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Shaping cooperation behavior: The role of accessibility experiences and uncertainty
Author(s) -
Müller Patrick A.,
Greifeneder Rainer,
Stahlberg Dagmar,
van den Bos Kees,
Bless Herbert
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
european journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.609
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1099-0992
pISSN - 0046-2772
DOI - 10.1002/ejsp.632
Subject(s) - salience (neuroscience) , negotiation , psychology , certainty , social psychology , context (archaeology) , cognitive psychology , political science , epistemology , paleontology , philosophy , law , biology
Abstract The present research investigates the influence on cooperative behavior of accessibility experiences associated with the retrieval of fairness‐relevant information from memory. We argue that the decision whether to cooperate in negotiations depends not only on information about the appropriateness of the negotiation procedure, but also on the experience of how difficult or easy it is to come up with this information. Supporting this hypothesis, it is shown that in the context of a bargaining experiment, participants' experiences of ease or difficulty in retrieving unfair aspects of the respective negotiation procedure strongly influence their cooperation behavior. In addition, we hypothesize and empirically substantiate that the influence of accessibility experiences on cooperation behavior occurs particularly in situations of certainty salience. Implications for future research on cooperation and on accessibility experiences are discussed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.