“Nothing is in the mind that would not have been in perception before,” says an Arab proverb. Listening and observing carefully in negotiations is a critical skill for success. It makes the difference between a right and a wrong decision and leads to a good or bad negotiation result. But is everything really the way we “perceive” it? Or are we subject to distortions and manipulations? As psychologists and behavioral economists have found out in numerous studies, cognitive distortions impair our ability to make good and well-founded judgments. Even if we supposedly rationally enter into a negotiation, research shows that human decisions tend to be flawed and biased.
