Brian C. Gunia

Toward a culture-by-context perspective on negotiation: negotiating teams in the United States and Taiwan.

Within the United States, teams outperform solos in negotiation (Thompson, Peterson, & Brodt, 1996). The current research examined whether this team advantage generalizes to negotiators from a collectivist culture (Taiwan). Because different cultures have different social norms, and because the team context may amplify the norms that are salient in a particular culture (Gelfand & Realo, 1999), we predicted that the effect of teams on negotiation would differ across cultures. Specifically, we predicted that since harmony norms predominate in collectivist cultures like Taiwan, the team context would amplify a concern with harmony, leading Taiwanese teams to negotiate especially suboptimal outcomes. In support, 2 studies showed that Taiwanese teams negotiated less-optimal outcomes than Taiwanese solos. We also used a moderated-mediation analysis to investigate the mechanism (Hayes, 2012), documenting that the interactive effect of culture and context on outcomes was mediated by harmony norms. By showing that the same situational conditions (team negotiations) can have divergent effects on negotiation outcomes across cultures, our results point toward a nuanced, sociocontextual view that moves beyond the culture-as-main-effect approach to studying culture and negotiations.

The Morality of Larks and Owls: Unethical Behavior Depends on Chronotype as Well as Time of Day

The recently-documented “morning morality effect” indicates that people act most ethically in the morning because their energy wanes with the day. An estimated 40% of the population, however, experience increased energy levels later in the day. These “evening people,” we propose, should not show the morning morality effect. Instead, they should show the same or an increasing propensity toward ethicality in the evening. Two experiments supported this hypothesis, showing that people with a morning chronotype tend to behave more ethically in the morning than the evening, while people with an evening chronotype tend to behave more ethically in the evening than the morning. Thus, understanding when people will behave unethically may require an appreciation of both the person (chronotype) and the situation (time-of-day): a chronotype morality effect.

The remarkable robustness of the first-offer effect: across culture, power, and issues.

The first-offer effect demonstrates that negotiators achieve better outcomes when making the first offer than when receiving it. The evidence, however, primarily derives from studies of Westerners without systematic power differences negotiating over one issue—contexts that may amplify the first-offer effect. Thus, the present research explored the effect across cultures, among negotiators varying in power, and in negotiations involving single and multiple issues. The first two studies showed that the first-offer effect remains remarkably robust across cultures and multi-issue negotiations. The final two studies demonstrated that low-power negotiators benefit from making the first offer across single- and multi-issue negotiations. The second and fourth studies used multi-issue negotiations with distributive, integrative, and compatible issues, allowing us to show that first offers operate through the distributive, not the integrative or compatible issues. Overall, these results reveal that moving first can benefit negotiators across many organizational and personal situations.

Evidence-Based Practice: The Psychology of EBP Implementation

Evidence-based practice (EBP) is an approach used in numerous professions that focuses attention on evidence quality in decision making and action. We review research on EBP implementation, identifying critical underlying psychological factors facilitating and impeding its use. In describing EBP and the forms of evidence it employs, we highlight the challenges individuals face in appraising evidence quality, particularly that of their personal experience. We next describe critical EBP competencies and the challenges underlying their acquisition: foundational competencies of critical thinking and domain knowledge, and functional competencies such as question formulation, evidence search and appraisal, and outcome evaluation. We then review research on EBP implementation across diverse fields from medicine to management and organize findings around three key contributors to EBP: practitioner ability, motivation, and opportunity to practice (AMO). Throughout, important links between psychology and EBP are highlighted, along with the contributions psychological research can make to further EBP development and implementation.

Sleep and moral awareness

The implications of sleep for morality are only starting to be explored. Extending the ethics literature, we contend that because bringing morality to conscious attention requires effort, a lack of sleep leads to low moral awareness. We test this prediction with three studies. A laboratory study with a manipulation of sleep across 90 participants judging a scenario for moral content indicates that a lack of sleep leads to low moral awareness. An archival study of Google Trends data across 6 years highlights a national dip in Web searches for moral topics (but not other topics) on the Monday after the Spring time change, which tends to deprive people of sleep. Finally, a diary study of 127 participants indicates that (within participants) nights with a lack of sleep are associated with low moral awareness the next day. Together, these three studies suggest that a lack of sleep leaves people less morally aware, with important implications for the recognition of morality in others.

Sleep leadership in high-risk occupations: An investigation of soldiers on peacekeeping and combat missions.

