When happiness pays in negotiation (original) (raw)
The Interpersonal Effects of Anger and Happiness in Negotiations
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2004
Three experiments investigated the interpersonal effects of anger and happiness in negotiations. In the course of a computer-mediated negotiation, participants received information about the emotional state (anger, happiness, or none) of their opponent. Consistent with a strategic-choice perspective, Experiment 1 showed that participants conceded more to an angry opponent than to a happy one. Experiment 2 showed that this effect was caused by tracking-participants used the emotion information to infer the other's limit, and they adjusted their demands accordingly. However, this effect was absent when the other made large concessions. Experiment 3 examined the interplay between experienced and communicated emotion and showed that angry communications (unlike happy ones) induced fear and thereby mitigated the effect of the opponent's experienced emotion. These results suggest that negotiators are especially influenced by their opponent's emotions when they are motivated and able to consider them.
When happiness pays in negotiation : tthe interpersonal effects of 'exit option': Directed emotions
Mind and Society, 2009
Previous research on the interpersonal effects of emotions in negotiation suggested that bargainers obtain higher outcomes expressing anger, when it is not directed against the counterpart as a person and it is perceived as appropriate. Instead, other studies indicated that successful negotiators express positive emotions. To reconcile this inconsistency, we propose that the direction of the effects of emotions depends on their perceived target, that is, whether the negotiators' emotions are directed toward their opponent's proposals or toward their own 'exit option'. An ultimatum game scenario experiment showed that negotiators who express positive emotion rather than negative, in addition to benefits in terms of relationship fortification, received better offers when participants perceived the negotiators' emotions directed toward their own 'exit option'. These findings indicate that positive emotions may signal the availability of better 'exit option', suggesting that happiness expressions can be strategically used to maximize both material and relational outcomes.
The Interpersonal Effects of Anger and Happiness on Negotiation Behavior and Outcomes
IACM 15th Annual Conference, 2003
Abstract: How do emotions affect the opponent's behavior in a negotiation? Two experiments explored the interpersonal effects of anger and happiness. In Study 1 participants received information about the emotion (anger vs. happiness vs. no emotion) of their (fake) opponent. Participants with an angry opponent made lower demands and larger concessions than did participants with a happy opponent, those with a non-emotional opponent falling in between. Furthermore, the opponent's emotions induced similar ...
With Feeling: How Emotions Shape Negotiation
Negotiation Journal
Recognition of the role played by emotions in negotiation is growing. This article synthesizes current research around four broad themes: moves and exchanges, information processing, social interaction, and context. The authors' review reveals that much of the research on this topic has focused on two key emotions, anger and happiness. More recently, negotiators have turned to other emotions such as guilt and disappointment, demonstrating that not all negative emotions have the same consequences, or activate the same regions of the brain. Focusing on social interaction, the authors note that negotiators may influence each others' emotions: whether negotiators converge to anger or happiness has different consequences for agreement. Researchers have broadened their examination of emotion by considering how external factors such as power, the number of negotiators, culture, and gender influence the impact of emotional expression. The authors also consider the function and impac...
Get mad and get more than even: When and why anger expression is effective in negotiations
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2006
We hypothesized that anger expressions increase expressers' ability to claim value in negotiations, but only when the recipients of these expressions have poor alternatives. This eVect occurs because anger expression communicates toughness, and only recipients who have poor alternatives are aVected by the toughness of their counterpart. In Experiment 1, participants read a scenario about a negotiator who either was angry or not. In Experiment 2, dyads negotiated face-to-face after one negotiator within each dyad was advised to show either anger or no emotion. In both studies, recipients of anger expressions who had poor alternatives conceded more. Experiment 2 also provided evidence that toughness ascribed to the expresser mediated the eVect of anger expression on claiming value.
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2006
In a series of laboratory experiments, we tested the inXuence of strategically displaying positive, negative, and neutral emotions on negotiation outcomes. In Experiment 1, a face-to-face dispute simulation, negotiators who displayed positive emotion, in contrast to negative or neutral emotions, were more likely to incorporate a future business relationship in the negotiated contract. In Experiment 2, an ultimatum setting, managers strategically displaying positive emotion were more likely to close a deal. This eVect was mediated by negotiators' willingness to pay more to a negotiator strategically displaying positive versus negative emotions. In Experiment 3, display of positive emotion was a more eVective strategy for gaining concessions from the other party in a distributive setting. Negotiators made more extreme demands when facing a negotiator strategically displaying negative, rather than positive or neutral, emotions. Implications for strategic display of emotion in negotiations are discussed.
