How do expectations of fairness and reciprocity at the bargaining table impact negotiator decisions regarding the strategies and tactics they use during bargaining? Sometimes talks get off on the wrong foot. Maybe you and your partner had a different understanding of your meeting time, or one of you makes a statement that the other misinterprets. Such awkward moves at the beginning of interaction can lead one party to question the other side’s motives.

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In their research, Robert Lount, Chen-Bo Zhong, J. Keith Murnighan, and Niro Sivanathan, all of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, examined trust building in negotiation (for more information on tactics for building trust in negotiations, see also Negotiation Skills and Negotiation Tactics for Building Trust in Negotiations).

When talks begin, the researchers found, both sides are likely to be apprehensive about being exploited if they are too cooperative, if they reveal too much information, and so on.

Trust: Building Relationships, One Bargain at a Time

Over time, trust serves as a useful social process that helps both sides overcome initial uncertainty. In most new, successful negotiation relationships, positive developments accumulate slowly, creating trust, and the dialogue improves. Essentially, through a set of reciprocal moves, trust evolves naturally during the negotiation process. Trust, being foundational to a working relationship, makes tradeoffs easier and insures future cooperation. Opportunities for value creation and value claiming, as well as sustained dialogue, are best facilitated by an atmosphere of honesty and reciprocity at the negotiation table. For more information on building relationships at the bargaining table in business negotiations, see also Dealmaking: Relationship Rules for Dealmakers.

Restoring Trust at the Bargaining Table

When talks get off on the wrong foot, restoring trust becomes essential. Lount and his colleagues distinguished among three stages of interaction: initial, early, and late. During the initial stage, the negotiators don’t necessarily expect cooperation, nor have they yet committed to the relationship. It’s in the early stage, once the negotiators have begun to trust one another, that the relationship becomes vulnerable. During the early stage, violating trust can be especially damaging because the nature of the relationship still is not fully established. Later, the parties may have built enough trust to overcome what appears to be a violation. But if the violation is strong enough, it may do more harm late in the process, due to the sense of betrayal felt by the injured party. For more tactics about grappling with a dishonest negotiator, read the article Dealing with a Dishonest Negotiator.

One careless move can have a profound influence on dealmaking. Recognizing this fact and avoiding missteps and dealing with them if they do occur are critical skills for negotiators.

How do you handle dishonest bargaining situations? Let us know in the comments below.

Related Win-Win Article: 
Be a Better Mind Reader and Create Value Using Integrative Negotiation Strategies – Negotiation research has demonstrated that body language, at and away from the bargaining table, often has a greater impact on the course of negotiations and daily life than most people know. Learn how to interpret your counterpart’s moves, body language, and speech in order to find value creating opportunities during negotiation scenarios and beyond. Powerful when used correctly, body language can also help a negotiator convey her confidence, honesty, and willingness to reach a negotiated agreement through careful monitoring of her body language in negotiations.

Claim your FREE copy: Negotiation Skills

Build powerful negotiation skills and become a better dealmaker and leader. Download our FREE special report, Negotiation Skills: Negotiation Strategies and Negotiation Techniques to Help You Become a Better Negotiator, from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.

Adapted from an article first published in Negotiation Briefings.
Originally published in 2012.

Q: My husband and I would like to sell our condo and buy a house right away, but we need to save a bit more money, as we are slightly under water on our current mortgage and want to preserve our nest egg. Recently, however, an acquaintance of ours told us that he loves our condo and wants to buy it. “Bill” seems to be rather uninformed about the housing market and isn’t looking at other places. He is working on getting prequalified for a loan, though we haven’t talked price yet. We are thinking about asking him to pay somewhat more than we would expect to receive on the open market—just enough to allow us to sell the condo without having to write a check. Our sense is that Bill would accept our price without haggling. We feel a bit guilty about our plan, though. Does it sound unethical?

A: Good for you for considering the ethical nuances of this situation. Very often, when dealing in ethical “gray areas,” negotiators make rationalizations that allow them to avoid measuring their choices against their moral standards.

It sounds as if you think you would be taking advantage of Bill if he agreed to pay a higher-than-market, somewhat arbitrary price for your condo. Your guilt may be triggered by the fact that you know Bill and probably like him. You might feel fewer qualms if, say, you put your condo on the market at the same high price, and it was snapped up by a stranger. Negotiators tend to be more concerned about the outcomes of people they know than of those they don’t know. If a stranger overpays, you might assume she has cash to burn. But presumably you are aware that this doesn’t apply to Bill.

