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Dr. Marco Schauer

21335 Lüneburg, Universitätsallee 1, C11.202b
Fon +49.4131.677-1650, marco.schauer@leuphana.de
Research associate, Professorship of Social-, Organizational and Political Psychology, especially empirical Negotiation Research

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Vita

As a Post-Doc and research fellow within the Institute of Sustainability Psychology in the Negotiation Research Group (NRG) of the Social and Political Psychology Department (SPP), Marco Schauer is particularly interested in the role of transformative negotiations in achieving sustainability goals. While Marco has investigated multi-dimensional framing possibilities to increase pro-environmental individual decision-making in his Master Thesis, he is now investigating the dilemma of how benefits and burdens are balanced across utility dimensions (e.g., economic and environmental) in transformative joint decision making. In a second line of research, Marco explores the role of uncertainty (of e.g., negotiation issues, issue consequences or external influences) in transformative negotiations. Through investigating core characteristics of sustainability related negotiations (i.e., multi-dimensionality and uncertainty), Marco aims not only at understanding the psychological processes that impede societal transformation towards a more sustainable future, but further to provide practitioners with possibilities to overcome them.

Publications

Journal contributions

  1. Playing it Safe: Negotiators Avoid Uncertainty and Reach Safer, But Less Integrative Agreements
    Marco Schauer (Author) , Johann M. Majer (Author) , Roman Trötschel (Author) , Caroline Heydenbluth (Author) , 01.07.2026 , in: Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 125 , 33 p.

    Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review

  2. Nine Degrees of Uncertainty in Negotiations
    Marco Schauer (Author) , Johann M. Majer (Author) , Roman Trötschel (Author) , 01.05.2023 , in: Negotiation Journal, 39, 2 , p. 207-228 , 22 p.

    Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review

View all publications

Activities

  1. A novel negotiation paradigm that captures multi-dimensional sustainability conflicts
    Marco Schauer (Speaker)
    →

    Activity: Conference Presentations › Research

  2. Negotiators Facing Externalities: An Experimental Investigation Into Negotiators’ Balancing of Multiple Conflicts of Interests
    Marco Schauer (Speaker)

    Activity: Conference Presentations › Research

  3. Negotiating Sustainability Transformations [Symposium]
    Marco Schauer (Speaker)

    Activity: Conference Presentations › Research

  4. The Effects of Outcome Uncertainty on Negotiators Facing Externalities
    Marco Schauer (Speaker)

    Activity: Conference Presentations › Research

  5. Negotiators Facing Externalities
    Marco Schauer (Speaker)

    Activity: Conference Presentations › Research

View all activities

Press / Media

Courses

Applications from Organizational and Political Psychology: Managing and Negotiating Sustainability Conflicts (S) - Group 2
Marco Schauer, Hong Zhang
The course deals with psychological processes in political negotiations in the context of ecological, economic, or societal transformations (i.e., transformation negotiations). Transformation negotiations can be defined as joint and interactive decision-making processes aimed at solving present and future social conflicts arising from economic, ecological, societal, or cultural transitions. Transformation negotiations seek to promote sustainable development through (a) incorporating interests across multiple outcome levels such as economic, ecological, and social levels, (b) integrating multilateral interests of parties at and beyond the negotiation table, and (c) balancing short-term and long-term consequences across a prolonged time period. Accordingly, transformation negotiations have the object of solving conflicts on multiple dimensions to promote interlocal, intersectional, and intergenerational justice.

From a psychological standpoint, negotiating transformation is particularly challenging as it evokes various social conflicts at different levels (e.g.,intrapersonal, interpersonal, intragroup, and intergroup conflicts) and thus raises cognitive demands. Under this circumstance, negotiators need to make tradeoffs across various outcome dimensions (e.g., economic, ecologic, and social outcomes). They must take external parties’ interests into consideration and need to balance immediate and future consequences resulting from their negotiated agreements. In sum, parties in transformation negotiations must not only solve their social conflicts at the table but must also reconcile various types of other conflicts beyond the table (e.g., conflicts between present and future generations, conflicts being present vs. absent from the table, conflicts across various outcome dimensions such ecological vs. economic outcomes). Accordingly, sustainable conflict solutions through negotiations can only be achieved when negotiators take all “externalities” arising from their agreements into account.

