Imagine you are about to negotiate with a competing firm over a potential merger—and you know you’ll need to manage emotional triggers.
You walk into the conference room and are greeted by a reasonable, fair-minded representative from the other company, someone with whom you’ve reached mutually beneficial agreements in the past. Yet you’re in a foul mood. On the way to work, you were rear-ended by a distracted driver talking on his cell phone. As you take your seat, your thoughts drift to repair estimates and insurance claims. Even as the frustration lingers, you feel confident you can keep your anger separate from the negotiation at hand. But can you?
Probably not. Emotions—of all kinds—shape our thoughts, behavior, and even our physiology. In negotiation, researchers have long documented the impact of integral emotions—feelings triggered by the negotiation itself. For example, negotiating with an old rival is likely to stir anger or competitiveness directly tied to the situation.
What’s become increasingly clear, however, is that incidental emotions—feelings unrelated to the negotiation—can also significantly influence bargaining behavior and outcomes.
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How Feelings and Emotional Triggers Shape Negotiation Decisions
Whenever we make decisions, we tend to consult our feelings, consciously or not. The good news is that when we can correctly identify the source of an incidental emotion, it becomes far less likely to distort our judgment.
A classic study by Norbert Schwarz of the University of Michigan and Gerald Clore of the University of Virginia illustrates this effect. The researchers conducted a phone survey on life satisfaction. Half the participants were called on sunny days; the other half on rainy days. As expected, respondents reached on rainy days reported significantly lower life satisfaction.
But there was a twist. When interviewers began by casually asking, “By the way, how’s the weather down there?” participants contacted on rainy days rated their lives just as positively as those called on sunny days. Simply acknowledging the source of their mood defused its influence on their judgment.
The implication for negotiation is powerful: labeling incidental emotions can neutralize their impact.
How to Defuse Your Emotional Triggers Before Negotiation
To recognize and manage your own incidental emotions, start by identifying your personal emotional triggers. A large-scale study led by Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman found that Americans report the greatest stress while commuting and while interacting with their bosses—two experiences that often precede workplace negotiations.
If you regularly negotiate after a stressful commute, tense meeting, or difficult conversation, those emotions may be shaping your behavior more than you realize. Simply being aware of this possibility can improve your odds of catching emotional spillover in the moment—and preventing it from driving your decisions (see also research on cognitive bias in negotiation).
Bargaining Strategies for Defusing Your Counterpart’s Emotional Triggers
The same logic applies to the other side of the table. If your counterpart seems unusually irritable, withdrawn, or impatient, her mood may have little to do with you—or the deal.
When you suspect an incidental emotion is at play, gentle prompts can help your counterpart identify and release it. Open-ended, low-stakes questions such as:
- “Rough day out there, isn’t it?”
- “How was the drive over?”
can encourage the other party to connect their feelings to an external source. This simple acknowledgment often reduces the influence of negative emotions on judgment and decision making—clearing the path for more rational, productive negotiation.
A Practical Takeaway
Emotional triggers don’t stay outside the conference room door. They follow us in—often unnoticed—and quietly shape our choices. By learning to recognize and label incidental emotions in ourselves and others, negotiators can reduce their disruptive effects and keep discussions focused on substance rather than mood.
How do YOU control your emotional triggers for effective dispute resolution or bargaining purposes?
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Discover how to improve your dispute resolution skills in this free report, Dispute Resolution: Working Together Toward Conflict Resolution on the Job and at Home, from Harvard Law School.
Adapted from “Negotiating Under the Influence,” by Jennifer S. Lerner, Professor, Harvard Kennedy School of Government, first published in the Negotiation newsletter.
Originally published in 2009.
This is a great reminder of how omnipresent emotions are in negotiation! The example of the car accident really hits home; it’s easy to underestimate how much something seemingly unrelated can impact your behavior at the table. The point about naming the source of the incidental emotion is particularly valuable. It reminds us to practice self-awareness and take a moment to acknowledge and separate our feelings from the negotiation itself. Maybe a quick pre-negotiation routine of journaling anxieties or doing a brief mindfulness exercise could help mitigate these effects. Anyone else have strategies they use to manage incidental emotions before stepping into a high-stakes negotiation? I’d be curious to hear what works. Thanks for sharing these important insights, very helpful!
1. If co-mediating, I may ask for a brief recess and simply say something to my co-mediator as: Look, I’m having a rough go of it at this point would you mind moving to first chair, I’ll be backup taking copious notes?
2. Ask “Why?” Why is Party A taking this approach; or move away from the emotional to the analytic.
I always have 3 steps to control my emotion:
1. Be present
When I have a bad luck which causes bad emotion, I always tell myself: It is all over. Let me take a look what I need to do next, and let me plan the following things. This can help me forget the unhappy thing and focus the present work.
2. Watch the emotion
When I am present in a situation, I will watch thoughts that come into my mind. Once I can watch the emotion, I will separate myself from it, and it can’t take over me for a long time.
3. Make a choice
Once I have break a cup, I will have two choices of the emotion:
Negative: I break a very good cup, I am so stupid
Positive: I’m lucky because I didn’t hurt myself.
Once I select the positive one, I will always be happy, in any situation.