Let’s turn to the question of whether you have an obligation to educate an uninformed buyer. Following the guidance of Immanuel Kant, some ethicists would say that you have a duty to treat Bill as you would want to be treated yourself. If you found out later that you had significantly overpaid for a commodity, you might be angry with the seller and feel cheated, even if you knew you hadn’t done your homework.

But other experts would argue that you aren’t morally obligated to educate a naive buyer, as long as you don’t lie outright or conceal crucial information. According to this more pragmatic view, bold claims and bluffs are par for the course in negotiation. If Bill doesn’t seek out readily available information or is shy about haggling with friends, that’s not your problem.

There’s no clear right or wrong here, but since you and your husband feel guilty, it sounds as if you subscribe more to Kant’s view.

If so, you may be able to protect your nest egg and your sense of integrity through creative negotiation. You could begin by quoting Bill your desired price and then explain why it’s currently your bottom line and suggest that he shop around. You might offer him a small “discount” if he agrees to negotiate without a real estate agent (thus avoiding the agent fees you would incur as the seller).

If Bill does some research and comes back ready to haggle, you might offer to go down a bit in price, sell the condo to him now, and rent it back from him until you’ve saved what you need for a house. Or you might stand firm on price but find other ways to meet Bill’s interests, such as doing minor upgrades to the condo with his input, helping him move, or introducing him to neighbors or local businesspeople who might assist him in some way.

A final note: Bill may receive a smaller mortgage than he would like if his lender determines through an appraisal that your home is overpriced. This could prompt Bill to drive a harder bargain than you are expecting.

Katherine Shonk
Editor, Negotiation
Program on Negotiation
Harvard Law School

Q: My husband and I would like to sell our condo and buy a house right away, but we need to save a bit more money, as we are slightly under water on our current mortgage and want to preserve our nest egg. Recently, however, an acquaintance of ours told us that he loves our condo and wants to buy it. “Bill” seems to be rather uninformed about the housing market and isn’t looking at other places. He is working on getting prequalified for a loan, though we haven’t talked price yet. We are thinking about asking him to pay somewhat more than we would expect to receive on the open market—just enough to allow us to sell the condo without having to write a check. Our sense is that Bill would accept our price without haggling. We feel a bit guilty about our plan, though. Does it sound unethical?

A: Good for you for considering the ethical nuances of this situation. Very often, when dealing in ethical “gray areas,” negotiators make rationalizations that allow them to avoid measuring their choices against their moral standards.

It sounds as if you think you would be taking advantage of Bill if he agreed to pay a higher-than-market, somewhat arbitrary price for your condo. Your guilt may be triggered by the fact that you know Bill and probably like him. You might feel fewer qualms if, say, you put your condo on the market at the same high price, and it was snapped up by a stranger. Negotiators tend to be more concerned about the outcomes of people they know than of those they don’t know. If a stranger overpays, you might assume she has cash to burn. But presumably you are aware that this doesn’t apply to Bill.

Let’s turn to the question of whether you have an obligation to educate an uninformed buyer. Following the guidance of Immanuel Kant, some ethicists would say that you have a duty to treat Bill as you would want to be treated yourself. If you found out later that you had significantly overpaid for a commodity, you might be angry with the seller and feel cheated, even if you knew you hadn’t done your homework.

But other experts would argue that you aren’t morally obligated to educate a naive buyer, as long as you don’t lie outright or conceal crucial information. According to this more pragmatic view, bold claims and bluffs are par for the course in negotiation. If Bill doesn’t seek out readily available information or is shy about haggling with friends, that’s not your problem.

There’s no clear right or wrong here, but since you and your husband feel guilty, it sounds as if you subscribe more to Kant’s view.

If so, you may be able to protect your nest egg and your sense of integrity through creative negotiation. You could begin by quoting Bill your desired price and then explain why it’s currently your bottom line and suggest that he shop around. You might offer him a small “discount” if he agrees to negotiate without a real estate agent (thus avoiding the agent fees you would incur as the seller).

If Bill does some research and comes back ready to haggle, you might offer to go down a bit in price, sell the condo to him now, and rent it back from him until you’ve saved what you need for a house. Or you might stand firm on price but find other ways to meet Bill’s interests, such as doing minor upgrades to the condo with his input, helping him move, or introducing him to neighbors or local businesspeople who might assist him in some way.

A final note: Bill may receive a smaller mortgage than he would like if his lender determines through an appraisal that your home is overpriced. This could prompt Bill to drive a harder bargain than you are expecting.

