Value Differences and Conflict Resolution: Familiarity or Liking?

Effects of familiarity and liking on negotiating perceptions and behaviors are explored in two experiments, one focusing on prenegotiation expectations and perceptions (experiment 1), the other on negotiation processes and outcomes (experiment 2). Both experiments were embedded in the context of a simulation of conflict between groups resembling the Greek and Turkish communities in Cyprus. Results obtained in the two experiments showed different effects for the familiarity and liking variables: Analytically distinct effects for these variables on prenegotiation perceptions contrasted with the combined effects on negotiating behavior and postnegotiation perceptions. In experiment 1, liking influenced expected movement from initial positions, perceptions of the opponent, and types of strategies prepared for the negotiation; familiarity had its primary impact on perceptions of the situation as being conducive to agreement. Results of experiment 2 showed that reducing either liking or familiarity served to reduce willingness to reach compromise agreements, whether actual or desired. These results suggest that the positive effects obtained for a facilitation condition reported in an earlier study by Druckman, Broome, and Korper (1988) may have been due to the combination of familiarity and liking produced by the experimental manipulation. Implications of the results obtained in both experiments are discussed in terms of changing expectations and uncertainty reduction. Further analyses of negotiating process dynamics would elucidate the difference between reaching agreements in the short run and developing relationships between groups over the long term.