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STATUS CONFLICT IN NEGOTIATION
YERI CHO
JENNIFER R. OVERBECK
PETER J. CARNEVALE
University of Southern California
In preparation for Research on Managing Groups and Teams, vol. 14, 2010.
Please do not circulate or cite without the authors’ permission.
ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the challenges that arise when groups are experiencing status conflict while simultaneously conducting negotiations. We argue that status conflicts are especially likely to occur in negotiation contexts because negotiation is an opportunity to increase not only economic outcomes but also subjective or social outcomes, such as status. More important, status conflict is a critical group process that affects negotiation outcomes. We identify three specific types of group configurations in which status conflict may occur, and suggest expected consequences of status conflict in each. We propose that during status conflict individual negotiators’ cognitions and behaviors focus more on attaining their own relative social standing than on group interests. This high self-focus leads to more competitive behaviors, poorer agreement outcomes and less likelihood of reaching an agreement. When negotiating with an outgroup, negotiators who experience within-group status conflict will try to use the outgroup to increase their status within-group by demonstrating their value to their own group. When groups are experiencing intergroup status conflict alongside intergroup negotiation, it is difficult to reach an agreement because parties tend to be more competitive and less constructive. Even when they reach agreement, the outcome will be more likely to be suboptimal.
During the 2000 Middle East Peace Summit at Camp David, two weeks of vigorous negotiations ended in the failure to produce an agreement. The common judgment of observers was that Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestinian delegation, had callously rejected Israeli offers that included most of what the Palestinians claimed to want (Agha & Malley, 2001). However, it was also clear that Arafat was dealing with challenges within the Palestinian side. Individual Palestinian team members countermanded Arafat’s proposals, claimed to have authority themselves to negotiate, and opposed their own leadership (Carnevale, 2005; Goldstein, 2001). Behind the scenes, a battle was raging for succession in the Palestinian Authority; individuals apparently used the negotiation with the Israelis as a way to elevate their own standing with the group—that is, to increase their status. The problem of within-group processes having an impact on between-group negotiations is not unique in the Middle East. It has been observed in dealings with North Korea (Choe, 2010), and even in domestic labor disputes (e.g., illustrated in the US labor movies American Dream and Final Offer.
This chapter considers the challenges that arise when, during negotiations, a group is simultaneously struggling with competition over status. Status conflict occurs in many different contexts, but negotiation may be a context that particularly facilitates status conflict. Here, we consider why that may be the case, identify three specific types of group configurations in which status competition may occur, and suggest ways to reduce the costs and optimize the outcomes in negotiations characterized by status conflict. We begin by defining status conflict and identifying when and why status conflict occurs in negotiation. Next, we identify three types of status conflict in negotiations, including the expected consequences of status conflict in each. We close by discussing the implications of our findings for the broader understanding of negotiators behaviors when there are status conflicts.
WHAT IS STATUS CONFLICT?
Status refers to respect or esteem conferred upon a person or a group by other people (Anderson, John, Keltner, & Kring, 2001; Magee & Galinsky, 2008; Ridgeway & Correll, 2006); such conferral results in a vertical ranking along consensual dimensions of value, generally resulting in privileged access to resources (Ball, Eckel, Grossman, & Zane, 2001; Berger, Fisek, Norman, Wagner, 1985; De Kwaadsteniet & van Dijk, in press). Because groups need to identify members willing to bear the burdens and costs of service to the group, they tend to seek individuals well suited to that service and then reward them with status (Blau, 1964; Lenski, 1966; Overbeck, Correll, & Park, 2005). The more one contributes to a task or social group, the more status one is able to attain, and thus the more rewards one is given. As a result, people tend to strive for status (Barkow, 1975; Hogan & Hogan, 1991).
When people come together as a group for the first time, often there is no social order. As they work together towards a common goal, those who contribute more to the common goal tend to attain more status than the others, and a new social order emerges (Hollander, 1958). The group can enjoy this hierarchy as long as it remains stable; however, if the leader should happen to leave the group, then the hierarchy loses stability. While no leader has yet emerged or been elected, there may be several people who want to become the new leader. In short, both at a group’s initial formation and at times of leadership transition, the hierarchy is unstable. At such times, the social order is in conflict.