Katherine Shonk
Editor, Negotiation
Program on Negotiation
Harvard Law School

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, U.S. president George H. W. Bush and his secretary of state, James Baker, were eager to win international support for German reunification and German membership in NATO. But Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev faced strong opposition to these measures from members of his own Communist Party.

Knowing that they could not meet their goals without Soviet cooperation, Bush and Baker engaged in a campaign to help their reformist Soviet counterparts overcome internal resistance to German reunification within NATO, writes Harvard Business School professor James K. Sebenius in a recent article in the Negotiation Journal.

The effort included helping the Soviets construct a convincing explanation of how the negotiations over Germany would benefit the Soviet Union. Specifically, Bush and Baker negotiated agreement within the United States on a document that would transform NATO from a military alliance to more of a political one, a change that would make NATO less threatening to the Soviets. Baker quietly led negotiations for NATO members to adopt the document. With the document in hand, American and Soviet foreign ministers were able to persuade previously resistant Communist Party leaders to accept a unified Germany within NATO.

Experienced negotiators understand the value of working to secure buy-in from their constituents as they put together deals with outside parties. They also understand that their counterparts must obtain a mandate to negotiate from their own constituents—and that opposition on either side could disrupt the deal.

In his article, Sebenius stresses the value of going a step further, as Bush and his team did: namely, identifying how your counterparts might deal more effectively with their internal, “behind the table” challenges—and then helping them do it.

A two-level game
Illustrating this strategy with complex diplomatic negotiations, Sebenius draws on political scientist Robert Putnam’s conceptualization of “two-level games.” According to Putnam, the Level One game refers to traditional diplomatic agreements, and the Level Two game focuses on how negotiators sell these agreements once they are back home. This pattern roughly matches up to the work of business negotiators, who must secure buy-in at the office during or after negotiations with external partners.

As it turns out, Level Two challenges can be even more difficult than those we face at Level One. Sebenius tells the story of a labor negotiation in which union and management representatives knew they would be able to easily put together a deal. But, recognizing that their constituents would be suspicious of a quickly negotiated agreement, they locked themselves in a room, spent a pleasant evening sharing food and drinks, and occasionally paused to shout and pound on the table for the benefit of those on the other side of the door. They emerged late that night, looking haggard, to announce that they had reached agreement—and avoided being labeled sellouts for conceding too quickly.

To help yourself, help them first
How can you identify and work to overcome challenges on your counterpart’s side of the table? Here are four suggestions from Sebenius’s article:

1. Understand their barriers. Pay attention to how counterparts view the issues on the table and recognize when their resistance reflects behind-the-table constraints.

2. Cultivate back-channel relationships. Many political negotiations Sebenius describes
hinged on relationships diplomats forged across the table—and behind the scenes. Prior to scheduled negotiating sessions, diplomats often advise one another on statements and actions that might win over key players at the table. You can do the same.

3. Take the high road. Avoid making statements that might inflame potential behind-the-scenes deal blockers—and resist the urge to respond to any provocative statements they make.

4. Help them write an “acceptance speech.” Aid your counterparts in preparing the message they will deliver to their constituents to announce your tentative agreement, advises William Ury in his book The Power of a Positive No (Bantam Dell, 2007). Be sure, in particular, to prepare compelling responses to likely criticisms.

Resource: “Level Two Negotiations: Helping the Other Side Meet Its ‘Behind-the-Table’ Challenges,” by James K. Sebenius. Negotiation Journal, 2013.

Following the British Petroleum oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in the spring of 2010, some media observers criticized President Barack Obama for seeming to be emotionally detached. Obama ultimately did display anger about the oil spill in a televised interview, only to be further critiqued on the grounds that his anger did not seem genuine.

Expressing anger can be an effective means of promoting cooperation from a negotiating counterpart, ample research has found. Yet the negative reaction to Obama’s delayed display of anger suggests that the effects of anger in negotiation may be more complicated. The anecdote also raises the question of whether expressing contradictory emotions over the course of a negotiation can help us or hurt us. Two new research studies published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology explore these issues and provide guidance for using emotions appropriately in your business negotiations.

Fake it till you make it?
Anger can be a boon to negotiators, at least when it comes to claiming value. When our opponents appear angry, we tend to assume that they are tough, have ambitious goals, and are unlikely to back down from their demands. Viewing angry negotiators as formidable opponents, we respond by making concessions and lowering our demands.

