Social Intuition

Abstract

To be truly effective, negotiators must try to influence their counterparts not only through substantive offers, but also through engaging their attitudes and thinking patterns. This need has been analyzed (and, increasingly, taught) mostly in terms of empathy. Here, the authors suggest that empathy is separate from a broader construct, which they term social intuition. This skill, they content, gives a negotiator the ability to have an impact on the entire negotiation interaction. Yet it requires attention not only to developing empathy, but also nonverbal communication abilities, as well as several other elements. In an effort to make a difficult skill more accessible, they suggest diving its learning into three elements, structured quire differently from previous discussions: understanding first the self, then the other, and then the elements of “bridging” between these two.

Keywords: negotiation, dispute resolution, conflict management, conflict resolution, nonverbal communication