The course ‘Managing and Negotiating Sustainability Conflicts’ will focus on psychological drivers and barriers in transformation negotiations in the context of political decision-making. Specifically, the course will deal with biased perceptions, erroneous beliefs, or self-defensive cognitions that hinder the achievement of sustainable agreements. Beneficial psychological drivers in transformation negotiations such as perspective taking, accountability beliefs, or shared cognition will also be discussed and addressed in the course. Further, from a motivational perspective, the course will deal with the impact of competitive versus cooperative negotiation strategies aimed at the transition towards sustainability (e.g., logrolling, expanding the pie, collectivizing vs. threating, contending, bluffing). Finally, from a group research perspective, the effect of social identification (individual vs. group identification), group processes (group losses vs. gains), and group representation (representatives vs. constituency) will be examined. The acquired knowledge from the course will be applied to real-world examples of political negotiations involving economic, ecological, societal, or cultural issues aimed at the transition towards sustainability.

Next appointment:
Thursday, 2026-10-15 at 08:15
Room: C 9.102 Seminarraum
Applications from Organizational and Political Psychology: Managing and Negotiating Sustainability Conflicts - Group 1
Marco Schauer, Hong Zhang
The course deals with psychological processes in political negotiations in the context of ecological, economic, or societal transformations (i.e., transformation negotiations). Transformation negotiations can be defined as joint and interactive decision-making processes aimed at solving present and future social conflicts arising from economic, ecological, societal, or cultural transitions. Transformation negotiations seek to promote sustainable development through (a) incorporating interests across multiple outcome levels such as economic, ecological, and social levels, (b) integrating multilateral interests of parties at and beyond the negotiation table, and (c) balancing short-term and long-term consequences across a prolonged time period. Accordingly, transformation negotiations have the object of solving conflicts on multiple dimensions to promote interlocal, intersectional, and intergenerational justice.

From a psychological standpoint, negotiating transformation is particularly challenging as it evokes various social conflicts at different levels (e.g.,intrapersonal, interpersonal, intragroup, and intergroup conflicts) and thus raises cognitive demands. Under this circumstance, negotiators need to make tradeoffs across various outcome dimensions (e.g., economic, ecologic, and social outcomes). They must take external parties’ interests into consideration and need to balance immediate and future consequences resulting from their negotiated agreements. In sum, parties in transformation negotiations must not only solve their social conflicts at the table but must also reconcile various types of other conflicts beyond the table (e.g., conflicts between present and future generations, conflicts being present vs. absent from the table, conflicts across various outcome dimensions such ecological vs. economic outcomes). Accordingly, sustainable conflict solutions through negotiations can only be achieved when negotiators take all “externalities” arising from their agreements into account.

The course ‘Managing and Negotiating Sustainability Conflicts’ will focus on psychological drivers and barriers in transformation negotiations in the context of political decision-making. Specifically, the course will deal with biased perceptions, erroneous beliefs, or self-defensive cognitions that hinder the achievement of sustainable agreements. Beneficial psychological drivers in transformation negotiations such as perspective taking, accountability beliefs, or shared cognition will also be discussed and addressed in the course. Further, from a motivational perspective, the course will deal with the impact of competitive versus cooperative negotiation strategies aimed at the transition towards sustainability (e.g., logrolling, expanding the pie, collectivizing vs. threating, contending, bluffing). Finally, from a group research perspective, the effect of social identification (individual vs. group identification), group processes (group losses vs. gains), and group representation (representatives vs. constituency) will be examined. The acquired knowledge from the course will be applied to real-world examples of political negotiations involving economic, ecological, societal, or cultural issues aimed at the transition towards sustainability.

Next appointment:
Thursday, 2026-10-15 at 08:15
Room: C 9.102 Seminarraum
Seminar Social Psychology A
Marco Schauer
Next appointment:
Thursday, 2026-10-15 at 10:15
Room: C 12.002 Seminarraum
Seminar Social Psychology B
Marco Schauer
Next appointment:
Thursday, 2026-10-22 at 10:15
Room: C 12.002 Seminarraum