OBS220: The Mind and Heart of the Negotiator

Chapter 6
Emotions are relatively fleeting states that are usually intense and often a result of a particular
experience. Moods are more chronic and more diffuse, meaning moods are usually not directed at
someone. Unlike emotions, such as anger, regret, relief, gratitude, moods are often classified as simply
being in a “good mood” or a “bad mood.” Emotions often follow a norm of reciprocity in negotiation.

Genuine vs Strategic Emotion

A key question when it comes to emotion at the bargaining table concerns whether emotions are
genuine (authentic; behavioral manifestations of felt emotions) or strategic (contrived; carefully
designed orchestration to take the counterparty off guard). Negotiators might respond very differently
to a counterparty who they see as either authentically angry or strategically angry.

As compared to deep anger (genuine emotion), surface-acting anger (strategic emotion) led to increased
demands and reduced trust. Deep-acting anger decreased the demands made by the counterparty; thus,
faking anger may be detrimental to conflict resolution.

A strategic flinch is a verbal or physical display of shock, disgust or disbelief made to an opening offer,
and negotiators who flinch claim more value than negotiators who don’t flinch.

It is important to draw a distinction between expressing emotion and feeling emotion. Even though a
negotiator may feel emotion, he or she may not express that emotion. Thus, another type of contrived
emotion is the deliberate attempt to conceal emotions. Feigning rapport with the counterparty is
especially useful for garnering concessions, as is feigning resentment. Elation or joy, however, is an
emotion that is best kept hidden from the counterparty.

Dialectical thinking refers to the ability to accept inconsistencies in behavior. The implication is that the
use of anger displays with counterparties low in dialectical thinking may have unintended, negative
effects.
Anger

Negotiators who express anger are often successful in eliciting concessions, but there are some
important considerations. Anger impairs negotiators’ goal attainment and results in less profitable
outcomes, and anger is often detrimental for the development of joint gains.

Anger is most effective in mixed-motive negotiations that involve both cooperation and competition.
When both parties are angry, cooperation decreases; cooperation is lowest when angry people interact
with other angry individuals.

Anger, power, and threats often go together in negotiation, but they have different effects. Negotiators
are more effective in extracting concessions from the counterparty if they make a threat as compared to
acting angry.

When negotiators use anger, the effectiveness of that emotion depends on how powerful the negotiator
is. Powerful negotiators feel more focused and assertive and claim more value when they are angry.
Low-power negotiators lose focus and yield value when they are angry. Displays of anger evoke a
complementary emotion (fear) when coming from a high-power negotiator but evoke a reciprocal
emotion (anger) when coming from a low-power negotiator.

The effects of emotion on negotiation success also depend on whether the emotion is integral (related
to the situation) or incidental (lacking a clear target in the situation). Incidental emotions from the past
can influence trust even more dramatically in an unrelated setting. The blowback effect refers to the
action–reaction cycle that results in genuine anger and diminishes trust in both the negotiator and
counterpart.

EASI Model

According to the Emotion as Social Information (EASI) model, displays of anger can lead to concessions
by the counterparty, but only under certain conditions. When anger provides information about the
negotiator’s limits it can motivate the counterparty to make concessions. However, this effect depends
on:
• The counterparty’s expectation that lows offers will be rejected.
• The negative consequences of rejecting the angry negotiator’s offer.
• The counterparty’s power.
• The object of the negotiator’s anger—the person or the behavior.
• Whether the counterparty views the anger as authentic.
• Whether the anger is expressed privately, not publicly.
• Whether the negotiation context is predominantly cooperative or competitive.

The impact of emotions on the larger organizational context depends on whether negotiators’
emotional expressions have symmetrical effects, such that positive expressions yield benefits for the
expresser; whereas negative expressions lead to poor outcomes; versus asymmetrical effects such that
negative emotions lead to economic benefits for the expresser, and positive emotions lead to negative
effects.
The motivations and goals of the negotiator also influence the degree to which they react to the
counterparty’s display of negative emotion. When expressing anger, negotiators should direct it to a
specific behavior rather than another person, thereby separating the people from the problem.

Disappointment

It may seem that expressing disappointment would communicate weakness; on the other hand, it may
invite the other party to help. People who are self-interested (pro-self) are more likely to concede to a
disappointed opponent as compared to pro-socials, because they see disappointment as a threat to
getting what they want. Communicating disappointment results in greater success when it evokes guilt
in the counterparty.

Sadness

Displays of sadness, helplessness, pouting, and hurt feelings also can be used to manipulate others.
Negotiators who can elicit sympathy from the counterparty can benefit economically. Sympathy appeals
improve negotiators’ performance more than rational appeals. Expressing sadness can also be effective
in eliciting concessions if a negotiator associates moral significance to the object of negotiation. When
high power negotiators use sympathy, they suffer a relational cost because their sympathy appeals are
seen as less appropriate, even manipulative.

