Mediator behavior and interest: Effects on mediator and disputant perceptions
Conlon, Donald E.
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/19831
Description
Title
Mediator behavior and interest: Effects on mediator and disputant perceptions
Author(s)
Conlon, Donald E.
Issue Date
1989
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Porac, Joseph F.
Department of Study
Business Administration
Discipline
Business Administration
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Psychology, Social
Business Administration, Management
Psychology, Industrial
Language
eng
Abstract
Experimental research on mediation has largely ignored the impact that mediator behavior can have on mediator perceptions. In this study, a model of the mediation process is proposed which organizes past research on mediation, as well as highlights the potential importance of behavior in determining mediator perceptions. Two laboratory experiments were conducted. In Study 1, Carnevale's strategic choice model (Negotiation Journal, 2, 41-56, 1986) was used as an implicit theory of mediation to test the influence of mediator behavior and interest on mediator self-perceptions of concern and mediator perceptions of the likelihood of agreement. It was hypothesized that mediators with high interest, feeling greater pressure to justify their actions, should report perceptions of concern and likelihood of agreement that are more consistent with the Carnevale model than would mediators who did not feel such pressures to justify their actions. Subjects served as mediators in a simulated organizational dispute, and chose messages to send to disputants that were previously identified as representing one of the four strategies proposed by Carnevale (1986). In Study 2, subjects served as disputants, and received from their mediator messages representing one of the four strategies.
Results indicate that Carnevale's model of mediation was best supported when subjects were disputants who received a strategy, rather than mediators who sent the strategy. The results are consistent with attribution and self perception models which suggest that observers will interpret behaviors as stemming from internal dispositions of the actor, whereas the actor often interprets his or her own behavior as a function of external or uncontrollable forces.
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