Recently, research has begun to examine status conflict as a key process in group dynamics. Status conflict occurs when individuals or groups struggle with one another to defend or improve their own status (Bendersky & Hays, in press). Bendersky and Hays identified four distinct features of status conflict. First, status conflicts are motivated by instrumental interests to increase or defend one’s status (Owens & Sutton, 2001). People have particular goals to achieve in terms of their social standing, and these goals motivate them to engage in status conflict. Second, status conflicts are zero-sum, meaning that if there are people who win status, there should be people who lose status (Berger, Ridgeway, Fiske & Norman 1998; Moldovanu, Sela, & Shi, 2007). Third, denigrating others or aggrandizing oneself may enact status conflicts. Finally, status conflicts often involve coalitions of actors, particularly when weaker parties to a conflict try to gain status.
In the current work, we use the terms status competition, status contest, and status conflict interchangeably. All of these terms capture the notion that multiple individuals in the same group—or multiple groups interacting with one another—may be seeking status, and that the simultaneous delivery of and response to status challenges may thus occur. That is, parties desiring status will likely engage in a series of patterned moves (Goffman, 1969; Owens & Sutton, 2001) in which they position themselves and seek to counter others’ positioning. Such moves may involve challenging or insulting other parties to show that they are unworthy of status, as well as highlighting one’s own value and potential to contribute to the group (Anderson & Kilduff, 2009; Bendersky & Hays, in press; Overbeck & Tansuwan, 2010; Owens & Sutton, 2001; Porath, Overbeck, & Pearson, 2008).
Owen and Sutton (2001) identified three stages in hierarchy development, each associated with particular status moves. As shown in Table 1, in addition to the particular behaviors listed by Owens and Sutton, there are several particular actions that may characterize status conflicts, and these may vary according to the developmental stage of the hierarchy. The first stage is integration, when individuals try to become an integrated member of an existing group. People may use ingratiation, to flatter or to attribute success to a high status group member. In addition, people can do something for the group by embracing a peripheral role in the group (Jones & Pittman, 1982). The next stage is contesting and occurs when individuals have reached secure, mid-level membership in a group. At this point, they strategically generate perceptions that they possess important skills for their group’s success. This move is particularly effective when there is high uncertainty in what brings a group success. Working overtime and trying to generate value to the group can be contesting moves (Sutton Hargadon, 1996). Another contesting move is shifting the frame of situations (Goffman, 1974). If participants can redefine the situation in such a way that it appears to require their own, unique competency, they are more likely to earn status than those who do not possess this competency.
The final stage identified by Owens and Sutton (2001) is characterized by control moves (i.e. asserting dominance). These moves are mainly adopted by high status group members who want to maintain the status quo. There are multiple ways to assert dominance using these moves. Controlling information exchange by attempting to initiate, block or manage communication flow (Kelley, 1951) can be used to demonstrate and maintain dominance. Research suggests that people attribute more status to those who speak more and be assertive (Bales, 1950; Driskell, Olmstead & Salas, 1993; Skvoretz & Fararo, 1996). Display of dominant behaviors such as initiative taking may signal competence and thus lead to greater influence (Anderson & Kilduff, 2009). Overbeck and Tansuwan (2010) also found that denigrating others or elevating oneself led other people to grant the actor higher status. Non-verbal behavior such as maintaining eye contact can make other people to attribute high status to the actor (Berger & Zelditch, 1998). Also, discrediting or giving negative feedback on the other’s performance can be used to put the other in his or her place (Whyte, 1943).
In addition to these stages, which characterize intact groups, status conflict may occur among newly-forming groups, as well. Moves in this context may include any of the above strategies, from overt assertions of dominance (Anderson & Kilduff, 2008; Overbeck & Tansuwan, 2010) to discrediting potential rivals (Bendersky & Hays, in press; Porath et al., 2008) to volunteering to do unwanted work on the group’s behalf (Owens & Sutton, 2001). In short, at this stage, status-seekers will try to set the self apart, either through demonstrating their value to the group and eliciting others’ measured support, or through displaying heuristic cues associated with high status, and trying to evoke the prototype of high-status members so that others will respond automatically with deference.
