by Taly Harel-Marian

It is common sense that strong emotions, like anger, play an important role in negotiations. Research shows that people in negotiations are more likely to give in to an angry counterpart than to a neutral or happy counterpart. However, is this always the case? Recently, this question was raised by several researchers: If anger plays such a role in conflicts of interest (usually around a division of scarce resources like money or territory), will anger have the same effect in a different type of conflict—for example, in a conflict over values? Conflicts over values are usually related to personal norms, identities or moral issues. A recent study examined this.

The study showed that compared to conflicts of interests, participants in value conflicts perceived their opponents’ anger as less fair, and it made them more willing to escalate the conflict. Interestingly, anger made negotiators more willing to appease in conflicts of interests. In conflicts over values, however, anger was perceived as more unjust and fuelled escalation. As the authors note: “As values play a role in many conflicts between individuals, groups, or countries, it is extremely important for conflict resolution to know which emotions should or should not be shown in these conflicts”.