The Interpersonal Effects of Emotions in Negotiations: A Motivated Information Processing Approach.

TLDR

The study examined whether negotiators’ concessions are influenced by their opponent’s anger or happiness, testing a motivated information processing framework. Participants engaged in computer‑mediated negotiations where they were informed of the opponent’s emotional state (anger, happiness, or neutral). Concessions increased only when the opponent was angry, and this effect appeared only under low need for cognitive closure, low time pressure, or low power, supporting the view that negotiators respond to emotions only when motivated to process them.

Abstract

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.