Abstract : We conducted 2 experiments (N = 180 participants in Study 1 and N = 102 in Study 2) to examine the effect of imitation shown by a mediator towards negotiators who were on opposing sides in regard to a financial decision being made by a fictitious company. Contrary to what was expected, data in the first study showed that, when the mediator imitated the negotiator during the first 5 minutes of an interview, this was insufficient to predispose negotiators to be more likely to reach an agreement with one another. The results in the second study showed that imitation conducted over a longer time and repeated more often during negotiations predisposed opposing parties to be more likely to agree with one another. Applications and limitations of these studies are discussed.
Jacques Fischer-Lokou, Nicolas Guéguen, Lubomir Lamy, Angélique Martin, Andrea Bullock. Imitation in Mediation: Effects of the Duration of Mimicry on Reaching Agreement. Social behavior and personality, Society for Personality Research, 2014, 42 (2), pp.189 - 195. ⟨10.2224/sbp.2014.42.2.189⟩. ⟨hal-01764944⟩
