Exploring the Relationships between the Big Five Personality Factors, Conflict Styles, and Bargaining Behaviors

The present study examines the relationship of individual differences in personality to one's preferences for conflict handling, and further to bargaining behaviors in a negotiation setting. The investigation offers a conceptual foundation for exploring the relationship between the Big Five personality factors, conflict styles, and behavioral patterns in business negotiation, then using student sample in a simulated business negotiation to empirically test the hypothesized relationships. Results show that extraversion is positively related to confrontational conflict styles and negatively to non-confrontational styles, while agreeableness is positively related to non-confrontational styles but negatively to confrontational styles. Further, neuroticism is found to negatively influence compromising style. Moreover, competing, collaborating, and avoiding are three styles that predict bargaining behaviors and further to negotiation outcomes. Implications are also discussed, which concludes this paper.

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