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For over half a century, psychological research has been studying negotiations in detail. For a similarly long time, various researchers have been hypothesizing on and agreeing that, in negotiations, resources play a fundamental role in parties´ behaviors and outcomes. Paradoxically, empirical findings that provide insights into the effects of resources are scarce. The current research seeks to shed light on the overwhelming consensus that resources may shape negotiations. Specifically, in a series of four original research articles, we systematically examine the overarching question of how tangible and even intangible resources affect parties´ attitudes, behaviors, and outcomes. Resources in negotiations can be characterized as all the tangible and intangible aspects of the negotiation that are related to the negotiators´ interests. Thus, the central activity of the bargaining relationship is the allocation of tangible resources, while intangibles are simultaneously involved. Consistent with this basic idea, we assume that whether parties focus on catching hold of obtaining their adversaries´ tangible resources or on losing grip of their own tangibles impacts their concession behavior and outcomes. Parties with a focus on losing their own tangible resources should experience more loss aversion, concede less, and should achieve better outcomes than parties who focus on catching hold of obtaining their counterpart´s tangibles. It follows that what should be essential in the ongoing negotiation process should apply to the first move at the bargaining table as well. When first-movers lead responders to focus on catching hold of tangible resources, the well-documented anchoring effect should occur, benefitting the first-mover. Contrarily, when the first-mover induces a focus on the resource the responder is about to lose, responders should be motivated to adjust their counterproposal far away from the opening anchor. Responders´ motivation to adjust should leverage the anchoring effect in negotiations. Further, we outline the very special role of money in negotiations, that is perceived as likely the most important tangible resource. Ultimately, we address the important role of intangible resources, in addition to that of tangible resources, and suggest that the intangible resource of professional experience is related to the negotiator´s attitudes towards unethical bargaining tactics. Overall, the findings of these research projects suggest that not only tangible but also intangible resources do in fact have the fundamental impact on negotiators´ behavior and outcomes that has been hypothesized for a long time. Parties who focus on losing grip of their own tangible resources concede less and are better off at the end of the negotiations than parties who focus on catching hold of their counterparts´ resources. We report evidence for this basic finding, from the first move at the bargaining table to the final agreement. Our findings help to better understand the key role of money in negotiations and to highlight the ´mythical´ components of this legendary resource. In addition to our findings on tangible resources, our study reveals a strong negative relationship between negotiators´ intangible resource of professional experience and their tendency to endorse unethical bargaining tactics. We conclude that losing tangible resources and keeping sight of intangible resources may have profound effects on parties´ negotiation attitudes, behaviors, and outcomes. We discuss theoretical contributions and practical implications, and suggest areas of future research.
Postponing or avoiding intended or relevant tasks is a widespread phenomenon that can lead to various disadvantages or problems. About half of the students and between 15 % and 20 % of the general population report to suffer from procrastination seriously and chronically. Previous research has shown that, first, aversive emotions amplify the tendency to postpone and that, secondly, procrastination can be seen as a dysfunctional form of emotion regulation. To date, it has not been researched systematically whether the ability to cope with emotions adaptively reduces procrastination. The present publication-based dissertation aims to close this research gap. As procrastination has a negative impact on health behavior, the first study investigated whether the ability to cope adaptively with aversive emotions (emotional competence; moderator) moderates the relation between health-related intention (independent variable) and actual behavior (dependent variable). At the end of the first session of a stress management training, 119 teachers indicated how often they want to practice the mindfulness and relaxation exercise they just had learned in the following week (training intention). One week later their actual training behavior was gathered. The results of this study show that emotional competence that was recorded before the training moderated the relation between intention and behavior: The higher the emotional competence, the higher the correlation between training intention and training behavior. This can be regarded as an indicator that emotional competence has a reducing effect on procrastination. However, in this study only a specific behavior was observed. Yet, procrastination comprises a broad range of behavior. Thus, in three studies (study 2.1 - 2.3) combined as one publication the influence of emotional competences on procrastination was analyzed: In study 2.1 the cross-sectional relation between the nine subscales of the German version of the Emotion Regulation Skills Questionnaire and academic procrastination was determined with 172 students. All nine subscales were significantly correlated negatively with procrastination. However, in a regression analysis with these nine subscales on procrastination only the ability to tolerate aversive emotions proved to be a significant predictor. A subsequent mediation analysis showed that the relation of each subscale and procrastination was mediated by the ability to tolerate aversive emotions. In order to overcome the lacking causality of these cross-sectional results, study 2.2 tested the prospective influence of emotional competence on subsequent procrastination with 79 students by means of cross lagged panels. The results provide first indication of causality. Since causal connections can only be investigated with a randomized controlled trial, 83 participants were randomized to a training or a wait list control condition in study 2.3. The participants of the training condition learned emotion-focused strategies in order to deal with emotional aversive tasks. The results show a decrease in procrastination in the intervention group compared to the wait list control. In conclusion the results of studies 2.1 to 2.3 indicate that the reducing influence of emotional competence on procrastination can be interpreted causally. In study 3 (third publication) the efficacy of an online-based training to overcome procrastination that the author developed was evaluated. The emotion-focused strategies for coping with aversive tasks that were tested in study 2.3 had been integrated in the training. Regarding adherence that generally poses a challenge in online-based trainings and especially in people with procrastination problems, a daily SMS-support for the participants was implemented and evaluated. The efficacy and adherence was researched in a three-armed randomized controlled design (WLC vs. IG vs. IG + SMS) with 161 participants. The training caused a significant decrease in procrastination. The daily SMS-support seemed to enhance the efficacy (d = .29 only online; d = .57 online + SMS) and adherence. However, the effect of the SMS on adherence only became visible if participants that hardly trained or did not train at all were excluded. As a possible explanation it was considered that a minimum of training is necessary in order for the SMS to have an adherence enhancing effect. To rule out other plausible explanations further research is needed. A synopsis of all studies´ results suggests that, first, emotional competences have a reducing effect on procrastination, that, second, this can be deliberately promoted, and third, that the additional implementation of SMS-based support has an enhancing effect on adherence and increases the efficacy of an online-based intervention. The results are being discussed in regards to further research in the light of neuro-psychological findings concerning executive functions.
