Negotiation Laboratory
Research in the negotiation laboratory is concerned with factors that promote or inhibit the attainment of integrative outcomes in dyadic and multi-party negotiations, that is, outcomes that are mutually beneficial to all negotiating parties. Our research focuses on the nature of the communication that occurs between negotiating parties, the tactics they deploy, and how those tactics are sequenced. We characterise the features of the communication processes quantitatively using Markov chain models. We use these models to investigate how communication processes are affected by attributes of the negotiating parties, how these processes affect the development of trust, and how this in turn affects the quality of the final settlement. Although the majority of the research in the laboratory has investigated face-to-face negotiation, one recent project has looked at factors affecting online dispute resolution paroles.