Why sharing a plate leads to better
negotiation outcomes
University of Chicago Booth School
of Business
Here's a new negotiating tactic: enjoy a family-style meal with your counterpart before making your opening bid.
When people in a business
negotiation share not just a meal but a plate, they collaborate better and
reach deals faster, according to new research from the University of Chicago
Booth School of Business.
In the study, "Shared Plates,
Shared Minds: Consuming from a Shared Plate Promotes Cooperation,"
forthcoming in Psychological Science, Chicago Booth Professor Ayelet
Fishbach and Cornell University's Kaitlin Woolley, a Booth PhD student at the
time of the research, asked: could the way a meal is served and consumed boost
cooperation?
Sharing plates is customary in
Chinese and Indian cultures, among others. Because the custom requires people
to coordinate their physical actions, it might in turn prompt them to
coordinate their negotiations.
To find out, they asked study participants, all strangers to one another, to pair off in a lab experiment that involved negotiating. The participants were invited to have a snack of chips and salsa with their partners.
Half of the pairs received one bowl of chips and one bowl of salsa to share, while the others each had their own bowls.
Next came the negotiation scenario,
in which one person in each pair was randomly assigned to act as management and
the other as a union representative.
Their goal was to arrive at an acceptable wage for the union within 22 rounds of negotiation, with each round representing one day of negotiations, and with a costly union strike scheduled to start on the third round.
The costs of the strike accrued quickly for both sides, giving the parties an impetus to reach a mutually agreeable deal quickly.
Their goal was to arrive at an acceptable wage for the union within 22 rounds of negotiation, with each round representing one day of negotiations, and with a costly union strike scheduled to start on the third round.
The costs of the strike accrued quickly for both sides, giving the parties an impetus to reach a mutually agreeable deal quickly.
Teams with shared bowls took nine
strike days, on average, to reach a deal, four fewer than pairs that had eaten
from separate bowls. This difference translated into significant dollar values,
saving both parties a combined, if hypothetical, $1.5 million in losses.
This phenomenon, the researchers
write, was unrelated to how two people in a negotiating team felt about each
other. Rather, what mattered was how well they coordinated their eating.
When Woolley and Fishbach repeated
the experiment with both friends and strangers participating, friends arrived
at a negotiation agreement faster than strangers did, but sharing plates had a
significant effect for both groups.
The degree to which a person felt she was collaborating with her partner while eating -- sharing food rather than competing for that last bite -- predicted her feelings of collaboration during the negotiation phase.
The degree to which a person felt she was collaborating with her partner while eating -- sharing food rather than competing for that last bite -- predicted her feelings of collaboration during the negotiation phase.
Fishbach says that while technology
allows people to conduct meetings remotely, there is value in getting together
over a meal. And the same is true outside of business negotiations.
"Basically, every meal that
you're eating alone is a missed opportunity to connect to someone," says
Fishbach. "And every meal that involves food sharing fully utilizes the
opportunity to create that social bond."
