected. A more
productive strategy is to make multiple offers. This involves presenting the other
party with two (or more) proposals of equal value to oneself. The other party
is asked to indicate which of the proposals he prefers. This can reveal valuable
information about which issues are important to him. Thus, the negotiator plays
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264 THE HANDBOOK OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION: THEORY AND PRACTICE

detective by drawing conclusions based on the opponent’s response to the

multiple offers (Medvec and Galinsky, 2004).

Search for Postsettlement Settlements. Sometimes, parties may decide to rene-

gotiate after a mutually agreeable settlement has been reached. It may seem
counterintuitive or counterproductive to resume negotiations after a deal has
been struck. But the strategy of postsettlement settlements is remarkably effec-
tive in improving the quality of negotiated agreements. Negotiators using this
strategy agree to explore other options, mindful that the goal is to find another
agreement that both prefer to the current one—with the understanding that they
are bound by the initial agreement if another is not found. The postsettlement
settlement strategy allows both parties to reveal their preferences without fear
of exploitation, because they can safely revert to their previous agreement
(Bazerman, Russ, and Yakura, 1987).

CONCLUSION
We believe that the marriage between practitioners and theorists should be
much more solid than it is. Theorists have identified a host of rather benign-
looking beliefs and cognitions that hinder effective negotiations, but they have
failed to produce a systematic body of research aimed at reducing cognitive
biases that hinder effective dispute resolution. Unfortunately, most negotiators
are not aware of the existence of cognitive bias and its deleterious effects. In
this chapter, we have identified four key biases that conflict theorists, and prac-
titioners in particular, must fight to eliminate. We have also examined the use
of performance feedback and analogy training, and named five specific behav-
ioral skills that meet the test of empirical investigation. We hope that theorists
and practitioners continue to identify and examine new methods by which to
eliminate or reduce cognitive bias at the bargaining table.

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