The role of psychological processes in negotiation has been an important part of the history of PON. The late Professor Jeffrey Z. Rubin, Executive Director of PON from 1986-1991, headed this project. Important work was done on misperceptions in negotiation, escalation of conflict, entrapment, and psychological aspects of culture in negotiation.

Psychological processes remain at the core of activities of PON. Professor Max H. Bazerman, the Jesse Isador Straus Professor at the Harvard Business School, is a member of the executive committee of PON, and heads the Project on the Psychological Processes of Negotiation.

The Project on the Psychological Processes of Negotiation focuses on the role of psychology in negotiation. The research varies from basic research conducted in the laboratory to critical conflict issues that analyze corporate failures such as Enron and why the U.S. government missed many of the clues that could have prevented 9/11.

In the fall of 2004, HBS Press will publish Bazerman and Michael Watkins' book Predictable Surprises, which emphasizes psychological processes as one of the reasons that organizations so often fail to act before it is too late.

Bazerman also works with Mahzarin Banaji, Dolly Chugh, Eugene Caruso, and Nick Epley on a series of papers dealing with the psychology of how people engage in unethical practices in negotiation without their own awareness. Details of this work can be found at http://www.people.hbs.edu/mbazerman.

Iris Bohnet, associate professor of public policy and faculty chair of the Kennedy School of Government's Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard, conducts research on trust in negotiation. In joint work with Yael Baytelman and Steffen Huck, supported by PON, she shows that institutions inducing deterrence-based trust undermine people's intrinsic motivation to trust others-a motivation crucially important for reaching integrative deals. With Kessely Hong and Richard Zeckhauser, she examines how demographic characteristics such as culture (focusing on differences between the Western and Islamic worlds), gender, ethnicity, religion, and age-or more generally, status-influence trust. For more information on this work, please see http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/faculty/iris_bohnet.

Dolly Chugh is a Ph.D. candidate in the joint program in Organizational Behavior and Social Psychology at Harvard University. Dolly's current research focuses on the psychological constraints on the quality of decision-making with ethical import, a phenomenon known as "bounded ethicality" (Chugh, Banaji, and Bazerman, 2005). As part of this work, Dolly is interested in the "stereotype tax" (Chugh, 2004), the practical costs borne by holders (as opposed to targets) of implicit (unintended) racial bias. She is particularly interested in how these psychological processes influence important managerial activities, such as negotiations, particularly under the time-pressured and uncertainty-laden conditions of organizational life. More information about her work can be found at http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~chugh.

Jared R. Curhan, the Mitsui Career Development Chair and assistant professor of organization studies at the MIT Sloan School of Management, has pioneered a social psychological approach to the study of "subjective value" in negotiation (i.e., feelings and judgments concerning the instrumental outcome, the process, the self, and the relationship). Using the "Subjective Value Inventory" (SVI), Curhan's research examines precursors, processes, and long-term effects of subjective value in negotiation.

Deepak Malhotra, assistant professor at Harvard Business School, conducts research on issues related to trust and reciprocity. Recent publications examine the detrimental effects of contracts on trust, the factors which influence reciprocity decisions, the impact of dependence on trust decisions, and how the differing perspectives of trustors and trusted parties leads to sub-optimal decision making. A second stream of research relates to escalation of conflict and "competitive arousal" in strategic interactions. This research examines how interaction opportunities that prima facie promise mutual gains can in fact result in an unforeseen escalation of conflict and a loss for everyone involved. This research primarily explores the cognitive, motivational, and affective underpinnings of competitive arousal, or "the overwhelming desire to win at any cost," that can influence decision-making by individuals in competitive situations. A third stream of research looks at issues of conflict resolution in the context of international and ethno-political conflict. Current projects include examinations of trust and cooperation between Jewish and Arab Israelis, Israeli and Palestinian attitudes towards the Geneva Accords, the impact of "peace camps" on attitudes in Sri Lanka, and the paradoxical impact of militant extremism on the prospects for negotiation in the context of protracted ethnic conflict.

Kathleen McGinn, the Cahners-Rabb Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, studies interpersonal relationships and their role in negotiations, decisions, and conflict within and between organizations. She is currently studying the role that interpersonal ties play in two very different settings: on U.S. West Coast ports as new technology fundamentally changes the employment relationship between Pacific Maritime companies and the Pacific longshoremen, and, with Hannah Riley Bowles of the Kennedy School of Government, on women in leadership positions in public, corporate, and entrepreneurial organizations as they negotiate for and claim authority.

Jeff Polzer is an associate professor of organizational behavior at Harvard Business School. His research explores how group affiliations affect people's decisions, perceptions, and social interactions, especially in diverse work teams. In a recent project, he and his coauthors explored how the congruence between people's self-views and their team members' appraisals allowed them to capitalize on their differences to enhance team effectiveness. He is now extending this research into domains in which 360-degree feedback can be utilized for team development.

Hannah Riley Bowles, assistant professor of public policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, conducts research on when gender differences arise in negotiation and on how people negotiate for resources and opportunities for leadership.

New developments from the Project on Psychological Processes of Negotiation are featured regularly in the PON Negotiation newsletter, particularly in the "Mind of the Negotiator" column.

Affiliated Faculty

Max H. Bazerman
Jesse Isador Straus Professor at the Harvard Business School.

Iris Bohnet
Associate professor of public policy and faculty chair of the Women and Public Policy Program at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government

Dolly Chugh
Ph.D. candidate in the joint program in Organizational Behavior and Social Psychology at Harvard University

Jared R. Curhan
Mitsui Career Development Chair and assistant professor of organization studies at the MIT Sloan School of Management

Deepak Malhotra
Assistant professor at Harvard Business School

Kathleen McGinn
Cahners-Rabb Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School

Jeff Polzer
Associate professor of organizational behavior at Harvard Business School

Hannah Riley Bowles
Assistant professor of public policy at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government