Individuals in high-risk occupations (e.g., military service) often report physical, psychological, and organizational problems. Although leaders can partially buffer their subordinates against these problems, the impact of established leadership skills appears limited, especially in high-risk occupations. Thus, building on recent theories of domain-specific leadership, we examined whether leadership focused on the specific domain of sleep might be negatively associated with some specific problems facing individuals in high-risk occupations, beyond their relationship with general leadership. Studying military personnel on peacekeeping and combat deployments, we predicted that “sleep leadership” would be negatively associated with sleep problems (physical), depressive symptoms (psychological), and negative climate (organizational), and that sleep would mediate the relationship between sleep leadership and the psychological and organizational problems. Results were generally supportive, contributing to theories of domain-specific leadership by showing that sleep-focused leader behaviors may go beyond general leadership behaviors, relating directly to the problems facing individuals in high-risk occupations.

Using actigraphy feedback to improve sleep in soldiers: an exploratory trial

Objectives: The objective of this study was to assess the impact of wearing an actigraph and receiving personalized feedback on the sleep of a high‐risk occupational group: United States soldiers recently returned from a combat deployment. Design: Following a baseline survey with a full sample, a subsample of soldiers wore an actigraph, received feedback, and completed a brief survey. Two months later, the full sample completed a follow‐up survey. The actigraph intervention involved wearing an actigraph for 3 weeks and then receiving a personalized report about sleep patterns and an algorithm‐based estimate of cognitive functioning derived from individual sleep patterns. Results: Propensity score matching with a genetic search algorithm revealed that subjects in the actigraph condition (n = 43) reported fewer sleep problems (t value = −2.55, P < .01) and getting more sleep hours (t value =1.97, P < .05) at follow‐up than those in a matched comparison condition (n = 43, weighted). There were no significant differences in functioning, somatic symptoms, and mental health outcomes (posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms and depression). A significant interaction indicated that the actigraph had a more beneficial effect on those with more somatic symptoms at baseline but not those with more sleep problems. Most participants rated the personalized report as helpful. Conclusion: Actigraphs combined with personalized reports may offer a useful, simple intervention to improve the sleep patterns of large, high‐risk occupational groups.

The science of culture and negotiation

Recent negotiation research has produced a groundswell of insights about the effects of culture on negotiation. Yet, few frameworks exist to organize the findings. This review integrates recent research using a two-dimensional framework: The first dimension organizes the research into that which has taken: (1) a comparative intracultural approach, versus (2) an intercultural approach. The second dimension organizes the research by its emphasis on: (1) inputs into negotiation, (2) processes of negotiating, and (3) outcomes of negotiation. This framework helps to organize extant research and produces novel insights about the connections between disparate research streams, revealing both commonalities and culture-specificities in negotiation strategy and outcomes and suggesting that intercultural negotiations are difficult but not insurmountable. We conclude by discussing several areas in which more research on culture and negotiation is urgently needed in todays globalizing world.

The behavioral benefits of other people’s deviance

Employees who violate significant organizational norms are organizational deviants engaged in organizational deviance. Yet, few acts of organizational deviance involve all members of an organization; in many cases, many people are uninvolved. The current research examined the responses of the nondeviant actors. Several literatures led us to predict that organizational deviance would cause nondeviants to experience cognitive dissonance, especially its vicarious form, and redouble their own work effort in response. Yet, we also predicted that low levels of identification with the deviant actors would weaken this effect. Three studies with multiple samples and methods supported these predictions, showing that nondeviants experience deviants’ dissonance and increase their own work effort, but only when more rather than less identified with deviants. In addition to extending and connecting theories of deviance and dissonance, these findings suggest that organizational deviance may have unexpected benefits for groups and organizations.

The Tell-Tale Look: Viewing Time, Preferences, and Prices

Even the simplest choices can prompt decision-makers to balance their preferences against other, more pragmatic considerations like price. Thus, discerning people’s preferences from their decisions creates theoretical, empirical, and practical challenges. The current paper addresses these challenges by highlighting some specific circumstances in which the amount of time that people spend examining potential purchase items (i.e., viewing time) can in fact reveal their preferences. Our model builds from the gazing literature, in a purchasing context, to propose that the informational value of viewing time depends on prices. Consistent with the model’s predictions, four studies show that when prices are absent or moderate, viewing time provides a signal that is consistent with a person’s preferences and purchase intentions. When prices are extreme or consistent with a person’s preferences, however, viewing time is a less reliable predictor of either. Thus, our model highlights a price-contingent “viewing bias,” shedding theoretical, empirical, and practical light on the psychology of preferences and visual attention, and identifying a readily observable signal of preference.