TY - JOUR

T1 - Conflict strength:

T2 - Measuring the tension between cooperative and competitive incentives in experimental negotiation tasks

AU - Majer, Johann

AU - Schweinsberg, Martin

AU - Zhang, Hong

AU - Trötschel, Roman

N1 - Funding Information: The present research is supported by the German Science Foundation (DFG: MA 8577/1-1) with a grant awarded to the first author JM. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 American Institute of Physics Inc.. All rights reserved.

PY - 2022/5/6

Y1 - 2022/5/6

N2 - Conflict management scholars study mixed-motive negotiation situations with cooperative and competitive incentives predominantly through multi-issue negotiation tasks in experimental studies. Intriguingly, experimenters currently lack an objective, generalizable, and continuous measure that precisely quantifies the incentives underlying these negotiation tasks. We present the conflict strength coefficient, which enables scholars to systematically quantify the incentive structures in these multi-issue negotiation tasks. By making the incentive structures accessible and numerically comparable, the conflict strength coefficient provides new insights into the central element of the experimental study of negotiation and conflict management, unmasks differences across existing tasks, facilitates research transparency, knowledge sharing, and open science practices. We demonstrate the coefficient’s benefits by providing a hands-on example from past research, by reviewing and quantitatively assessing the current literature, and by mapping conflict strength coefficients for the negotiation and conflict management research landscape and its subareas. Our analysis suggests that the conflict strength coefficient can enrich the understanding of cooperative and competitive incentives in the established tasks and directly guide and support an individual scholar’s process of knowledge creation. The conflict strength coefficient provides a methodological contribution to the experimental study of conflict management and negotiation with immediate benefits for the production of scientific knowledge, the experimental study of real-world phenomena, and theory development.

AB - Conflict management scholars study mixed-motive negotiation situations with cooperative and competitive incentives predominantly through multi-issue negotiation tasks in experimental studies. Intriguingly, experimenters currently lack an objective, generalizable, and continuous measure that precisely quantifies the incentives underlying these negotiation tasks. We present the conflict strength coefficient, which enables scholars to systematically quantify the incentive structures in these multi-issue negotiation tasks. By making the incentive structures accessible and numerically comparable, the conflict strength coefficient provides new insights into the central element of the experimental study of negotiation and conflict management, unmasks differences across existing tasks, facilitates research transparency, knowledge sharing, and open science practices. We demonstrate the coefficient’s benefits by providing a hands-on example from past research, by reviewing and quantitatively assessing the current literature, and by mapping conflict strength coefficients for the negotiation and conflict management research landscape and its subareas. Our analysis suggests that the conflict strength coefficient can enrich the understanding of cooperative and competitive incentives in the established tasks and directly guide and support an individual scholar’s process of knowledge creation. The conflict strength coefficient provides a methodological contribution to the experimental study of conflict management and negotiation with immediate benefits for the production of scientific knowledge, the experimental study of real-world phenomena, and theory development.

KW - Psychology

KW - methods

KW - measures

KW - research transparency

KW - open science

KW - Reproducibility

KW - meta-science

KW - negotiation

KW - conflict

KW - cooperation

KW - competition

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85130493762&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1525/collabra.35330

DO - 10.1525/collabra.35330

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 8

JO - Collabra: Psychology

JF - Collabra: Psychology

SN - 2474-7394

IS - 1

M1 - 35330

ER -