Toward a better understanding of egocentric fairness judgments in negotiation

In previous experiments where negotiators' fairness judgments have been found to be egocentrically biased, it is possible that the observed bias was caused largely by selective encoding of the background information given to negotiators. The extent to which egocentric fairness judgments were caused by selective encoding, however, cannot be determined from those experiments. In the present study, we tested for the effects of selective encoding by varying the point in time that negotiators learned their role in a simulated wage dispute. Results indicated that, while judgments of a fair settlement point were the most egocentric under conditions that allowed for selective encoding, these conditions were not necessary for the bias to occur; there was a significant degree of egocentric bias even when there was no possibility of selective encoding. Implications of these results for both research and practice are discussed.