Trust Building via Negotiation: Immediate versus Lingering Effects of General Trust and Negotiator Satisfaction

Building long-term trustful relationships with counterparts is a crucial objective for many negotiators. Despite numerous “snapshot” trust studies, little is known about the dynamics of trust change as the outcome in the negotiation context. In this study, we examined how negotiators’ general trust and different types of satisfaction affect their trust change toward counterparts immediately as well as lingeringly. We conducted a negotiation simulation with 260 participants, measuring their trust one week before, immediately after, and one week after the negotiation. We found that negotiators’ general trust and outcome satisfaction were positively associated with their trust change immediately after the negotiation. In addition, negotiators’ relationship satisfaction was positively associated with their trust change over the following week. The research findings achieve a comprehensive and dynamic understanding of trust building in negotiations.