Power and the use of deceptive emotion
In many different areas, power plays an important role. In order to clarify power in different contexts, it has been defined in many different ways. (Koning, Steinel, Beest & Dijk, 2011) For example, power, in the context of negotiation, can be defined as “the ability to induce the other party to settle less than he or she wanted”. (Lewicki, Saunders, Barry & Minton, 2003) It is an important aspect in negotiation since power distribution between parties greatly affects the use of different strategies, including the use of deceptive emotion, as well as the outcomes.
Power in negotiation can be built based on the interdependent nature of negotiating relationships. The two dimensions under the concept of interdependent nature, which are mutuality of dependence and level of dependence, contribute to the creation of power distance. When negotiators need to depend upon each other for the negotiation outcome, they are mutually dependent. Both of them have similar power in a negotiation. Power distance is relatively small. On the other hand, non-mutually dependent relationship occurs when one party is not able to use his or her own power to obtain a favorable outcome, rather he or she needs to rely heavily on the counterparty to obtain outcomes. Power distance exists in this situation. For the level of dependence, it refers to the degree to which one negotiator depends on the other party to obtain outcomes. Negotiators who have many alternatives (low dependence) are less dependent on their opponents. If negotiators only have a few or even no alternatives, they are highly relying on the others (high dependence). (Olekalns & Smith, 2009) Power distance will be created when there is a difference in the level of dependence between the negotiation parties. Assumed that it is one-to-one negotiation, if there is no difference in the level of dependence, which mean that both of them have numerous alternatives or have no alternative, they will be relatively equal in power. Both either rely on the other party heavily, or both only have little dependent on another. Considering difference in the level of dependence exists, which mean that when one negotiator has low dependence, the other party must have high dependence, power distance will be significant under this kind of negotiation relationship.
Previous researches have suggested and proved that the existence of power distance will trigger the use of deception. (Olekalns & Smith, 2009; Koning, Steinel, Beest & Dijk, 2011) Both high power and low power negotiators will deceive their opponents. For high power negotiators, who are in low dependence relationships, as they have many alternatives, it will be easy for them to get a better outcome within those alternatives. They can more be readily to exit relationships than negotiators in high dependence relationships, who are the low power negotiators. They are more likely to walk away from a negotiation when agreement cannot be reached. The ability to do so reduces the costs of deception for this kind of negotiator. They do not lose much even their deception is discovered by the other party because plenty of alternatives exist, but they can gain a much better outcome from successful use of deception. For low power negotiators, it is reasonable for them to hold a belief that they will be likely to receive a low offer from their opponents due to the lack of alternatives. This belief acts as an underlying motive for those low power negotiators to use deception. Besides, relationship building can be useful for low power bargainers to obtain better outcome. Negotiators are more willing to give more or take less in a negotiation with harmonious atmosphere than in a negotiation with intense pressure. Low power bargainers, thus, are motivated to use deception to help establish positive negotiating relationship. Regardless of the power a negotiator has, it is proved that both high power and low power bargainer will use deception as a strategy in negotiation. Power distance does not have distinct influence among high power and low power negotiators on the decision making of whether to use deception or not. However, power distance plays an important role in the decision of the type of deceptive emotion to be used in negotiation among those high power and low power negotiators. In this paper, we suggest that deceiving by expressing negative emotion, such as anger, will help high power negotiators yield a better result while positive emotion, such as happiness, can be largely used by low power bargainers to build relationship with the opponents.
As mentioned before, high power negotiators have many alternatives on hand. Sometimes, they do not really care so much about the outcome of the negotiation. Nevertheless, for their opponents, because of the lack of good alternatives, they will be afraid that the high power negotiators leave the negotiation table. The difference in perceiving the importance of negotiation between the two parties allows the negotiators with higher power to make use of deceptive emotions. When negotiators with higher power display their emotion, their opponents, the low-power negotiators, are likely to be influenced and to make concession. The extent to which those low-power negotiators concede depends on the type of emotion being shown. They will concede more when their counterparts show negative emotion such as anger while the room for concession is relatively small if positive emotion such as happiness is displayed. (Van Kleef, De Dreu, Pietroni & Manstead, 2006) Anger expression can be a communication of toughness. Pretending to be tough threatens the opponents of high power negotiators of breaking the relationship or aggravating the intense atmosphere. (Sinaceur & Tiedens, 2006) As positive relationship tends to be important for low power negotiator, it will be effective for bargainer with more power to use anger as a deceptive emotion. We can briefly conclude that high power negotiator will have relatively high motivation to use negative deceptive emotion such as pretending to be angry as they can achieve a better negotiation outcome.
A strategy can be very powerful in one situation but can be harmful in another situation. If low power negotiators deceive the counterparts by using negative emotion, the relationship with the opponents will be destroyed. This may not be an important matter for high power negotiators. However, for those who are in low power position, destroying relationship may make the negotiation to be ended in disaster. On the contrary, a positive relationship can help reduce the toughness of negotiators with high power so that low power bargainers will have more opportunities to obtain a more favorable outcome. Expressing positive emotion increases the likelihood of the construction of cooperative negotiation context. (Thompson, Medvec, Seiden & Kopelman, 2001) When the opponents of low power bargainers are affected to have a cooperative mindset, they are more willing to engage in more information exchange, actively suggesting more alternatives or passively listening to the suggestion of low power negotitors. All of the above actions allow negotiators in low power position to yield better result. Therefore, they will have higher motivation to use positive deceptive emotion in a negotiation situation where power distance is significant between negotiation parties.