Past research and theory suggest that inter-cultural negotiations generate lower joint gains than within-culture negotiations because of cultural and strategic misalignments between the parties.  The misalignments between inter-cultural negotiators may be due to two factors: social distance and lack of social awareness.  Social distance refers to the degree of “sympathetic understanding” between two parties. Inter-cultural negotiators can differ in their values, norms, beliefs, concept of negotiation (e.g. integrative versus distributive), and outcome orientation (e.g. relational versus economic) and hence experience greater social distance from one another compared to intra-cultural negotiators.  In addition, differences in social awareness – the degree of consciousness of and attention to the other person or party – can also make it difficult for inter-cultural negotiators to develop positive interpersonal perceptions, build trust and engage in reciprocity. 

In an attempt to better understand how to bridge social distance and promote reciprocity between intercultural-negotiators, Kern and colleagues (2012) examined the usage of language and its effect on negotiation outcomes.  They found that inter-cultural negotiators who used the pronoun “you” more frequently to close social distance were able to attain higher joint gains than intra-cultural negotiators.  When the pronoun “you” was used to either ask and show insight into the other’s preferences and priorities (but not when it was used due to grammatical necessity or in factual statements not related to the issues), it reflected an awareness of the distinctiveness of the other person and also social attentiveness toward the other.  In other words, “you” signaled an other-focused orientation and demonstrated that the speaker was trying to take into account the other party’s perspective.  Because intra-cultural negotiators were less concerned with closing social distance between the parties compared to inter-cultural negotiators, they used “you” less frequently and attained lower joint gains than inter-cultural negotiators.

Such findings suggest that increasing the use of the pronoun “you” in inter-cultural negotiations to show social awareness towards the other party and decrease social distance can lead to higher joint gains and more successful negotiations.