The effect of a group's experience of negotiation on the conformity of the group's collective memory in a dyadic negotiation situation

Sammanfattning: This thesis is an inductive study of how collective memory in dyadic i.e. two-party negotiation is affected by the negotiating group's experience of negotiation. The primary question is: do similarities in negotiators' collective experiences i.e. their knowledge base and expertise about negotiation affect the conformity of the group's collective memory of a negotiation situation? In other words, this study seeks an answer to if a group of experienced negotiators recollects a negotiation situation and outcome more alike than non-experienced negotiators. The participants of three different professional groups were first interviewed to assess the group's level of experience. The three groups, with three to four participants in each, engaged in a role-play, specially designed for this study. A questionnaire was used to collect data on the conformity of the participants' recollection of the negotiation. The results revealed that a negotiating group's similar experience level did not coincide with a high conformity of the recollected negotiation. The methodological procedure met the demands of this work, but the process should be developed to allow for less time consuming research on several groups.