European Journal of Social Psychology, 2006
This paper focuses on the interactive effects of power and emotion in negotiation. Previous research has shown that negotiators concede more to angry opponents than to happy ones, and that power influences the amount of attention that is devoted to the social environment. Integrating these two lines of inquiry, we predicted that low-power negotiators would be influenced by their opponent's emotions (conceding more to an angry opponent than to a happy one), whereas high-power negotiators would not. Five studies using different methods (an experiment, a field simulation, and three scenario studies), different samples (students, general population, managers), and different operationalisations of power (BATNA, number of alternatives, legitimacy, support) support this hypothesis. The results are discussed in terms of a motivated information processing model of the interpersonal effects of emotions in negotiations.
British Journal of Social Psychology, 2012
Emotions play an important role in conflict resolution. Past work has found that negotiators tend to concede when confronted with anger. We argue and show that this effect occurs in conflicts about interests, but not in conflicts about values. In value conflicts that are more closely tied to a person's values, norms, and identity, expressions of anger are likely to backfire. We demonstrate that people deem expressions of anger more unfair in value conflicts than in interest conflicts (Study 1) and that they are more likely to engage in retaliatory and escalatory behaviours when confronted with an angry reaction in the context of a value issue rather than an interest issue (Study 2).
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2010
We examine how emotion (anger and happiness) affects value claiming and creation in a dyadic negotiation between parties with unequal power. Using a new statistical technique that analyzes individual data while controlling for dyad-level dependence, we demonstrate that anger is helpful for powerful negotiators. They feel more focused and assertive, and claim more value; the effects are intrapersonal, insofar as the powerful negotiator responds to his or her own emotional state and not to the emotional state of the counterpart. On the other hand, effects of emotion are generally not intrapersonal for lowpower negotiators: these negotiators do not respond to their own emotions but can be affected by those of a powerful counterpart. They lose focus and yield value. Somewhat surprisingly, the presence of anger in the dyad appears to foster greater value creation, particularly when the powerful party is angry. Implications for the negotiation and power literatures are discussed.
Journal of Personality …, 2008
Previous research on the communication of emotions suggested that bargainers obtain higher outcomes if they communicate anger than if they communicate happiness, because anger signals higher limits which in turn leads opponents to give in. Building on a social functional account of communicated emotions, we demonstrate that the behavioral consequences of communicated anger strongly depend on structural characteristics of the bargaining situation. The results of three experimental studies on ultimatum bargaining corroborate the notion that communicated anger signals higher limits, and that emotion effects are contingent on bargainers' expectation that low offers will be rejected. The data also indicate, however, that communicating anger in bargaining may backfire. The findings suggest that bargainers who communicate anger may obtain lower outcomes (a) when their opponent has a possibility to deceive them during bargaining, and (b) when the consequences of rejecting their opponent's offer are low. Taken together, the current article reveals the boundary conditions of successful communication of anger in bargaining.
The Interpersonal Effects of Emotions in Negotiations: A Motivated Information Processing Approach
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2004
Three experiments tested a motivated information processing account of the interpersonal effects of anger and happiness in negotiations. In Experiment 1, participants received information about the opponent's emotion (anger, happiness, or none) in a computer-mediated negotiation. As predicted, they conceded more to an angry opponent than to a happy one (controls falling in between), but only when they had a low (rather than a high) need for cognitive closure. Experiment 2 similarly showed that participants were only affected by the other's emotion under low rather than high time pressure, because time pressure reduced their degree of information processing. Finally, Experiment 3 showed that negotiators were only influenced by their opponent's emotion if they had low (rather than high) power. These results support the motivated information processing model by showing that negotiators are only affected by their opponent's emotions if they are motivated to consider them.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2011
Does it help or hurt to communicate negative emotions in bargaining? In this article, we propose that behavioral effects are dependent on the type of negative emotion that is communicated and whether such emotions are directed at the offer or the person. We show that the two negative emotions anger and disappointment have opposing effects in negotiations: anger pays when it is directed at the offer, but disappointment pays when it is directed at the person. Offer-directed anger elicits higher offers than persondirected anger, because people infer higher limits from opponents who communicate offer-directed anger. Person-directed disappointment elicits higher offers in others than offer-directed disappointment, because it evokes higher feelings of guilt. Our findings thus show that the interpersonal effects of anger and disappointment in negotiation depend critically on the target of the emotion, and that their effects can be explained by different processes.
