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Managing the Goal‐Setting Paradox: How to Get Better Results from High Goals and Be Happy
Author(s) -
Freshman Clark,
Guthrie Chris
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
negotiation journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.238
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1571-9979
pISSN - 0748-4526
DOI - 10.1111/j.1571-9979.2009.00221.x
Subject(s) - negotiation , set (abstract data type) , psychology , goal setting , social psychology , mindfulness , computer science , political science , law , psychotherapist , programming language
Many negotiation teachers share the same tip early on: negotiators who set higher goals “do better.” It turns out that one of the most empirically supported “truths” about negotiation comes with a big “but.” Negotiators who set higher goals are likely to feel worse. In other words, negotiators who set optimistic goals are likely to obtain better objective outcomes but worse subjective outcomes. We call this empirical finding the “goal‐setting paradox.” This article considers sources of and explanations for the goal‐setting paradox and suggests how negotiators and negotiation teachers may better manage this paradox through mindfulness and other techniques.