Background

The broad aim of this project is to show that the link between CWV and dominance behavior is: (1) strong and robust, above and beyond other predictors from the literature; (2) explained by relational expectancies of dominance behaviors; and (3) not explained by influence expectancies of dominance behaviors and TOPS as well as relational expectancies.

So far - we collected correlational data from an online sample. Here, we look at past data collected in negotiations classes across four academic terms: Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, and Fall 2021.

Students in this class completed three measures of interest in three different timepoints: CWV pre-class; relational expectancies in a hypothetical scenario pre-class; and self- plus peer-reported dominance behavior in a negotiation held later on in class.

We’ll look at all of this here.

Eligibility

Eligibility is determined by completion rate. I’ll break it down below:

term miss_CWV miss_exp miss_glob_self miss_glob_peer n
FA18 0 0 0 0 71
FA18 0 0 0 1 4
FA18 0 0 1 1 7
FA18 0 1 0 0 2
FA18 0 1 1 1 1
FA18 1 0 1 1 2
FA18 1 1 0 0 2
FA19 0 0 0 0 83
FA19 0 0 0 1 2
FA19 0 0 1 1 5
FA19 0 1 0 0 1
FA19 1 0 1 1 3
FA19 1 1 0 0 2
FA19 1 1 1 1 2
FA20 0 0 0 0 83
FA20 0 0 0 1 2
FA20 0 0 1 0 1
FA20 0 0 1 1 3
FA20 0 1 0 0 1
FA20 1 0 0 0 1
FA20 1 0 1 1 1
FA21 0 0 0 0 82
FA21 0 0 0 1 2
FA21 0 0 1 1 4
FA21 0 1 0 0 1
FA21 1 0 0 0 1
FA21 1 0 1 1 3
FA21 1 1 0 0 1

Ok, but we may not need both self- and peer-reported behavior in the global consulting case. Let’s look just at that.

term elg_seflreport elg_peerreport n
FA18 0 0 14
FA18 1 0 4
FA18 1 1 71
FA19 0 0 13
FA19 1 0 2
FA19 1 1 83
FA20 0 0 6
FA20 0 1 1
FA20 1 0 2
FA20 1 1 83
FA21 0 0 10
FA21 1 0 2
FA21 1 1 82
Great. That leaves us with 329 eligible participants for the self-reported dv and 320 eligible participants for the peer-reported dv. 319 are eligible for both. I think I’ll just go with that.

Back to the rest of the variables:

term miss_CWV miss_exp miss_glob n
FA18 0 0 0 71
FA18 0 0 1 11
FA18 0 1 0 2
FA18 0 1 1 1
FA18 1 0 1 2
FA18 1 1 0 2
FA19 0 0 0 83
FA19 0 0 1 7
FA19 0 1 0 1
FA19 1 0 1 3
FA19 1 1 0 2
FA19 1 1 1 2
FA20 0 0 0 83
FA20 0 0 1 6
FA20 0 1 0 1
FA20 1 0 0 1
FA20 1 0 1 1
FA21 0 0 0 82
FA21 0 0 1 6
FA21 0 1 0 1
FA21 1 0 0 1
FA21 1 0 1 3
FA21 1 1 0 1

Great. Still 319.

Demographics

Race

race N Perc
White/European American 130 40.75
Asian/Asian-American/Pacific Islander 127 39.81
Hispanic/Latin American 26 8.15
More than one race 14 4.39
Black/African American 11 3.45
Indian 3 0.94
Middle Eastern 2 0.63
Arab 1 0.31
Asian/Asian-American/Pacific IslanderIndian 1 0.31
Jewish 1 0.31
Middle-Eastern/White 1 0.31
South Asian (Indian) 1 0.31
indian 1 0.31

Gender

gender N Perc
Female 141 44.20
Male 177 55.49
Prefer not to answer 1 0.31

Age

age_mean age_sd
29.03145 2.252013

Nationality

us N Perc
No 176 55.17
Yes 143 44.83

Measures

CWV

Asked as part of the negotiation assessment, taken pre-class.