These conclusions were reached in lab experiments where participants engaged in negotiation simulations with seemingly angry counterparts. Notably, the participants in these experiments had little reason to doubt that the anger expressed by the other party was genuine. Their counterparts expressed their anger in written messages, for example. As a result, it remained unclear whether negotiators could simply fake anger to reap some of its benefits.

Researchers Stéphane Côté(University of Toronto), Ivona Hideg (Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario), and Gerben A. Van Kleef (University of Amsterdam) set out to examine whether pretending to be angry has the same effect in negotiation as actual anger. In one of their studies, the researchers assigned undergraduate students to play the role of seller in a simulated one-round negotiation over a used car. Participants were led to believe that the negotiation would be conducted via videoconferencing, unaware that their counterpart was an actor whose offer had been videotaped in advance.

The actor was filmed delivering his offer in three different ways: (1) with a neutral, emotionless demeanor; (2) with “deep-acting” anger elicited by his memories of an actual event that had made him angry; and (3) with “surface-acting” anger in which he tried to express anger on his face while remaining emotionally neutral inside. The participants in the experiment were shown one of these three videos and then were asked whether they would accept the counterpart’s offer, which was the same in each condition.

The results? Participants who viewed someone who seemed genuinely angry were less demanding than were those who viewed the neutral-seeming negotiator. By contrast, participants felt distrustful when their counterpart appeared to be faking anger and, as a result, made higher demands than did those facing a neutral counterpart.

The study suggests that, because of a lack of trust, people make high demands of people who fake their anger. They are also dissatisfied with their interactions with these negotiators and have little interest in dealing with them again. The results suggest that—unless you are a very good actor—strategic displays of anger are likely to backfire.

Do you contradict yourself?
Several historical figures, including Queen Elizabeth I and French president Charles de Gaulle, were legendary for their quixotic behavior during conflicts and negotiations. These leaders appear to have believed that their inconsistency would surprise and unsettle those around them and induce compliance.

Maybe this description reminds you of a significant person in your life. Or maybe you’ve found yourself fluctuating from one emotional state to the next over the course of a single negotiating session. It’s natural for our feelings to change during a negotiation, of course. But how will others react to our displays of different emotions?

In three experiments, researchers Marwan Sinaceur (INSEAD, France), Hajo Adam (Rice University), Van Kleef, and Adam D. Galinsky (Columbia University) looked at whether emotional inconsistency and unpredictability affect counterparts’ concessions.

In one experiment, undergraduate students believed that they were engaging in a simulated sale of mobile phones with a counterpart via computer; in fact, the counterpart’s behavior was controlled by the experimenters. The participants (the sellers) were able to negotiate three different issues over the course of five offers and counteroffers. Some of the participants received messages from counterparts (the buyers) who seemed emotionally consistent: either always happy or always angry from one round to the next. Others received messages that alternated between angry and happy from round to round.

As in past research, participants made more concessions to consistently angry counterparts than to consistently happy counterparts. Participants also made more concessions to emotionally inconsistent counterparts than to emotionally consistent ones. In another of the team’s experiments, participants made more concessions to counterparts whose messages veered from angry to disappointed than they did to counterparts whose tone was consistently angry.

Across the experiments, people made greater concessions to counterparts who seemed emotionally inconsistent because they felt they lacked control when negotiating with unpredictable counterparts—and backed down in the face of this uncertainty.

The results suggest that we should remain aware of the tendency to concede too much when negotiating with people who seem emotionally unpredictable. Don’t take the findings as a green light to cultivate an aura of emotional inconsistency yourself, however, as it remains unclear whether faking an unpredictable nature will harm you or hurt you.

Resources: “The Consequences of Faking Anger in Negotiations,” by Stéphane Côté, Ivona Hideg, and Gerben A. Van Kleef. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2013.

“The Advantages of Being Unpredictable: How Emotional Inconsistency Extracts Concessions in Negotiation,” by Marwan Sinaceur, Hajo Adam, Gerben A. Van Kleef, and Adam D. Galinsky. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2013.

Following the British Petroleum oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in the spring of 2010, some media observers criticized President Barack Obama for seeming to be emotionally detached. Obama ultimately did display anger about the oil spill in a televised interview, only to be further critiqued on the grounds that his anger did not seem genuine.

Expressing anger can be an effective means of promoting cooperation from a negotiating counterpart, ample research has found. Yet the negative reaction to Obama’s delayed display of anger suggests that the effects of anger in negotiation may be more complicated. The anecdote also raises the question of whether expressing contradictory emotions over the course of a negotiation can help us or hurt us. Two new research studies published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology explore these issues and provide guidance for using emotions appropriately in your business negotiations.

