Face Threat in Honor Culture Negotiations: Impact on Process, Communication and Outcome

In honor societies, protection of one’s face or individual’s claimed sense of positive image is of utmost importance. Negotiation is a situation prone to face threat because of its competitive nature. This may have a destructive effect on the interaction. Building on face theory, we tested whether negotiators from honor cultures experience face threat by measuring competitive behavior and communication sensitivity. We also tested whether face threat affects communication exchange and outcome by measuring quality of communication and economic gain. In three studies with dyadic negotiations, we show that honor culture negotiators are likely to experience more face threat than non-honor culture negotiators. In Study 1, Israeli (honor) negotiators were more competitive and had lower joint gains than Americans (non-honor). In Study 2, coded nonverbal cues showed that Iranian (honor) negotiators had lower quality of communication (i.e. lower effectiveness in fostering joint understanding among communicators) than Canadians (non-honor). Study 3 extended our previous effects to South-Western Asians (honor) and Canadians (non-honor), by showing that negative interpretation of a counterpart’s communication was linked to lower negotiation outcomes, mediated by quality of communication. Our findings unpack the role of face threat among honor culture negotiations.