Anger In Negotiations Research Articles

Tactical anger in negotiation: The expresser's perspective

AbstractPresenting programmed angry messages to a negotiator has increased concession rates in a series of recent experiments. But observing responses to a computer or confederate counterpart cannot yield insight into the perceptions, reactions, and negotiation outcomes experienced by those who actually deploy anger as a tactic. We report five studies examining the anger expression decision using a range of different methods. In the fully interactive two‐person integrative negotiation in Study 1, expressed anger generally degraded trust while damaging implementation of deals. That ultimately diminished value actually claimed by anger expressers. In the discrete choice experiment of Study 2, sending angry messages proved costly for expressers, who registered very high levels of measured disutility from using this tactic. In Study 3, survey respondents reported widespread unwillingness to misrepresent anger during negotiation. Recalling a past negotiation, anger correlated negatively with experienced success, indicating that disutility from expressing anger generalizes widely across different contexts. Study 4 revealed that negotiators generally consider the tactic to be unethical. More than just specific beliefs about the lack of efficacy, Study 5 revealed that the source of tactical disutility lies in generalized discomfort with the misrepresentation of anger. Implications for research, practice, and training are considered.

Anger does not work for everyone:influences of gender and personalities in multiparty negotiations

Research on anger in negotiations mainly focused on bilateral negotiations but paid little attention to multiparty negotiations. There is also a lack of research on individual differences in reacti...

Anger in Negotiations: A Review of Causes, Effects, and Unanswered Questions

This article reviews the literature on the emotion of anger in the negotiation context. I discuss the known antecedents of anger in negotiation, as well as its positive and negative inter- and intrapersonal effects. I pay particular attention to the apparent disagreements within the literature concerning the benefits and drawbacks of using anger to gain advantage in negotiations and employ Attribution Theory as a unifying mechanism to help explain these diverse findings. I call attention to the weaknesses evident in current research questions and methodologies and end with suggestions for future research in this important area.

Using self-regulation to overcome the detrimental effects of anger in negotiations

Both being angry (intrapersonal anger) and facing expressions of anger (interpersonal anger) impair negotiators’ goal attainment, as evident in less profitable outcomes. Here, we hypothesize that fostering self-regulation by forming if-then plans helps to overcome these detriments. In Study 1, angry negotiators attained less successful joint gains than non-angry negotiators. Angry negotiators who had formed an if-then plan about how to negotiate, however, attained similarly profitable outcomes as non-angry negotiators. In Study 2, participants negotiating with an angry opponent conceded more than those facing a non-angry opponent. Participants who had formed an if-then plan, however, conceded less than participants without self-regulatory help. These findings demonstrate that fostering self-regulation is a valuable means to overcome the detriments of intrapersonal and interpersonal anger in negotiations.

Context matters: The social effects of anger in cooperative, balanced, and competitive negotiation situations

When does expressing anger in negotiations lead to concessions? Although research has begun to address this question, it has not yet examined the influence of the negotiation context. We propose that the effect of expressing anger depends on the competitiveness of the negotiation situation. Specifically, when the negotiation situation balances cooperative and competitive elements, expressing anger elicits larger concessions than no anger, and responses are driven by cooperation-inducing strategic inferences (e.g., a perception that the anger expresser is tough and threatening). However, when the negotiation context is predominantly cooperative or predominantly competitive, expressing anger does not elicit larger concessions than no anger, and responses are driven by cooperation-inhibiting affective reactions (e.g., reciprocal anger and a desire to retaliate against the anger expresser). Results from two computer-mediated negotiation experiments using different negotiation scenarios, different manipulations of the competitiveness of the situation, and different subject populations supported our hypotheses.

Anger Suppression in Negotiations: The Roles of Attentional Focus and Anger Source

The purpose of this study was to investigate the intrapersonal effects of anger suppression in negotiations. Specifically, we examined when and how anger suppression influences negotiation effectiveness, proposing that suppressing anger may reduce negotiators’ ability to focus on the negotiation and increase their cognitive exhaustion, both of which would in turn lower negotiators’ performance. In addition, we proposed that suppressing anger integral to the negotiation is more costly than suppressing anger incidental to the negotiation. Data were obtained from a controlled laboratory experiment in which a total of 204 undergraduate students participated in a computer-mediated negotiation. Negotiators who suppressed their anger, compared to those who did not, were less able to focus on the negotiation, which in turn decreased their negotiation performance. The indirect negative effect was only significant when negotiators suppressed anger integral rather than incidental to the negotiation. The findings suggest that negotiators should be aware when it is (not) detrimental to suppress anger in negotiations. Particularly, negotiators need to be careful and may adopt strategies to maintain their attentional focus when they attempt to suppress anger that is induced by the negotiation process. Integrating research on emotion regulation with negotiation research, this study is one of the first to investigate the intrapersonal effects of anger suppression in negotiations. More significantly, this study identified both an important psychological mechanism and a moderator of the effects of anger suppression on negotiations.

The advantages of being unpredictable: How emotional inconsistency extracts concessions in negotiation

Integrating recent work on emotional communication with social science theories on unpredictability, we investigated whether communicating emotional inconsistency and unpredictability would affect recipients' concession-making in negotiation. We hypothesized that emotional inconsistency and unpredictability would increase recipients' concessions by making recipients feel less control over the outcome. In Experiment 1, dyads negotiated face-to-face after one negotiator within each dyad expressed either anger or emotional inconsistency by alternating between anger and happiness. In Experiment 2, participants received angry and/or happy messages from a simulated negotiation opponent. In Experiment 3, participants read a scenario about a negotiator who expressed either anger or emotional inconsistency by alternating between anger and disappointment. In all three experiments, emotional inconsistency induced recipients to make greater concessions compared to expressing a consistent emotion. Further, in all three experiments, the effect of emotional inconsistency was mediated by recipients' feeling less control. These findings qualify previous research on anger in negotiation and demonstrate the importance of feelings of control for negotiation outcomes.

