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Conflict management and emotions
Edited by Richard Posthuma
Introduction
Traditional conflict research has focused on the analysis of fully rational negotiators assuming that people face conflicts in personal and working life following a rational decision-making process. This approach has dominated conflict research in the 1980s and 1990s and has ignored most emotional-relevant variables ([9] Bazerman et al. , 2000). Researchers, in this view, emphasized the cognitive side of conflict management, neglecting the emotional one. Even, at this point in time, affect was "one of the least studied areas of dyadic negotiation" ([35] Neale and Northcraft, 1991, p. 170).
All negotiation and dispute resolution processes, however, have a significant affective component ([5] Barry, 2008; [14] Carnevale, 2008), and in recent years both professionals and social scientists have moved their interest to the role played by emotions in conflict management ([6] Barry et al. , 2006). Gradually, the number of empirical studies which addresses this topic has grown, highlighting that the different affective phenomena (i.e. feelings) experienced by subjects might influence the way they deal with conflicts; that is to say, the intrapersonal effects of affect (cf., [31] Morris and Keltner, 2000).
The path to the study of affect and conflict resolution processes was opened by the seminal work of [15] Carnevale and Isen (1986). In their study, Carnevale and Isen investigated the combined effects of a negotiator's mood and visual access between negotiators on the process and outcome of an integrative bargaining task. They found that, when positive affect had been induced (i.e. subjects who rated humorous cartoons and received a scratch pad as gift), people negotiating face-to-face obtained better outcomes in the negotiation and enjoyed the process more. However, in control condition, people achieved lower joint outcomes and show more contentious behaviors. They conclude that positive affect not only reduce the use of contentious tactics, but facilitates cooperative bargaining and increase joint benefit.
Focused on this intrapersonal view it has also been found that positive mood and feelings (usually induced) increase concession making ([2] Baron, 1990), stimulate innovative problem solving ([26] Isen et al. , 1987), augment the use of cooperative negotiation strategies ([20] Forgas, 1998), enlarge the "size of the pie" or joint gains ([1] Allred et al. , 1997), and enhance self-confidence...