IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jobhdp/v115y2011i1p43-54.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can Nervous Nelly negotiate? How anxiety causes negotiators to make low first offers, exit early, and earn less profit

Author

Listed:
  • Brooks, Alison Wood
  • Schweitzer, Maurice E.

Abstract

Negotiations trigger anxiety. Across four studies, we demonstrate that anxiety is harmful to negotiator performance. In our experiments, we induced either anxiety or neutral feelings and studied behavior in negotiation and continuous shrinking-pie tasks. Compared to negotiators experiencing neutral feelings, negotiators who feel anxious expect lower outcomes, make lower first offers, respond more quickly to offers, exit bargaining situations earlier, and ultimately obtain worse outcomes. The relationship between anxiety and negotiator behavior is moderated by negotiator self-efficacy; high self-efficacy mitigates the harmful effects of anxiety.

Suggested Citation

  • Brooks, Alison Wood & Schweitzer, Maurice E., 2011. "Can Nervous Nelly negotiate? How anxiety causes negotiators to make low first offers, exit early, and earn less profit," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 43-54, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jobhdp:v:115:y:2011:i:1:p:43-54
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749-5978(11)00022-7
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rubinstein, Ariel, 1982. "Perfect Equilibrium in a Bargaining Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(1), pages 97-109, January.
    2. Moore, Don A. & Cain, Daylian M., 2007. "Overconfidence and underconfidence: When and why people underestimate (and overestimate) the competition," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 103(2), pages 197-213, July.
    3. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    4. Bruce Barry, 2008. "Negotiator affect: the state of the art (and the science)," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 97-105, January.
    5. Raghunathan, Rajagopal & Pham, Michel Tuan, 1999. "All Negative Moods Are Not Equal: Motivational Influences of Anxiety and Sadness on Decision Making, , , , ," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 79(1), pages 56-77, July.
    6. Allred, Keith G. & Mallozzi, John S. & Matsui, Fusako & Raia, Christopher P., 1997. "The Influence of Anger and Compassion on Negotiation Performance," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 70(3), pages 175-187, June.
    7. Blount, Sally & Larrick, Richard P., 2000. "Framing the Game: Examining Frame Choice in Bargaining," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 43-71, January.
    8. Bolton Gary E. & Zwick Rami, 1995. "Anonymity versus Punishment in Ultimatum Bargaining," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 95-121, July.
    9. Barry, Bruce & Oliver, Richard L., 1996. "Affect in Dyadic Negotiation: A Model and Propositions," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 127-143, August.
    10. Bottom, William P., 1998. "Negotiator Risk: Sources of Uncertainty and the Impact of Reference Points on Negotiated Agreements," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 89-112, November.
    11. Weg, Eythan & Rapoport, Amnon & Felsenthal, Dan S., 1990. "Two-person bargaining behavior in fixed discounting factors games with infinite horizon," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 76-95, March.
    12. Pham, Michel Tuan, 1998. "Representativeness, Relevance, and the Use of Feelings in Decision Making," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 25(2), pages 144-159, September.
    13. Pillutla, Madan M. & Murnighan, J. Keith, 1996. "Unfairness, Anger, and Spite: Emotional Rejections of Ultimatum Offers," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 208-224, December.
    14. Solnick, Sara J. & Schweitzer, Maurice E., 1999. "The Influence of Physical Attractiveness and Gender on Ultimatum Game Decisions," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 79(3), pages 199-215, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Marc T. P. Adam & Timm Teubner & Henner Gimpel, 2018. "No Rage Against the Machine: How Computer Agents Mitigate Human Emotional Processes in Electronic Negotiations," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 27(4), pages 543-571, August.
    2. Rami Zwick & Xiao-Ping Chen, 1999. "What Price Fairness? A Bargaining Study," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(6), pages 804-823, June.
    3. Yip, Jeremy A. & Schweitzer, Maurice E., 2016. "Mad and misleading: Incidental anger promotes deception," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 207-217.
    4. Kausel, Edgar E. & Connolly, Terry, 2014. "Do people have accurate beliefs about the behavioral consequences of incidental emotions? Evidence from trust games," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 96-111.
    5. Masters-Waage, Theodore C. & Nai, Jared & Reb, Jochen & Sim, Samantha & Narayanan, Jayanth & Tan, Noriko, 2021. "Going far together by being here now: Mindfulness increases cooperation in negotiations," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 189-205.
    6. Kopelman, Shirli & Rosette, Ashleigh Shelby & Thompson, Leigh, 2006. "The three faces of Eve: Strategic displays of positive, negative, and neutral emotions in negotiations," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 81-101, January.
    7. Xiaofeng Wang & Xiaojie Chen & Long Wang, 2020. "Evolution of egalitarian social norm by resource management," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(1), pages 1-16, January.
    8. Shirli Kopelman & Ashleigh Shelby Rosette, 2008. "Cultural variation in response to strategic emotions in negotiations," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 65-77, January.
    9. Güth, Werner & Kocher, Martin G., 2014. "More than thirty years of ultimatum bargaining experiments: Motives, variations, and a survey of the recent literature," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 396-409.
    10. Reuben, Ernesto & van Winden, Frans, 2008. "Social ties and coordination on negative reciprocity: The role of affect," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1-2), pages 34-53, February.
    11. Ramzi Suleiman, 2022. "Economic Harmony—A Rational Theory of Fairness and Cooperation in Strategic Interactions," Games, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-21, April.
    12. Gonzalez-Sanchez, Eric & Loyola, Gino, 2024. "Ultimatum bargaining with envy under incomplete information," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 1-11.
    13. Michele Griessmair & Sabine T. Koeszegi, 2009. "Exploring the Cognitive-Emotional Fugue in Electronic Negotiations," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 213-234, May.
    14. Gagen, Michael, 2013. "Isomorphic Strategy Spaces in Game Theory," MPRA Paper 46176, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Sigbjørn Birkeland & Bertil Tungodden, 2014. "Fairness motivation in bargaining: a matter of principle," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 77(1), pages 125-151, June.
    16. Tom-Reiel Heggedal & Thomas McKay, 2024. "Discounting in finite-time bargaining experiments," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 504-518, December.
    17. repec:dgr:uvatin:20040098 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Sriram Venkiteswaran & Rangaraja P. Sundarraj, 2021. "How Angry are You? Anger Intensity, Demand and Subjective Value in Multi-round Distributive Electronic Negotiation," Group Decision and Negotiation, Springer, vol. 30(1), pages 143-170, February.
    19. Wenxin Xie & Yong Li & Yougui Wang & Keqiang Li, 2012. "Responders’ dissatisfaction may provoke fair offer," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 7(2), pages 197-207, October.
    20. Kohler, Stefan, 2012. "Envy can promote more equal division in alternating-offer bargaining," MPRA Paper 40761, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Daphna Motro & Lisa D. Ordóñez & Andrea Pittarello & David T. Welsh, 2018. "Investigating the Effects of Anger and Guilt on Unethical Behavior: A Dual-Process Approach," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 152(1), pages 133-148, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jobhdp:v:115:y:2011:i:1:p:43-54. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/obhdp .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.