The Effects of Intrapersonal Anger and Its Regulation in Economic Bargaining
2012
Anger is a common cause of strained negotiations. This research investigated the effects of experiencing anger (Experiment 1) and regulating anger (Experiment 2) on ultimatum bargaining. Experiment 1 showed that relative to a control condition, angered participants proposed less fair offers and rejected more offers when bargaining with the person who angered them. Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1, and additionally showed that regulating anger via reappraisal and distraction both reduced anger. However, only reappraisal effectively reduced anger for the duration of the negotiation. Participants who reappraised proposed fairer offers than those in the distraction condition, but did not differ in offers accepted. This research may have implications for what emotion regulation strategy should be employed in economic bargaining. However, future research is required to determine the most effective timing and components of reappraisal for promoting beneficial outcomes in bargaining contexts.
Psychology
Negotiation, as a form of interpersonal interaction, is essential in any context as it is the means individuals use for managing conflict and accomplishing their objectives. The purpose of this article is to review the current negotiation literature and highlight the significance and pervasive effects of emotions in the negotiation or bargaining process and outcome. Although there has been a broad interest in the study of negotiation, research has mainly focused on the study of the cognitive and rational aspects of the negotiation process while its emotional aspects have been overlooked. Nevertheless, in the past few years, there has been an increasing realization that emotions play a crucial role in negotiation and therefore the study of emotions in negotiation has been embraced by both researchers and academics. This article is organized in three sections. In the first section, the fundamental principles of conflict resolution and negotiation are provided in order to facilitate the understanding of the mixed existing literature which leads to a chaos. In the second section, a historical perspective of negotiation is presented in order to shed light on its evolution over the years. In the third section, the role of emotions in negotiation is highlighted and an emphasis is put on the significance of positive emotions, in an attempt to outline how the discipline of positive psychology can meaningfully contribute to the negotiation field.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2013
On the basis of a social-functional approach to emotion, scholars have argued that expressing disappointment in negotiations communicates weakness, which may evoke exploitation. Yet, it is also argued that communicating disappointment serves as a call for help, which may elicit generous offers. Our goal was to resolve this apparent inconsistency. We develop the argument that communicating disappointment elicits generous offers when it evokes guilt in the target, but elicits low offers when it does not. In 4 experiments using both verbal (Experiments 1-3) and nonverbal (Experiment 4) emotion manipulations, we demonstrate that the interpersonal effects of disappointment depend on (a) the opponent's group membership and (b) the type of negotiation. When the expresser was an outgroup member and in representative negotiations (i.e., when disappointment did not evoke guilt), the weakness that disappointment communicated elicited lower offers. When the expresser was an ingroup member and in individual negotiations (i,e,, when disappointment did evoke guilt), the weakness that disappointment communicated elicited generous offers from participants. Thus, in contrast to the common belief that weakness is a liability in negotiations, expressing disappointment can be effective under particular circumstances. We discuss implications for theorizing about the social functions of emotions.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2011
Research on the interpersonal functions of emotions has focused primarily on steady-state emotion rather than on emotional transitions, the movement between emotion states. The authors examined the influence of emotional transitions on social interactions and found that emotional transitions led to consistently different outcomes than their corresponding steady-state emotions. Across 2 computer-mediated negotiations and a face-to-face negotiation, participants negotiating with partners who displayed a "becoming angry" (happy to angry) emotional transition accepted worse negotiation outcomes yet formed better relational impressions of their partners than participants negotiating with partners who displayed steady-state anger. This relationship was mediated through 2 mechanisms: attributional and emotional contagion processes. The "becoming happy" (angry to happy) emotional transition as compared with steady-state happiness was not significantly related to differences in negotiation outcomes but was significantly related to differences in relational impressions, where perceivers of the "becoming happy" emotional transition gave their partners lower relational impression ratings than perceivers of steady-state happiness.