Nodding Along or Fighting for 'Us': Do Conflict Management Style and Propensity to Initiate Negotiations Influence Group Identification and Effectiveness?

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The impact individual differences have on social interactions such as negotiations and group processes has been largely discounted and doubted by scholars in recent years (e.g., Bazerman, Curhan, Moore, & Valley, 2000; Davis-Blake & Pfeffer, 1989). For example, negotiation researchers have consistently concluded that individual difference variables such as cognitive ability and conscientiousness, which are proved to be highly valid of work performance in general (Barrick & Mount, 1991; Schmidt & Hunter, 1998), have literally no impact on negotiated outcomes (Bazerman et al., 2000; Thompson, 1998; Thompson, 1990). However, others have found that cognitive ability and personality traits such as extraversion do have an impact on work team effectiveness (e.g., Barrick, Stewart, Neubert, & Mount, 1998; Barry & Stewart, 1997) despite the fact that the effective sizes of them are generally small. Given the inconsistency among these conclusions, we believe that further investigation is necessary and propose to test a new set of individual differences variables which suggests that people vary in their interaction with others. In our study, instead of focusing on the personality traits one may possess, we examine the impact of interpersonal styles (i.e., variations in stable preferences in dealing with social situations) on group outcomes.