Strategies and Processes of Negotiations

Being able to orchestrate successful social interactions is perhaps never more important than in negotiation situations. Negotiations are a particular kind of social interactions that are explicitly designed to determine which parties get their interests and goals fulfilled or thwarted. Negotiations are necessary whenever you cannot attain your goals without the cooperation of others. They happen every day—with co-workers, customers, competitors, friends, and spouses. Some negotiations might be small, such as what movie to watch tonight or who will wash the dishes this week—and some might be involve large stakes, such as what price your client’s company will be sold for or what policy provisions will be implemented or dropped.

This course will greatly expand your understanding of negotiations in several ways. First, you will experience various negotiation situations firsthand in the classroom. Second, you will learn how to analyze your experiences using insights collected from decades of psychological research on social judgment, social cognition, and decision-making. Third, and unlike most real-life situations, you will be able to receive feedback on your performance. Life, unfortunately, does not often offer the opportunity to compare your outcomes to other people’s outcomes. This course does, thereby enabling you to identify what you did right, what you did wrong, and improve your performance by evaluating your work compared to the rest of the class.