{"id":13554,"date":"2013-06-08T14:44:01","date_gmt":"2013-06-08T18:44:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/?p=13554"},"modified":"2013-06-10T00:20:08","modified_gmt":"2013-06-10T04:20:08","slug":"study-suggests-that-asking-for-a-precise-number-during-negotiations-can-give-you-the-upper-hand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/2013\/06\/study-suggests-that-asking-for-a-precise-number-during-negotiations-can-give-you-the-upper-hand\/","title":{"rendered":"Study suggests that asking for a precise number during negotiations can give you the upper hand"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From the Columbia Business School press release via EurekAlert!:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright\" alt=\"job interview\" src=\"http:\/\/www.therapytoronto.ca\/images\/blogpics\/job_interview.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/>With so much on the line for job seekers in this difficult economic climate, <strong>a lot of new hires might be wondering how \u2014 or whether at all \u2014 to negotiate salary when offered a new position<\/strong>. A recently published study on the art of negotiation by two professors at Columbia Business School could help these new hires \u2014 and all negotiators \u2014 seal a stronger deal than before.<\/p>\n<p>Research conducted by Professors Malia Mason and Daniel Ames and doctoral students Alice Lee and Elizabeth Wiley finds that <strong>asking for a specific and precise dollar amount versus a rounded-off dollar amount can give you the upper hand during any negotiation over a quantity<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What we discovered is there is a big difference in what most people think is a good strategy when negotiating and what research shows is a good strategy,&#8221; said Professor Mason. &#8220;<strong>Negotiators should remember that in this case, zero&#8217;s really do add nothing to the bargaining table<\/strong>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The research, forthcoming in the <i>Journal of Experimental Social Psychology<\/i>, looks at the two-way flow of communication between 1,254 fictitious negotiators.<\/p>\n<p>The negotiators were placed in everyday scenarios such as buying jewelry or negotiating the sale of a used car. <strong>Some people were asked to make an opening offer using a rounded-off dollar amount, while other people were asked to use a precise dollar amount<\/strong>; let&#8217;s say for example $5,000 vs. $5,015.<\/p>\n<p>The results showed that overall, people making an offer using a precise dollar amount such as $5,015 versus a rounded-off dollar amount such as $5,000 <strong>were perceived to be more informed about the true value of the offer being negotiated<\/strong>. This perception, in turn, led precise-offer recipients to concede more value to their counterpart.<\/p>\n<p>In their negotiation scenarios, the professors concluded the person making a precise offer is successfully giving the illusion they have done their homework. When perceived as better informed, the person on the opposite end believes there is less room to negotiate.<\/p>\n<p>To determine whether people make round offers more often than not, the researchers looked at the real estate market. Research done on Zillow, the online real estate marketplace, showed <strong>the overwhelming majority of displayed prices were rounded numbers, and that only two percent of people listed their homes with precise dollar amounts<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The practical application of these findings \u2013 signaling that you are informed and using a precise number \u2013 can be used in any negotiation situation to imply you&#8217;ve done your homework,&#8221; Mason concluded.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the Columbia Business School press release via EurekAlert!: With so much on the line for job seekers in this difficult economic climate, a lot of new hires might be&#8230; <a class=\"read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/2013\/06\/study-suggests-that-asking-for-a-precise-number-during-negotiations-can-give-you-the-upper-hand\/\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60,8],"tags":[87,12,102],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13554"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13554"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14068,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13554\/revisions\/14068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}