Individual Differences In Negotiation Effectiveness.

 

Are some people better negotiators than others? Three factors influence how effectively individuals negotiate: personality, mood/emotions, and gender.

 

Personality Traits In Negotiation

Can you predict an opponent´s negotiating tactics if you know something about his or her personality? Because personality and negotiation outcomes are related but only weakly, the answer is “sort of”. Negotiators who are agreeable or extraverted are not very successful in distributive bargaining. Why? Because extraverts are outgoing and friendly, they tend to share more information than they should. And agreeable people are more interested in finding ways to cooperate rather than to butt heads.

 

Moods/Emotions In Negotiation

Do moods and emotions influence negotiation? They do, but they do appear to depend on the type of negotiation. In distributive negotiations, it appears that negotiators in a position of power or equal status who show anger negotiate better outcomes because their anger induces concessions from their opponents. So if you are a boss negotiating with peer or subordinate, displaying anger may help you, but if you are an employee negotiating with a boss, it might hurt you. In integrative negotiations, in contrast, positive moods and emotions appear to lead to more integrative agreements (higher levels of joint gain). This may happen because, as we noted in a previous chapter, positive mood is related to creativity.