The consequences of faking anger in negotiations

Past research has found that showing anger induces cooperative behavior from counterparts in negotiations. We build on and extend this research by examining the effects of faking anger by surface acting (i.e., showing anger that is not truly felt inside) on the behavior of negotiation counterparts. We specifically propose that surface acting anger leads counterparts to be intransigent due to reduced trust. In Experiment 1, surface acting anger increased demands in a face-to-face negotiation, relative to showing no emotion, and this effect was mediated by (reduced) trust. In Experiment 2, surface acting anger increased demands in a video-mediated negotiation, relative to showing no emotion, and this effect was explained by (reduced) trust, as in Experiment 1. By contrast, deep acting anger (i.e., showing anger that is truly felt inside) decreased demands, relative to showing no emotion, and this effect was explained by (increased) perceptions of toughness, consistent with prior research on the effects of showing anger in negotiations. The findings show that a complete understanding of the role of anger in negotiations requires attention to how it is regulated. In addition, the results suggest that faking emotions using surface acting strategies may generally be detrimental to conflict resolution.

Not all anger is created equal: The impact of the expresser’s culture on the social effects of anger in negotiations.

The influence of culture on the social effects of emotions in negotiations has recently gained the attention of researchers, but to date this research has focused exclusively on the cultural background of the perceiver of the emotion expression. The current research offers the first investigation of how the cultural background of the expresser influences negotiation outcomes. On the basis of the stereotype that East Asians are emotionally inexpressive and European Americans are emotionally expressive, we predicted that anger will have a stronger signaling value when East Asians rather than European American negotiators express it. Specifically, we predicted that angry East Asian negotiators will be perceived as tougher and more threatening and therefore elicit great cooperation from counterparts compared with angry European American negotiators. Results from 4 negotiation studies supported our predictions. In Study 1, angry East Asian negotiators elicited greater cooperation than angry European American and Hispanic negotiators. In Study 2, angry East Asian negotiators elicited greater cooperation than angry European American ones, but emotionally neutral East Asian and European American negotiators elicited the same level of cooperation. Study 3 showed that this effect holds for both East Asian and European American perceivers and that it is mediated by angry East Asian negotiators being perceived as tougher and more threatening than angry European American negotiators. Finally, Study 4 demonstrated that the effect emerges only when negotiators hold the stereotype of East Asians being emotionally inexpressive and European Americans being emotionally expressive. We discuss implications for our understanding of culture, emotions, and negotiations.

Equally Angry, Unequally Effective: Expresser Culture and the Social Effects of Anger in Negotiation

The influence of culture on the social effects of emotions in negotiations has recently gained the attention of researchers, but this research has looked exclusively at the cultural background of t...

Beyond negotiated outcomes: The hidden costs of anger expression in dyadic negotiation

This paper focuses on the hidden costs of expressing anger in negotiations. Two experimental studies show that an opponent’s expression of anger can elicit both concessionary and retaliatory responses by focal negotiators. In the first study, equal-power negotiators exhibited overt concessionary behaviors when their opponents expressed anger, but also sabotaged their opponents covertly. Feelings of mistreatment mediated the relationship between opponents’ anger expression and focal negotiators’ covert retaliation. In the second study, low-power negotiators made larger concessions when high-power opponents expressed anger, but they retaliated covertly against high-power negotiators. High-power negotiators were overtly demanding (and not concessionary) regardless of whether or not the opponent expressed anger, but also retaliated covertly against low-power opponents who expressed anger. The two studies suggest that the value-claiming advantages of expressed anger need to be weighed against the costs of eliciting (covert) retaliation. We discuss implications of the findings and provide recommendations for future research.

Be hard on the interests and soft on the values: Conflict issue moderates the effects of anger in negotiations

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).

Cultural Variance in the Interpersonal Effects of Anger in Negotiations

The current research is the first investigation of how the effects of expressing discrete emotions in negotiations vary across cultures. In a hypothetical negotiation scenario (Study 1) and a computer-mediated negotiation simulation (Study 2), expressing anger (relative to not expressing anger) elicited larger concessions from European American negotiators, but smaller concessions from Asian and Asian American negotiators. A third study provided evidence that this effect is due to different cultural norms about the appropriateness of anger expressions in negotiations: When we explicitly manipulated anger expressions to be appropriate, Asian and Asian American negotiators made larger concessions to the angry opponent, and their concessions were as large as was typical for European American negotiators; when we explicitly manipulated anger expressions to be inappropriate, European American negotiators made smaller concessions to the angry opponent, and their concessions were as small as was typical for Asian and Asian American negotiators. Implications for current understanding of culture, emotions, and negotiations are discussed.

Some Like It Hot: Teaching Strategies for Managing Tactical Versus Genuine Anger in Negotiations

AbstractA critically important skill in any negotiation is the ability to manage the emotions that are inevitably evoked by conflict. Anger is one of the most widely studied emotions that occur in negotiation. The purpose of this article is to introduce strategies for managing tactical and genuine anger in negotiations. The difference between tactical and genuine anger is discussed along with different strategies for managing each of these types of anger. The article concludes with advice for instructors to help negotiation students acquire experience in managing both their own and the other party’s anger.