N05: Perception, Cognition, and Communication

N05: Perception, Cognition, and Communication

Not everyone realizes how the role of perception, cognition, and emotion has an influence on negotiation process. Perception and cognition are the basic building blocks of all social encounters, including negotiation, in the sense of that our social actions are guided by the way we perceive and analyze the other party, the situation, and our own interests and position.

The perception of negotiators is very important which could influence on their ability to interpret with accuracy what the other party is saying and meaning. Therefore, negotiators need to understand how information is perceived, filtered, distorted and framed, so that they can prepare themselves when dealing with those information as well as processing it more readily. The ‘framing’ idea is influential in negotiation because it’s about focusing, shaping and organizing the world around us.

Cognitive biases are errors when negotiators have during information process and tend to block negotiators performance. To handle wisely with misconception and cognitive biases, negotiators need to first be aware that these negative aspects, which can possibly come up anytime. Furthermore, parties need to carefully develop discussion of the issues and preferences to help reduce the effects of perceptual biases. 

Question

1. How to improve communication in negotiation?

Failure and distortions in perception, cognition, and communication are the most dominant contributors to breakdowns and failures in negotiation. Research consistently demonstrates that even those parties whose actual goals are compatible or integrative may either fail to reach agreement or reach suboptimal agreements because of the is perceptions of the other party or because of breakdowns in the communication in negotiation: the use of questions, listening, and role reversal.

2. What are the three major forms of listening?

Listening: three major forms

·         Passive listening:  Receiving the message while providing no feedback to the sender

·         Acknowledgment:  Receivers nod their heads, maintain eye contact, or interject responses

·         Active listening: Receivers restate or paraphrase the sender’s message in their own language

3. How to Improve Communication in Negotiation?

Use of questions: two basic categories

Manageable

• Cause attention or prepare the other person’s thinking for further questions: “May I ask you a question?”
• Getting information: “How much will this cost?”
• Generating thoughts: “Do you have any suggestions for improving this?”
• Unmanageable questions
• Cause difficulty: “Where did you get that dumb idea?”
• Give information: “Didn’t you know we couldn’t afford this?”
• Bring the discussion to a false conclusion: “Don’t you think we have talked about this enough?”