Trust and Deception in Negotiation: Culturally Divergent Effects

We investigate how trust reduces the tendency to use deception in negotiations from a culturally contextual perspective. We find culturally divergent patterns across Chinese and American negotiators. Specifically, for Chinese negotiators, cognition-based trust decreases the approval of using negative emotional and informational deception, whereas affect-based trust increases the approval of using informational deception. For American negotiators, affect-based trust decreases the approval of using negative emotional deception. We discuss theoretical and practical implications on the need for culturally specific strategies in managing deceptions in negotiations.