A simple view of negotiation presents a cold transaction between what one person has and what the other person is willing to pay for it. If the price is right, the deal gets done.
As anyone who has recently bought a car or sold a house knows, however, negotiations are rarely so dispassionate. As soon as the checkbook comes out a flood of emotions comes out with it—fear, anxiety, competiveness, anger, annoyance—all of which can influence what either side is willing to accept.
Emotions such as satisfaction and elation can be quite rare in negotiation, says Andy Wasynczuk, MBA Class of 1953 Senior Lecturer of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. His new teaching note, Emotions in Negotiations: An Introduction, traces the history, theory, and research on how emotions can affect transactions between parties. Wasynczuk and his coauthor, independent researcher Colleen Kaftan, do so using an everyday example of a work-at-home consultant (“Kate”) dealing with an electrician (“Peter”) over restoring power after a storm. They intentionally picked the situation as one to which students could relate.
