One step ahead in the game: Predicting negotiation outcomes with guessing-games measures

Abstract

Lay intuition suggests that some people are better than others at strategic social interaction. Nonetheless, identifying reliable predictors of individual differences in negotiation performance has been difficult. In this investigation, we hypothesized that an individuals' skill in understanding the structure of socially interdependent situations, and in best responding to others' likely behavior in such situations, should predict their negotiation performance. We adapted existing and novel social guessing games to measure such skills. In a series of studies with students and business executives in Russia and Sweden, performance in the guessing games predicted better individual outcomes and better joint outcomes in dyadic negotiations. Guessing-game performance remained predictive of both outcomes after proxies for general mental ability were controlled for. Potential applications to larger-scale phenomena are discussed.