On negotiating - Conservatives get it right

Experimenters discover that empathy isn't as useful as understanding - at least if you're trying to achieve a win-win outcome.

Subjects were instructed to take one of three approaches:

• Get inside the other person's head - try to understand what the other party is thinking; what is his interest and purpose?
  
• Get inside the other person's emotions - try to understand what the other party might be feeling; what emotion is he likely experiencing?
  
• No guidance (the control group)

To the surprise of few conservatives and the likely bafflement of most squishy elite liberals, the thinking (or "perspective-taking") strategy outperformed the feeling (or "empathy") strategy.

In an experiment between a buyer and seller of a business, the perspective-takers were half-again more likely (76% vs 54%) than the empathizers to reach a deal.

In a further experiment between a job-seeker and a recruiter, the perspective-takers were twice as likely (40% vs 22%) than the empathizers to reach a win-win deal.

Worse, the empathizers actually under-performed even the control group when it came to protecting their own interests.

...[I]n terms of an individual gain, the perspective-taking recruiters did far better—pushing the empathetic recruiters into last place.

What this shows is that even with one negotiator having perspective-taking abilities it can produce a better overall outcome for both sides. "You want to understand what the other side's interests are, but you do not want to sacrifice your own interests," says Dr Adam Galinksy of Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, Illinois. "A large amount of empathy can actually impair the ability of people to reach a creative deal."

I believe that's a continuing problem for liberal-socialist, empathy based approaches to public policy - especially foreign policy. Those who take an emotion-based approach - even those who aren't blame-America-first types - still risk sacrificing America's interests.