Ambivalence (Having mixed feelings or contradictory ideas about something or someone)

Negotiators who express emotional ambivalence may pave the way toward the creation of joint gains.
Expressing ambivalence elicits inferences of submissiveness, thereby motivating a negotiator to create
more integrative agreements.

Positive Emotion

Good moods promote creative thinking, which in turn leads to innovative problem solving. Negotiators
who are in a positive mood uses more cooperative strategies, engage in more information exchange,
generate more alternatives, and use fewer contentious tactics than do negative or neutral-mood
negotiators.

Happiness

Happiness is an extreme positive emotion that might appear conducive for effective negotiation.
Negotiators who anticipate happiness are more likely to initiate negotiations and reach more successful
outcomes. Very happy people are perceived as more naïve than moderately happy negotiators and are
ultimately exploited in conflicts of interest and distributive negotiations.

Emotional Consistency

A key consideration concerns the consistency of emotions. Paradoxically, when negotiators exhibit
emotional inconsistency and unpredictability, they achieve more profitable outcomes for themselves.
Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the ability of people to understand emotions in themselves and others
and to use emotional knowledge to lead to positive outcomes. One aspect of emotional intelligence is
the ability to adapt. Conflict adaptivity is the capacity to respond to different conflict situations in
accordance with the demands of the situation. A negotiator’s conflict adaptivity is based on how they
adjust their strategy to changing demands of a conflict situation.

There are three basic dimensions of social relations that create the conflict stimulus field: the mix of goal
interdependence, the relative distribution of power and the degree of interdependence. At any moment in time, a
negotiator’s focus might be in each region of the conflict field. These different regions reflect distinct psychological
orientations (POs) to conflict including benevolence, dominance, support, appeasement, and autonomy.

The negotiation resilience inventory (NRI) predicts negotiators’ ability to respond to challenging
situations; NRI scores predict negotiators’ objective outcomes in mixed-motive business negotiations.
• Empathy toward the self.
• Empathy toward the other party.
• Social sensitivity.
• Self-improvement.
• Perception of meaning.

EQ and Negotiation Outcomes: People who are high in measured emotional intelligence experience
greater subjective outcomes in negotiation than do people lower in emotional intelligence; however,
high EQ negotiators achieve lower objective outcomes.

Accuracy: The ability to accurately read emotions in others is important for successful outcomes.
Indeed, a consistent positive correlation exists between emotion recognition accuracy (ERA) and goal-
oriented performance.

Self-Efficiency: Self-efficacy refers to a negotiator’s belief in their own negotiation ability. Distributive
self-efficacy refers to a negotiator’s belief in his or her ability to claim resources effectively, in contrast,
integrative self-efficacy refers to a negotiator’s belief in her or his ability to create resources.

Managing Emotions at the Table

Emotional intelligence is the ability to effectively manage one’s own and respond to other’s emotions.
Self-Monitoring
Negotiators should resist the urge to gloat or show signs of smugness following negotiation. Parties who
gloat receive significantly fewer stock options than those who made the self-effacing remark.

Reinforcement
People often make concessions to another person just to shut them up. What they may not realize is
that this reinforces the very behavior they are trying to extinguish. Negative reinforcement explains the
increased likelihood of behavior that eliminates or removes an aversive stimulus.

Self-Regulation
Self-regulation is the ability to effectively manage one’s own emotions at the bargaining table. One type
of self-regulation is an if-then plan. Angry negotiators who have if-then plans are more successful than
negotiators who do not have if-then plans. Suppression of emotion is particularly ineffective if the anger
that is suppressed is integral to the negotiation, versus incidental.

Emotional Contagion
If one negotiator conveys positive emotion, the other negotiator is likely to “catch” this positive
emotional state and convey positive emotion as well. We don’t need to be consciously aware of
somebody else’s emotion for it to affect our own emotion and our decision making.

Emotional Stimuli
Certain phrases evoke emotion in negotiation. Of all the different types of words, those that labeled the
other person negatively or told the other person what he or she ought to do triggered the greatest
anger and frustration.

Disputes

Disputes are negotiations in which one party has made a claim and the other party has rejected the
claim.
• Disputes differ from transactional negotiations because negotiators often come to the table
feeling angry and misunderstood.
 • Parties cannot simply walk away from the table and exercise their respective BATNAs if they are
unable to reach an agreement.
• Parties who are unable to reach mutual agreement, often escalate conflict by engaging in
contentious behavior, such as lawsuits, strikes, protest, and in some cases war.

