Effects of Moral Concerns on Negotiations

Effects of Moral Concerns on Negotiations Eunkyung Kim (eunkyung@usc.edu) 1 , Morteza Dehghani (mdehghan@usc.edu) 1 , Yoo Kyoung Kim (yookyouk@usc.edu) 2 , Peter J. Carnevale (peter.carnevale@marshall.usc.edu) 2 , Jonathan Gratch (gratch@ict.usc.edu) 3 Brain Creativity Institute, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089 USA Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089 Institute for Creative Technologies, University of Southern California, Playa Vista, CA 90094 Abstract There is now considerable evidence that emotion plays an important role in negotiation. Emotions, such as anger and happiness, affect concession-making, not only in human vs. human negotiations but also in human vs. agent negotiations. Recent research has demonstrated the impact of emotional expressions in morally-charged negotiations. Thus, taking people’s moral concerns into account is crucial for building agents that operate in morally sensitive domains. This paper explores the interplay between people’s moral concerns, emotional expressions and concession-making during a morally charged negotiation. Our results demonstrate that participants who had stronger concerns for the Individualizing foundations (Harm and Fairness) make greater concessions for sacred negotiation items when faced with a sad opponent than an angry opponent. Also, we find that participants who had high Binding foundations (In-group, Authority and Purity) are more sensitive to social status, and make greater concessions in scenarios that involve agents in a higher social status. Keywords: Emotion; Moral Foundations Theory; Sacred values; Negotiation; Agent Modeling. Introduction With the growing interest in understanding the role of emotional expressions in negotiation (e.g., Barry, Fulmer & Goates, 2006; Van Kleef et al., 2010), many studies have investigated how emotional expression affects negotiation processes and outcomes (Ames & Johar, 2009; Choi et al., 2012; de Melo et al., 2014). For instance, negotiators concede more when their opponent expresses anger instead of happiness (Van Kleef, De Dreu & Manstead, 2004a, 2004b). Sinaceur & Tiedens (2006) further reveal that the effect of anger on concession works only when anger recipients have poor alternatives. The past works on emotional expression suggest that emotion plays an important role as a signal (e.g., anger indicates a negotiator’s dissatisfaction with his opponent’s offer). Furthermore, negotiators respond to emotional expressions depending on their own conditions (e.g., alternatives). Thus, it is important to understand what moderates a negotiator’s reaction to emotional expression. Past studies have shown that positive moods in negotiation foster concession-making (e.g., Carnevale & Isen, 1986). Mood effects may be mediated by expression of positive emotion, for example, a positive-mood induction procedure may lead negotiators to smile more and this smiling may have an impact on perceptions and concession- making. Regardless, the possible interaction of emotion and other variables, for example, cognition as in decision frame (Carnevale, 2008), or motivation as in moral concerns, is a domain highly worthy of inquiry. Although some studies have tried to understand how people’s innate personality interacts with their emotion during negotiation games (Bolton, Katok, & Zwick, 1998; Batson & Moran, 1999), little research has paid attention to how moral concerns impact reactions to emotional expressions and affect concession-making. Our recent research demonstrates that emotional expressions can potentially shift moral concerns during a negotiation, such that displays of anger would backfire if the negotiator associates moral significance to the objects of the negotiation, whereas displays of sadness promote higher concession-making (Dehghani, Gratch and Carnevale, 2012). Because morality significantly influences decision- making (e.g., Sjoberg & Winroth, 1986; Gintis et al., 2003), the present research aims to examine the role of people’s moral concerns on how they react to emotional expressions and make concessions. Adapting the Moral Foundations Theory (Haidt & Graham, 2007; Haidt & Joseph, 2007; Graham, 2013), we examine effects of two different types of foundations (i.e., Individualizing foundations and Binding foundations) on concession-making. We predict that people who have stronger Individualizing foundations would react more to emotional expressions because the Individualizing foundations indicate the tendency to care about other people’s emotions (whether others are emotionally or physically suffering, or being treated fairly) and therefore, that would effect their concession-making. On the other hand, we predict that people with stronger Binding foundations be more sensitive to their negotiation partner’s social status because Binding foundations indicate concern about other people’s roles in the group (whether negotiation partner is their boss or co-worker). Understanding the interaction between moral concerns and emotion are crucial in designing autonomous decision- making agents that operate in morally sensitive domains. Progress in agent research has enabled us to work closely with software agents in morally sensitive situations where agents’ actions may lead to significant results, such as loss of life (Tambe, 2011; Dehghani et al., 2013). Therefore, it is important to better understand the interactions between people’s moral concerns, emotion and agent decision- making strategies. Our results suggest that incorporating