Same path, different experience: Culture’s Influence on attribution, emotion, and interaction goals in negotiation

This study examines cultural variations in negotiators’ attribution and emotion as a viable means to understand culture’s multiplex influence on goal pursuit when it interacts with situational factors. 277 US Americans and 239 mainland Chinese responded to a hypothetical employment negotiation scenario in two experimental conditions. Findings indicate that given the same set of persuasive messages by a counterpart, American participants judged the counterpart as more personally responsible for perceived negative behavior, felt more anger and less compassion toward the counterpart, and placed greater importance on competitive goals than Chinese participants. Although the paths whereby emotions arise and influence interaction goals are largely similar across cultures, mainland Chinese demonstrated a stronger tendency to compete when they felt angry, whereas US Americans were more likely to pursue cooperative goals across both conditions. Theoretical and practical implications of these seemingly contradictory findings are discussed in this article.