Fake it till you make it?
Anger can be a boon to negotiators, at least when it comes to claiming value. When our opponents appear angry, we tend to assume that they are tough, have ambitious goals, and are unlikely to back down from their demands. Viewing angry negotiators as formidable opponents, we respond by making concessions and lowering our demands.

These conclusions were reached in lab experiments where participants engaged in negotiation simulations with seemingly angry counterparts. Notably, the participants in these experiments had little reason to doubt that the anger expressed by the other party was genuine. Their counterparts expressed their anger in written messages, for example. As a result, it remained unclear whether negotiators could simply fake anger to reap some of its benefits.

Researchers Stéphane Côté(University of Toronto), Ivona Hideg (Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario), and Gerben A. Van Kleef (University of Amsterdam) set out to examine whether pretending to be angry has the same effect in negotiation as actual anger. In one of their studies, the researchers assigned undergraduate students to play the role of seller in a simulated one-round negotiation over a used car. Participants were led to believe that the negotiation would be conducted via videoconferencing, unaware that their counterpart was an actor whose offer had been videotaped in advance.

The actor was filmed delivering his offer in three different ways: (1) with a neutral, emotionless demeanor; (2) with “deep-acting” anger elicited by his memories of an actual event that had made him angry; and (3) with “surface-acting” anger in which he tried to express anger on his face while remaining emotionally neutral inside. The participants in the experiment were shown one of these three videos and then were asked whether they would accept the counterpart’s offer, which was the same in each condition.

The results? Participants who viewed someone who seemed genuinely angry were less demanding than were those who viewed the neutral-seeming negotiator. By contrast, participants felt distrustful when their counterpart appeared to be faking anger and, as a result, made higher demands than did those facing a neutral counterpart.

The study suggests that, because of a lack of trust, people make high demands of people who fake their anger. They are also dissatisfied with their interactions with these negotiators and have little interest in dealing with them again. The results suggest that—unless you are a very good actor—strategic displays of anger are likely to backfire.

Do you contradict yourself?
Several historical figures, including Queen Elizabeth I and French president Charles de Gaulle, were legendary for their quixotic behavior during conflicts and negotiations. These leaders appear to have believed that their inconsistency would surprise and unsettle those around them and induce compliance.

Maybe this description reminds you of a significant person in your life. Or maybe you’ve found yourself fluctuating from one emotional state to the next over the course of a single negotiating session. It’s natural for our feelings to change during a negotiation, of course. But how will others react to our displays of different emotions?

In three experiments, researchers Marwan Sinaceur (INSEAD, France), Hajo Adam (Rice University), Van Kleef, and Adam D. Galinsky (Columbia University) looked at whether emotional inconsistency and unpredictability affect counterparts’ concessions.

In one experiment, undergraduate students believed that they were engaging in a simulated sale of mobile phones with a counterpart via computer; in fact, the counterpart’s behavior was controlled by the experimenters. The participants (the sellers) were able to negotiate three different issues over the course of five offers and counteroffers. Some of the participants received messages from counterparts (the buyers) who seemed emotionally consistent: either always happy or always angry from one round to the next. Others received messages that alternated between angry and happy from round to round.

As in past research, participants made more concessions to consistently angry counterparts than to consistently happy counterparts. Participants also made more concessions to emotionally inconsistent counterparts than to emotionally consistent ones. In another of the team’s experiments, participants made more concessions to counterparts whose messages veered from angry to disappointed than they did to counterparts whose tone was consistently angry.

Across the experiments, people made greater concessions to counterparts who seemed emotionally inconsistent because they felt they lacked control when negotiating with unpredictable counterparts—and backed down in the face of this uncertainty.

The results suggest that we should remain aware of the tendency to concede too much when negotiating with people who seem emotionally unpredictable. Don’t take the findings as a green light to cultivate an aura of emotional inconsistency yourself, however, as it remains unclear whether faking an unpredictable nature will harm you or hurt you.

Resources: “The Consequences of Faking Anger in Negotiations,” by Stéphane Côté, Ivona Hideg, and Gerben A. Van Kleef. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2013.

“The Advantages of Being Unpredictable: How Emotional Inconsistency Extracts Concessions in Negotiation,” by Marwan Sinaceur, Hajo Adam, Gerben A. Van Kleef, and Adam D. Galinsky. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2013.