1. It’s a dog-eat-dog world where you have to be ruthless at times
2. There is really no such thing as “right” and “wrong” It all boils down to what you can get away with
3. One of the most useful skills a person should develop is how to look someone straight in the eye and lie convincingly
4. My knowledge and experience tell me that the social world we live in is basically a competitive “jungle” in which the fittest survive and succeed, in which power, wealth, and winning are everything, and might is right
5. Basically people are objects to be quietly and coolly manipulated for one’s own benefit

Cronbach’s alpha = 0.65

Relational expectancies

As part of the initial assessment (pre-class), students were asked to picture themselves as freelancers negotiating a new deal. This is the scenario:

Please put yourself into the following hypothetical situation …

Imagine that you’ve worked as an analyst for a highly-regarded consulting firm for a number of years. Six months ago, you decided to work as a freelancer, giving you much greater flexibility in when and how much you work. You’re very talented at gathering industry information and market research, analyzing it for trends and patterns, and producing high-quality presentation and report materials. You typically work on projects with a more senior independent consultant, someone who is leading a project for a client and who then hires you to do some analytical work and to prepare materials. For the past six months, you’ve been charging in the area of $50 to $65 an hour for your work. This is generally in line with what other analysts make starting out. A few times, project leaders have told you that they’ve decided to work with analysts who are cheaper. Some other project leaders have said that your work is better than other people who charge in your range.

You’ve just received a message from a project leader that you’ve never met, but who knows another project leader you’ve worked with (Chris). The message reads:

“I’m leading a project with a client, Warnock Industries, and we need some help with industry analysis. They are a demanding client, with very high expectations for both the quality of our work and how quickly we can do it. Our mutual acquaintance Chris suggested that I reach out to you and said you do great work. I’ll be honest: I think this is going to be a tough project. The client expects a lot and sometimes changes their mind about the direction of things mid-way through the work. But if this goes well, there might be more projects down the road from them and others. I could reach out to other analysts, but I hope you’ll consider it. The work would start in two weeks and last probably two to three weeks. Let me know if you’re interested and, if so, what your hourly rate would be.”

After signaling the price they’d ask for, the likely response from the project leader, and the expected final rate, students were asked:

In each of these cases, how much do you think the project leader would like, trust, and want to interact with you in the future?

They were asked about each price-point, but we’re mostly interested in the boldest counter: $90/hour. I’ll show all of them here below nonetheless.

Dominant behavior

Within the class, students negotiated the Global Consulting case. After the negotiation, they completed a post-negotiation survey. Within that survey, they indicated, about themselves and their counterpart:
1. How assertive they thought they were (1 to 12)
2. The extent to which they made extreme or bold offers (1 to 7)
3. The extent to which they displayed competitive, aggressive behavior (1 to 7)
4. The extent to which they were misleading or dishonest (1 to 7)

Analysis

Correlation matrix

Ruh-roh.

1. CWV is either weakly or uncorrelated with the other variables.
2. It’s negatively correlated with trust epxectancies for 60/h and 70/h. Which is actually pretty funny. Those are reasonable requests, given the scenario, but high CWV people think that asking for those rates will result in the project manager distrusting them.
3. And it’s positively associated with self-reported competitiveness, but not peer-reported.
4. Other than that, only the 70/hour expectancy item is associated with only the peer-reported assertiveness and competitiveness, but not in the direction we’d expect. More expected trust is associated with higher peer-reported assertiveness and competitiveness. The rest pretty are pretty much unrelated.
5.To be fair, though, this whole thing is a pretty high bar. They completed the expectancies measure about a month prior, they learned a lot about negotiations (and their collaborative potential, probably) during that month, and the expectancies one was about a very different scenario than the one they negotiated.
6. And still - a bummer.

I’ll hold off on doing any more analyses at this point. Not sure it’s worth it, given what we’re seeing here.