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Identity: More than Meets the “I”
Daniel L. Shapiro*
Editors’ Note: How can you expect to get good results in a negotiation if you give little thought to who you really are, and to who your counterpart is? Shapiro analyzes the research on identity, showing how you can predict the likely reactions of your counterpart to some kinds of proposals—as well as your own propensity to avoid some kinds of proposals that might be to your advantage.
This chapter is republished from the same editors’ Negotiator’s Fieldbook (American Bar Assoc. 2006). We appreciate the ABA’s courtesy in agreeing to this republication. Although this chapter was not updated for the NDR, we believe it continues to be a unique and valuable resource. Some formatting has been updated; the text of the chapter is unaltered.
Three Perspectives on Identity-Based Negotiation Research
As the Berlin Wall came to a crashing fall, so too did the equilibrium of global tensions. The Soviet Union lost its Superpower status; communism lost its reign over much of Europe; and both the United States and the Soviet Union reduced their level of support for proxy states of their Cold War. In many countries, ethnopolitical tensions combusted. The result was an explosion of intrastate violence, refugee transmigration, and political instability.
Amidst this backdrop, many researchers on conflict resolution and negotiation joined a growing research track working to understand intergroup identity conflict.[1] Known in short as “identity-based conflict,”[2] this area of study focuses on disagreement or warfare between groups divided along ethnic, political, religious, or cultural lines. Identity is conceived as a set of stable characteristics focused on one’s group affiliations, beliefs, and shared values.
Meanwhile, other identity-based negotiation research has turned from the group to the individual level, studying intrapersonal identity.[3] At this level, identity is understood to be the story you tell yourself about yourself.[4] [Heen & Stone, Perceptions] An identity conflict manifests when there is a conflict between your view of yourself and an alternative view of yourself. An associate at a law firm may feel an intrapersonal identity conflict when she sees herself as a loyal associate but decides to switch to a neighboring firm that offers her a higher salary. The associate may wonder: am I a loyal person, or am I willing to betray friends for the right price?
The focus of this essay is on a third level of one’s identity that stands at the crossroads between individual and group identity. This research track focuses on interpersonal identity, also known as “relational identity.”[5] Your relational identity is the way you conceive of yourself in relation to someone else with whom you are interacting. In other words, the way you conceive of yourself is dependent, at least in part, on with whom you interact. In a relationship with one’s boss, a person may be obsequious and accommodating. That same person may be assertive and outgoing in his relationship with his children. In either case, the identity of the individual as a servile worker or loving father becomes enwrapped in the quality and type of relationship.
In this brief essay, I describe two mistaken assumptions about identity that can negatively impact the negotiation process and outcome. These two assumptions are that a negotiator’s identity is constant across time and across context. [Avruch, Buyer—Seller] These assumptions are based on the general idea that a negotiator’s identity is an immutable given—that it does not and cannot change.[6] I argue that a better assumption is that a negotiator can choose many elements of his or her identity, which can lead to an improved negotiation process and outcome.
Mistaken Assumptions About Identity
Many negotiators see their identity as fixed. People in individualistic cultures, in particular, may tend to believe in the immutability of relational identity more than those from collectivist cultures. In a collectivist culture, people tend to take on the values of the social groups to which they belong. Changed group membership would constitute a changed sense of relational identity. In contrast, people in an individualistic culture tend to see their identity as consistent whether across time or context, and they view their identity as a constant whether interacting with one group or another. Thus, behavior is seen as an unflappable product of one’s unchangeable identity: “I cannot change the way I act, because I cannot change the person I am.” This thinking is the result of two assumptions that leave a negotiator frozen in his or her current behavioral regime.
Mistaken Assumption #1: Identity is Constant Across TIME
Negotiators often assume that their identity is constant across time. Two reasons support the partial validity of this assumption. First, for most people, our sense of selfhood feels consistent over time. Whether or not we continue to enjoy hopscotch or teddy bears beyond our childhood years, we recognize that we are the only person who experienced personally the multiple stages of our own life; and we still may recall viscerally the emotional wave that accompanied our first kiss, our first day of college, or the moment we learned that someone close to us died. Second, certain elements of our behavior imprint an indelible mark upon our perceived identity. A lawyer who commits an unethical act at work may come to believe that he is a bad person. A negotiator who is never able to assert her own interests may come to see herself as victim to the discretion of others. Such self-conceptions may stay with a person for weeks, years, or a lifetime....
For full contents please purchase The Negotiator’s Desk Reference.
Endnotes
*Daniel L. Shapiro, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School, and founder and director of the Harvard International Negotiation Program. His most recent book is Negotiating the Nonnegotiable: How to Resolve Your Most Emotionally Charged Conflicts (Penguin 2017.)
The author wishes to express gratitude to Chris Honeyman, Andrea Schneider and Michael Moffitt for feedback on earlier drafts of this essay.
[1] See Ronald J. Fisher, Training as Interactive Conflict Resolution: Characteristics and Challenges, 2 International Negotiation 331 (1997); Herbert Kelman & Nadim Rouhana, Promoting Joint Thinking in International Conflicts: An Israeli/Palestinian Continuing Workshop, 50 Journal of Social Issues 157 (1994); Vamik Volkan, Transgenerational Transmissions and Chosen Traumas: An Aspect of Large-Group Identity, 34 Group Analysis 79 (2001).
[2] See Jay Rothman, Resolving Identity-Based Conflict: In Nations, Organizations, and Communities (1997).
[3] See William Wilmot & Joyce Hocker, Interpersonal Conflicts (5th ed. 1998).
[4] See Douglas Stone, et al., Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most (1999).
[5] See Daniel Shapiro, Negotiating Emotions, 20 Conflict Resolution Quarterly 67 (2002).