Status conflict differs from other well-established varieties of conflicts (Bendersky & Hays, in press): task, process, and relational conflicts. Task conflict involves disagreement among group members about the group’s task. Relational conflict deals with interpersonal conflict not directly related to group’s task. Process conflict involves people’s differing views on how work should be done and who should do it (Jehn,1997). Status conflict can be related to these other types of conflict in groups but particularly concerns the individual’s relative standing within the group.
CONDITIONS THAT FACILITATE STATUS CONFLICT
Unstable Hierarchy
Status conflict is likely to occur when hierarchy is unstable. Presence of social ladder motivates people to continuously try to climb up. If positions in the ladder are not likely to change readily, people would not try hard but if who are the people on the top is uncertain or allows some change, people become willing to fight each other to take the upper position. Negotiated order theory suggests that social order is not static but developed and reproduced continually as members negotiate their own interpretation of the social order (Strauss, 1978).
Group Features
Other factors affect status conflict, as well. Lack of cohesiveness in group facilitates status conflict when there is unstable hierarchy (Overbeck et al., 2005). To the extent that groups are cohesive, group members share group goals. When groups are not cohesive, members pursue their individual interests even at the expense of group interests. Therefore, lack of group cohesiveness also increases competition within group, and may facilitate status conflict.
In addition, interdependence is generally a prerequisite for status conflict. If members are not interdependent, they can just go their own ways. Gender research suggests that, if men and women were not interdependent with each other to reproduce, there would not be status differentials between the two (Rudman & Glick, 2009). Less well-defined status relations between boys and girls may exist partly because the two sexes are not intimately interdependent in childhood. As males and females mature and become interdependent with one another, they inevitably interact on a daily basis, and this frequent social contact leads also to more struggles for status (though, of course, societies often develop gender-based roles to help solve such problems). Analogously, even beyond the specific case of gender, more interdependence between parties should lead to more status conflict (see also Overbeck et al., 2005).
When parties hold high status expectations, status conflict is more likely to arise. Individuals may expect status because they believe they can bring more value to the group than other group members. Those who have high chronic self-esteem and self-efficacy should expect more status than those without (Leary, Cottrell, & Phillips, 2001; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999; Wojciszke, & Struzynska-Kujalowicz, 2007). These traits represent individuals’ belief in their worthiness. If people with high status expectations do not satisfy their needs for status enhancement, they end up dissatisfied with the current status ordering and thus more likely to engage in status conflict with others. Groups may often have substantial variance in members’ status expectations; in such cases, those few members who most want status may be likely to win it. However, when there are many status-seeking members present, then competition is likely to ensue.
WHY DOES STATUS CONFLICT OCCUR IN NEGOTIATION?
Status conflicts often occur in negotiation because negotiation is a competitive activity and an opportunity to increase both economic outcomes and subjective or symbolic outcomes, such as status. When people negotiate, whether as individuals or in groups, they carry expectations about how negotiation can improve both their economic standing and their social standing. Negotiation is intended to resolve conflicts (diversion of interests), to reach an agreement, to bargain for outcomes that satisfy parties’ interests. Status enhancement can be one of parties’ major interests when they involve in negotiations. We identify the following two characteristics of negotiation and status that underscore why status conflict may be especially prevalent in negotiation contexts.
First, negotiation brings to mind (at least in Western cultures) images of sports, competitions, winners and losers. Negotiators report that their own self-esteem feels at stake when they negotiate (Kramer, Newton, & Pommerenke, 1993). Because negotiation inherently contains elements of the testing and validation of the negotiator’s social worth, one might argue that status conflict is always, perhaps by definition, an element of negotiation. We do not take such a perspective; rather, we treat status conflict as orthogonal to the negotiation transaction. That is, in our view, negotiation may or may not be accompanied by status conflict.