Contrary to popular belief or even instinct; anger is a productive emotion when it comes to negotiations.
The Wall Street Journal comments on new findings that purport displaying anger in a negotiation proves productive.
However, this is only true if the anger that is being displayed is real. Faked anger elicited a negative response and greater demands, but people who seemed truly angry we able to conjure up a more beneficial negotiation outcome.
These finding coincide with previous research that suggests anger signals dominance and promotes compliance. The researchers state that fake anger displayed in this experiment undermined the trust in the negotiation but real anger came across as tough.
In the book Nonverbal Communication: Science and Applications , Humintell affiliate Andy Boughton expounds upon the concept of negotiation in chapter 13 entitled Negotiation and Nonverbal Communication. He points out that ‘in negotiation…there is one rule to rule them all – information is power!‘
“I find it best to use closed ended questions when establishing the baseline.”
Some specifics he looks for are manipulators (unconscious fidgets we do to relive stress), emblematic slips (nonverbal gestures with specific symbolic meaning within a given culture) and microexpressions (emotions that last less than 1/2 second on the face).
To learn more about Boughton’s views on negotiation and on Dr. Matsumoto’s book Nonverbal Communication: Science and Applications click here.