Deadline benefit

From OptimalScience
  • Two experiments which studied the actual as well as the predicted outcomes of two negotiations conducted under time pressure demonstrate the benefits of deadlines[1]:
    • Although the participants were concerned that these deadlines would hurt the outcomes, moderate deadlines compelled the negotiators to strike a deal more quickly because more time would cost them.
    • The study suggests that the participants’ anxious concerns may have stemmed from egocentric and oversimplified processes of prediction which primarily focus upon the impact of situation constraints on the self, and ignore or oversimplify their impact on others.
    • It should also be noted that in negotiations, individuals generally see their interests as opposing those of others’, and consequently, the impact of the time constraints as perceived by the participants herein may have been influenced by the nature of the experiment (viz, the negotiations). Hence, this study remains more applicable to situations characterized by implicit competition.

Contributors

Ayesh Perera