BazermanMoore

academic programs, corporate battles for market share, and so on. Generalizing from
these objective win–lose situations, people form similar expectations for situations that
are not necessarily win–lose. When faced with a mixed-motive situation, such as a negotiation
that requires both value creation and value claiming, the claiming component
too often becomes salient, motivating most negotiators to develop a strategy for obtaining
the largest possible share of the perceived fixed pie. Such a focus inhibits the search
for creative solutions through mutually beneficial tradeoffs.
The destructiveness of the mythical fixed pie is captured in this Cold War–era declaration
by Rep. Floyd Spence, R-South Carolina, regarding a proposed arms reduction
treaty: ‘‘I have had a philosophy for some time in regard to SALT, and it goes like this:
the Russians will not accept a SALT treaty that is not in their best interest, and it seems
to me that if it is in their best interests, it can’t be in our best interest’’ (originally cited in
Ross & Stillinger, 1991). This kind of dangerously confused reasoning—that anything
good for the Soviet Union must be bad for the United States—defines the mythical
fixed-pie assumption. With the benefit of twenty-first-century hindsight, we can easily recognize
that treaties like SALT benefited both the United States and the Soviet Union by
reducing wasteful defense spending and the specter of nuclear war. And yet, Thompson
(2001) has found that even when two sides want the exact same outcome, such as ending
the Cold War, negotiators often settle on a different outcome or reach an impasse. The
mythical fixed pie can cause parties to fall prey to what Thompson calls the incompatibility
bias—the assumption that one’s own interests are at odds with the other party’s.
The mythical fixed pie also leads us to ‘‘reactively devalue’’ any concession made
simply because it is offered by an adversary (Stillinger, Epelbaum, Keltner, & Ross,
1990). In one study, Curhan, Neale, and Ross (2004) had negotiators estimate the value
of various possible outcomes before and after taking part in a negotiation. Negotiators
tended to like a possible outcome more after they proposed it in the negotiation. More
to the point, they tended to like a possible outcome less after it was proposed by the
other side. It seems that we are susceptible to viewing the same settlement terms as
advantageous when we propose them but disadvantageous when our counterpart proposes
them. As soon as the other party concedes on an issue, you might find yourself
devaluing the concession with this faulty logic: ‘‘If she is willing to make this concession,
the issue must not be very important.’’
When individuals make such assumptions about the other party’s interests, they
inhibit the search for mutually beneficial tradeoffs. The fact is, tradeoffs can be quite
easy to find when negotiators actively look for them. But when we ask business students
why they failed to make a tradeoff in a simulated negotiation, they commonly tell us
that they did not know that the tradeoff was possible. Why not? The fixed-pie assumption
prevented them from initiating the search.
THE FRAMING OF NEGOTIATOR JUDGMENT
Consider the following scenario:
The Framing of Negotiator Judgment 169
You bought your condo in 2005 for $250,000. You have just put it on the market for
$299,000, with a real target of $290,000 (your estimation of the condo’s true market value).