Reactive Devaluation

Hi,

This week’s email is about a common pitfall in negotiations and similar interactions.

The information here is from my new article on the topic.

Here are the key practical points you should know:

• Reactive devaluation is a cognitive bias that causes people to devalue things that are offered to them, especially if offered by someone they perceive negatively.

• For example, reactive devaluation can cause someone to wrongly dismiss a good business proposal as bad, just because they dislike the person who offered it.

• Reactive devaluation can lead to rejection of valuable offers, breakdown of negotiations, and serious social conflicts.

• To reduce reactive devaluation, you can focus on the proposal (rather than the party who made it), pretend that someone else made the proposal, and highlight the benefits of the proposal alongside the downsides of devaluing it reactively.

• You can also reduce reactive devaluation in other ways, including when making offers to others, by using techniques like going through a third-party mediator or explicitly listing the goals of both sides in advance.

As always, I'm happy to hear your thoughts.

Have a great week,
Itamar