cover 2006

up anything. Finally, they examined
the optimal outcome, the maximal
win-win situation that would
increase the pie for all. Their
findings: at a given stage of
negotiations, an IGO proposal
enhances the chance of reaching an
agreement. “A possible explanation
is that in proposing IGOs, parties
send the message that they are
willing to be flexible towards the
other side, which might create an
atmosphere of camaraderie and may
lay the basis for trust and
reciprocation, or mere imitation,”
says Moran. Unfortunately,
although these offers improved the
outcome for all, participants did not
use them enough.
Moran is anxious for others to
benefit from her findings. “I teach
important concepts about managing
negotiations successfully that
involve strategies for enlarging the
pie and creating value,” she says,
adding that a key challenge is to
teach these principles in a way that
makes them easily transferred from
the classroom to real life situations.
Moran graduated with
a Ph.D. with honors
from BGU, where she
teaches courses on
negotiations, judgment
and decision making
and organizational
behavior.
Among her other
numerous research
projects, Moran has
explored the effect of
emotions on
negotiations,
specifically how envy
influences deception.
“Part of our nonrational
behavior in
negotiations comes
from our emotions.
Our feelings can limit
our ability to negotiate
rationally,” she says.
But how does emotion
cause us to deceive or to be truthful?
While the literature of decisionmaking
explored ethics and
deception – when do we show all
our cards and when don’t we? When
do we make promises we don’t
intend to keep? – it hadn’t
previously covered the widespread
emotion of envy.
Moran checked subjects’
willingness to deceive the objects of
their envy. In a study carried out
with Maurice Schweitzer from the
University of Pennsylvania, they
created a competitive work scenario
Apparently, when you
envy someone, you do a
cost-benefit analysis.
You adopt unacceptable
behavior at a low
psychological cost
to induce envy or had participants
read outstanding resumés of other
individuals. In one experiment,
students were given fictional
resumés about other students and
were pitted against them in
negotiations. The results here were
absolute: in negotiations with
someone who had the so-called
‘ideal resumé’ – service in an elite
army unit, top grades, vacations to
exotic spots etc. – students lied more
than when they didn’t envy their
rivals.
“Apparently, when you envy
someone, you do a cost-benefit
analysis,” says Moran. “You adopt
unacceptable behavior at a low
psychological cost.” In other words,
when we envy people, we can
belittle them without compunction
because we feel justified. We assume
the objects of our envy are arrogant
and vain, indulged and smoothtalking.
The element of shadenfreude, of
deriving pleasure from the troubles
of others, also plays a part here.
There’s little price to pay and
immense satisfaction in deceiving
the objects of our envy, or in the
accepted jargon, greater benefit at
lower cost. Translating this into
organizational behavior, Moran
explains that while we think we
must market ourselves or flaunt our
achievements in interviews and
meetings, blowing our own horns
has its own dangers too.
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