Interests, Rights, and Power Model

Interests are a person’s needs, desires, concerns, and fears (the things a person cares about or wants).
Interests underlie people’s positions in negotiation. Reconciling interests involves understanding
motivations, devising creative solutions, looking for trade-offs, searching for compatible issues, devising
bridging solutions, and structuring contingency contracts. Negotiators who use an interests-based
approach frequently ask other parties about their needs and concerns and in turn, disclose their own
needs and concerns.

Rights: Negotiators who focus on rights apply standards of fairness to negotiation, including contracts,
legal rights, precedent, or expectations based upon norms. The rights-based negotiator relies on some
independent standard with perceived legitimacy or fairness to determine who is right in a situation.

Power: Negotiators who focus on power use status, rank, threats, and intimidation to get their way.
Power is the ability to coerce someone to do something he or she would not otherwise do. Exercising
power may manifest itself in acts of aggression, such as sabotage, physical attack, or withholding
benefits derived from a relationship.

Two types of power-based approaches are threats (in which one or both parties make a threat) and
contests (in which parties take action to determine who will prevail). Many power contests involve
threatening avoidance or ending the relationship altogether. Three different negotiators might respond
to the employer’s statement in ways unique to their own approach:
o Interest-based response.
o Rights-based response.
o Power-based response.

Time Course of Interests, Rights and Power

During the process of negotiating or resolving disputes, the focus may shift from interests to rights to
power and back again.
Strategic Issues Concerning Interests, Rights and Power
Negotiators should keep in mind the following principles when choosing their approach.

Reciprocity: The style you use in negotiation will often be reciprocated by the other party.

Value Creation: Focusing on interests can usually resolve the problem underlying the dispute more
effectively than focusing on rights or power. A focus on interests can help uncover “hidden” problems
and help identify which issues are of the greatest concern to each party.

Refocusing

Suppose you enter a negotiation with an interests-based approach, but the counterparty uses rights or
power. You realize that if you reciprocate power and rights, you enter a lose–lose situation. Consider the
following strategies:

• Do Not Reciprocate: By not reciprocating, you refocus your opponent.

• Face To Face Interaction: Getting parties together for informal discussions can move them
toward interests.
• Don’t Get Personal: Many negotiators attack the other party’s character.
• Behavioral Reinforcement: Make sure that you are not rewarding the other party’s rights- or
power-based behavior. If you have been planning to make a concession, do not offer it to the
other party immediately after he or she has misused rights or power.
• Mixed Messages: One effective strategy is to reciprocate rights or power but combine it with
interests-based questions or proposals. Sending the counterparty, a “mixed message” gives
them a chance to choose what to reciprocate—interests, rights, or power.
• Process Intervention: Process interventions are tactics that are interests-based with the goal of
moving the counterparty back to interests-based negotiation. Effective processes can include
any of the pie-expanding strategies as well as several other dispute resolution strategies.
• Strategic Cooling-Off Period: An interests-based approach requires deeper levels of cognitive
processing. Thus, it often serves parties’ interests to build in some cooling-off periods that allow
them to better assess their own needs and interests, independent of rights and power issues.
• Paraphrasing: Negotiators should not abandon their interests- based approach but rather,
persist in their attempt to understand the other party’s underlying needs. People are often so
emotionally invested that they cannot listen.
• Label the Process: The counterparty uses a rights- or power-based approach after you have
tried to focus on interests, it might be useful to label the strategy you see the counterparty
using. Recognizing or labeling a tactic as ineffective can neutralize or refocus negotiations.

High Costs Associated with Power and Rights

Focusing on who is right or who is more powerful usually leaves at least one person feeling like a loser.
Losers often do not give up but instead appeal to higher courts or plot revenge. Rights are less costly
than power. Generally, power costs more in resources consumed and opportunities lost.
When to Use Rights and Power

• The other party refuses to come to the table. No negotiation is taking place, and rights and
power are necessary for engagement.
• Negotiations have broken down and parties are at an impasse. A credible threat, especially if
combined with an interests-based proposal, may restart negotiations.
• The other party needs to know you have power. Threats must be backed up with actions to be
credible.
• Someone violates a rule or breaks the law. It is appropriate to use rights or power.
• Interests are so opposed that agreement is not possible. Sometimes, parties’ interests are so
disparate that agreement is not possible.
• Negotiators are moving toward agreement and parties are “positioning” themselves. Parties
are committed to reaching a deal, and now they are dancing in the bargaining zone.

