It’s an article of faith in negotiation that expanding the pie of value enhances the parties’ welfare. When there’s only one issue on the bargaining table, the size of the pie is fixed. If one party gets more, the other party gets less. But when multiple issues exist, negotiators can expand the size of the pie by engaging in give-and-take trading that leaves everyone better off. The more issues that are to trade, it would seem, the happier negotiators should be.

Work by Charles Naquin, who teaches at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, challenges this conventional wisdow. Naquin found that subjects who negotiated a four-issue simulation were significantly more satisfied with their outcomes than those who worked with eight issues. Although the latter group created demonstrably more value, they were less pleased with their results.