[6] See, e.g., Culture and Negotiation (Guy Faure & Jeffery Z. Rubin eds., 1993).
This chapter is republished from the same editors’ Negotiator’s Fieldbook (American Bar Assoc. 2006). We appreciate the ABA’s courtesy in agreeing to this republication. Although this chapter was not updated for the NDR, we believe it continues to be a unique and valuable resource. Some formatting has been updated; the text of the chapter is unaltered.
Three Perspectives on Identity-Based Negotiation Research
As the Berlin Wall came to a crashing fall, so too did the equilibrium of global tensions. The Soviet Union lost its Superpower status; communism lost its reign over much of Europe; and both the United States and the Soviet Union reduced their level of support for proxy states of their Cold War. In many countries, ethnopolitical tensions combusted. The result was an explosion of intrastate violence, refugee transmigration, and political instability.
Amidst this backdrop, many researchers on conflict resolution and negotiation joined a growing research track working to understand intergroup identity conflict.[1] Known in short as “identity-based conflict,”[2] this area of study focuses on disagreement or warfare between groups divided along ethnic, political, religious, or cultural lines. Identity is conceived as a set of stable characteristics focused on one’s group affiliations, beliefs, and shared values.
Meanwhile, other identity-based negotiation research has turned from the group to the individual level, studying intrapersonal identity.[3] At this level, identity is understood to be the story you tell yourself about yourself.[4] [Heen & Stone, Perceptions] An identity conflict manifests when there is a conflict between your view of yourself and an alternative view of yourself. An associate at a law firm may feel an intrapersonal identity conflict when she sees herself as a loyal associate but decides to switch to a neighboring firm that offers her a higher salary. The associate may wonder: am I a loyal person, or am I willing to betray friends for the right price?
The focus of this essay is on a third level of one’s identity that stands at the crossroads between individual and group identity. This research track focuses on interpersonal identity, also known as “relational identity.”[5] Your relational identity is the way you conceive of yourself in relation to someone else with whom you are interacting. In other words, the way you conceive of yourself is dependent, at least in part, on with whom you interact. In a relationship with one’s boss, a person may be obsequious and accommodating. That same person may be assertive and outgoing in his relationship with his children. In either case, the identity of the individual as a servile worker or loving father becomes enwrapped in the quality and type of relationship.
In this brief essay, I describe two mistaken assumptions about identity that can negatively impact the negotiation process and outcome. These two assumptions are that a negotiator’s identity is constant across time and across context. [Avruch, Buyer—Seller] These assumptions are based on the general idea that a negotiator’s identity is an immutable given—that it does not and cannot change.[6] I argue that a better assumption is that a negotiator can choose many elements of his or her identity, which can lead to an improved negotiation process and outcome.
Mistaken Assumptions About Identity
Many negotiators see their identity as fixed. People in individualistic cultures, in particular, may tend to believe in the immutability of relational identity more than those from collectivist cultures. In a collectivist culture, people tend to take on the values of the social groups to which they belong. Changed group membership would constitute a changed sense of relational identity. In contrast, people in an individualistic culture tend to see their identity as consistent whether across time or context, and they view their identity as a constant whether interacting with one group or another. Thus, behavior is seen as an unflappable product of one’s unchangeable identity: “I cannot change the way I act, because I cannot change the person I am.” This thinking is the result of two assumptions that leave a negotiator frozen in his or her current behavioral regime.
Mistaken Assumption #1: Identity is Constant Across TIME
Negotiators often assume that their identity is constant across time. Two reasons support the partial validity of this assumption. First, for most people, our sense of selfhood feels consistent over time. Whether or not we continue to enjoy hopscotch or teddy bears beyond our childhood years, we recognize that we are the only person who experienced personally the multiple stages of our own life; and we still may recall viscerally the emotional wave that accompanied our first kiss, our first day of college, or the moment we learned that someone close to us died. Second, certain elements of our behavior imprint an indelible mark upon our perceived identity. A lawyer who commits an unethical act at work may come to believe that he is a bad person. A negotiator who is never able to assert her own interests may come to see herself as victim to the discretion of others. Such self-conceptions may stay with a person for weeks, years, or a lifetime....
For full contents please purchase The Negotiator’s Desk Reference.
Endnotes
*Daniel L. Shapiro, Ph.D. is Associate Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School, and founder and director of the Harvard International Negotiation Program. His most recent book is Negotiating the Nonnegotiable: How to Resolve Your Most Emotionally Charged Conflicts (Penguin 2017.)
The author wishes to express gratitude to Chris Honeyman, Andrea Schneider and Michael Moffitt for feedback on earlier drafts of this essay.
[1] See Ronald J. Fisher, Training as Interactive Conflict Resolution: Characteristics and Challenges, 2 International Negotiation 331 (1997); Herbert Kelman & Nadim Rouhana, Promoting Joint Thinking in International Conflicts: An Israeli/Palestinian Continuing Workshop, 50 Journal of Social Issues 157 (1994); Vamik Volkan, Transgenerational Transmissions and Chosen Traumas: An Aspect of Large-Group Identity, 34 Group Analysis 79 (2001).
[2] See Jay Rothman, Resolving Identity-Based Conflict: In Nations, Organizations, and Communities (1997).
[3] See William Wilmot & Joyce Hocker, Interpersonal Conflicts (5th ed. 1998).
[4] See Douglas Stone, et al., Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most (1999).
[5] See Daniel Shapiro, Negotiating Emotions, 20 Conflict Resolution Quarterly 67 (2002).
[6] See, e.g., Culture and Negotiation (Guy Faure & Jeffery Z. Rubin eds., 1993).