How To Use Rights and Power

• Threaten The Other Party’s Interest: To effectively make a threat, a negotiator needs to attack
the other party’s underlying interests. Otherwise, the other party will feel little incentive to
comply with your threat.
• Clarity: To effectively make a threat, a negotiator needs to attack the other party’s underlying
interests. Otherwise, the other party will feel little incentive to comply with your threat.
• Credibility: Power-based approaches typically focus on the future. To be effective, the other
party must believe that you can carry out the threat. If you are not seen as credible, people will
call your bluff.
• Face-Saving: If you do not provide yourself with a loop back to interests, you force yourself to
carry out the threat. Furthermore, after you use your threat, you lose your power and ability to
influence. If you are going to use rights or power, you should use the following sequence: (a)
state a specific, detailed demand and deadline; (b) state a specific, detailed, credible threat; and
(c) state a specific, detailed, positive consequence that will follow if the demand is met.

Social Dilemmas
In social dilemmas, negotiators are faced with a choice to cooperate or compete with the counterparty.
The dilemma is that it is always better for negotiators to act in a self-serving fashion if they want to
maximize their own economic outcomes.

Social Dilemmas in Business

Business competitors routinely face social dilemmas, such as price wars. In a price competition, it is
certainly “rational” for individual players to attempt to gain market share (by reducing prices); however,
if all parties lower their prices and compete with one another, profit margins decline, and stock prices
fall.

Prisoner’s Dilemma

The prisoner’s dilemma is an example of a two-person social dilemma. In the classic prisoner’s dilemma,
two people are arrested on suspicion of having committed a crime. Each suspect is approached
separately and presented with two options: confess to the crime or remain silent.
When each person in the prisoner’s game pursues the course of action that is most rational from their
point of view and in their individual self-interest, the result can be mutual disaster. The choices that
players make in this game are either cooperation or defection.

Actual behavior in Social Dilemma

Few, if any, individual differences reliably predict behavior in a dilemma game. In general, people
cooperate more than rational models predict. Moreover, people’s behavior in social dilemmas is highly
consistent across time and situations.

Tit-for-Tat

Tit-for-tat is a behavioral strategy that advises negotiators involved in a social dilemma to act pro-socially
initially, and then do exactly what the counterparty does in each subsequent interaction. However, very
few people who play prisoner’s dilemma games follow the tit-for-tat strategy.

Inducing Trust and Cooperation in Social Dilemmas

Given that many business situations can be thought of as dilemmas where people are tempted to gain
the upper hand and conflict spirals, consider the following strategies to induce win–win outcomes.

Communication: When people are allowed to communicate with the members of the group prior to
making their choices, cooperation increases dramatically. Task-related communication promotes greater
cooperation by activating interpersonal norms related to fairness and trust.
o Communication enhances group identity or solidarity.
o Communication allows group members to make public commitments to cooperate.

Signal Intentions: “Talk is cheap” in a prisoner’s dilemma game because people can always say one thing
but do another. Nevertheless, when people make verbal commitments, they tend to honor them, even if
they are not binding.

Psychological Contracts: In contrast, psychological contracts, commonly known as “handshake deals,”

are not binding in a court of law, but create psychological pressure to commit. People are more likely to
cooperate when they promise to cooperate. According to the norm of commitment, is that people feel
psychologically committed to honor their word.
Economic vs Relationships: Our behavior in social dilemmas is influenced by our perceptions about what
kinds of behavior are appropriate and expected in each context.

People, Not Companies: People often behave as if they were interacting with an entity or organization
rather than a person. People cooperate more when others have cooperated in a previous situation.

Focus on Benefits of Cooperation: The probability that a person will make a particular choice in a social
dilemma is a function of the attraction of that choice in terms of its ability to return a desirable outcome
immediately. Our attraction to a choice is usually a reflection of our ability to imagine or mentally
simulate good outcomes.

Restoring Broken Trust

After a trust violation, some negotiators are quick to forgive, but others never trust the other party
again. Desire to punish others is determined by feelings of anger. As people get older, they are less likely
to seek retribution. People who believe that moral character can change over time (incremental beliefs)
are more likely to trust the counterparty following an apology, but people who believe that moral
character cannot change (entity beliefs) are not.

How to Encourage Cooperation in Social Dilemmas When Parties Should Not Collude

• Keep your strategy simple. The simpler your strategy, the easier it is for your competitors to
predict your behavior.
• Signal via actions. The adage that behaviors speak louder than words is important. A person in a
group who shows unwavering, consistent cooperation can effectively catalyze cooperation in the
group because the consistent cooperator shapes the norms of the group.
• Do not be the first to defect. It is difficult to recover from escalating spirals of defection. Do not
be the first to defect.
• Focus on your own payoffs, not your payoffs relative to others. Social dilemmas trigger
competitive motives. The competitive motive is a desire to “beat” the other party. Instead, focus
on your profits.
• Be sensitive to egocentric bias. Most people view their own behavior as more cooperative than
that of others. We see ourselves as more virtuous, more ethical, and less competitive than
others see us.

Just a friendly reminder. My notes are a reference of the textbook, refer to the textbook for more
information.