Active Listening in Integrative Negotiation

Active listening is a promising communication technique to positively affect interactions and communication outcomes. However, theoretical propositions regarding its direct effects on interactions have rarely been empirically investigated. In the present research, we studied the role of naturally occurring active listening in the context of videotaped and coded integrative negotiations. Lag sequential analyses of 48 negotiations with 17,120 thought units show that active listening follows offers that comprise two or more issues (i.e., multi-issue offers) above chance level. These multi-issue offer—active listening patterns in turn promoted integrative statements (e.g., further multi-issue offers) and inhibited distributive statements (e.g., single-issue offers). Moreover, multi-issue offer—active listening patterns (and neither multi-issue offers nor active listening alone) also positively related to the achieved joint economic outcomes in the negotiation. Contrary to common expectations, we did not find evidence that active listening promotes the understanding of the other party or rapport between negotiators.