A Decision-Making Perspective to Negotiation: A Review of the Past and a Look to the Future

Over the past quarter century, the decision-analytic approach to negotiation has seen the development of a better dialogue between the descriptive and the prescriptive and has also attracted the interest of both academics and practitioners. Researchers have built upon the work in behavioral decision theory, examining the ways in which negotiators may deviate from rationality. The 1990s brought a renewed interest in social factors, as work on social relationships, egocentrism, attribution and construal processes, and motivated illusions was incorporated into our understanding of negotiations. Several promising areas of research have emerged in recent years, drawing from other disciplines and informing the field of negotiations, including work on the influence of ethics, emotions, intuition, and training.