Negotiation is a conflict resolution mechanism in which at least two parties decide to act to reduce perceived goal discrepancies. However, most negotiation research considers the decision to enter the negotiation as implicit and emphasizes on what happens during the negotiation and on its outcomes (Reif and Brodbeck, 2014). This perspective takes no account that a pre-negotiation phase exists in which one or more parties consider whether the situation is ripe to initiate a negotiation and communicate their preferences to their counterpart(s) (Zartman, 1989). But, why do some individuals take the first step and effectively initiate negotiations to achieve their goals, while others decide to avoid an encounter, or choose not to verbalize their request, or prefer to sub-optimize their request? As a great many decisions have an interpersonal component that requires the cooperation of other persons to accomplish, the answer to this question has direct and important implications for personal and professional success.

Despite the fact that researchers and scholars have long recognized the critical role played by early stages in many social processes (e.g., planning, problem-solving, group/team development; Tuckman, 1965; Bruner and Pomazal, 1988), the initiation phase of negotiation was for many years overlooked in models of the negotiation process, not to mention in research studies (Reif and Brodbeck, 2014, 2017). Eventually, interest in the role of gender in negotiations led some researchers to postulate differences in men’s and women’s attitudes toward negotiation, particularly as relates to making a demand or request (Babcock and Laschever, 2003; Baron, 2003; Amanatullah and Morris, 2010). Other demographic/personality factors, such as risk propensity and Machiavellianism, have since been linked to differences in propensity to initiate a negotiation (Kapoutsis et al., 2013).

In a review of research on negotiation, however, Bazerman et al. (2000) concluded that although “individual differences do influence negotiated outcomes, slight changes in situational features swamp these effects” (p. 281). Among the situational factors that could influence the initiation process are an individual’s affective state (Elfenbein, 2007; Van Kleef and Sinaceur, 2013; Reif and Brodbeck, 2014; Lerner et al., 2015; George and Dane, 2016) and the relative bargaining power of the initiator (Overbeck and Kim, 2013). These factors can differentially influence an individual’s decision to engage a counterpart, whether or not to make a request, and the nature of the request (e.g., goal optimization or sub-optimization, in the hopes of improving the chances of gaining a counterpart’s cooperation; Volkema, 2009; Kapoutsis et al., 2013). These three phases of the initiation process—engaging, requesting, and optimizing—must be studied individually as well as collectively to best understand the predictors of initiation behavior.

This research draws from the Appraisal Tendency Framework (ATF; Lerner and Keltner, 2000, 2001), which posits that emotions influence the way individuals appraise their environment toward the accomplishment of specific goals (Smith and Ellsworth, 1985; Lerner et al., 2015). Specifically, we are interested in the intrapersonal effects (i.e., when one is affected by experiencing his or her own emotions) of two discrete emotions (i.e., happiness and sadness) on the decision to initiate negotiations under bargaining power asymmetry. Our first objective is to investigate the impact of these two affect dispositions, which reflect emotions with different appraisal tendencies (happiness: a highly pleasant state involving little effort, a high level of certainty about the situation, a strong desire to pay attention, and a moderately high sense of personal control; sadness: a highly unpleasant state which is controlled by situational circumstances which are beyond individual control and associated with a high degree of anticipated effort), on negotiation initiation when bargaining power is low and high. The second is to examine the trait × state affect interaction under bargaining power asymmetry and see how their interplay (we call this the “dual-emotion situation”) may influence the decision to engage a counterpart, request and optimize.

To meet these objectives, we designed two scenario studies. Using a salary negotiation as context, Study 1 examines the impact of trait affect (happiness and sadness) and bargaining power on individuals’ decision to initiate a negotiation. Study 2 uses a similar methodology to test the interaction between state and trait affect (happiness vs. sadness) at high and low levels of relative bargaining power on each stage of the initiation process.

This research aims to advance our knowledge on negotiations in three meaningful ways. First, we offer another explanatory mechanism of why individuals decide to engage negotiations and make optimal or suboptimal requests. Although we know from prior studies that bargaining power is pivotal to negotiation initiation and needs to be accounted for (Magee et al., 2007; Kapoutsis et al., 2013; Volkema et al., 2013, 2016), there is amassing empirical evidence that demonstrates that emotions spill over their effects to decision making influencing action tendencies (for a recent review, see Lerner et al., 2015). Thus, the knowledge of how emotions impact negotiators’ decision to initiate will enhance our understanding of negotiators’ intentions in high vs. low bargaining power situations and hence indicate new practical ways to intervene or bias the decision making of counterparts.

Second, we contribute to the literature of emotions in the context of negotiations. Prior research on negotiations has focused on the interpersonal effects of emotions (e.g., Van Kleef, 2009; Van Kleef et al., 2010). Such attention is justified since emotions that counterparts display may carry social information that communicates important messages to another party and thus alternating their negotiation behavior (Van Kleef, 2016). However, emotions may as well implicitly influence cognition and hence the decisions to seize a negotiable opportunity or let it pass. With this research, we hope to provide insight into the role of two dispositional emotions (happiness and sadness) in the pre-negotiation stage.

Finally, this is one of the few studies (e.g., Winterich et al., 2010; Pe and Kuppens, 2012) to test patterns of augmentation and blunting between two quite diverse emotions, happiness and sadness, and the only one, to our knowledge, to investigate the interactive effects of the same trait and state emotions on negotiations. Literature suggests that there is a positive relationship between dispositional and state emotions (Lerner and Keltner, 2000). However, although predisposed to certain emotions, at the time of the negotiation individuals may experience congruent or incongruent incidental or integral emotions (dual emotion situation). Such a hypothesis makes a unique contribution to the negotiation literature since it shows what happens to initiation behavior, under bargaining power asymmetry, when dispositional happiness (sadness) is congruent or incongruent with state happiness (sadness). This investigation intends to open up the discussion about the dynamic interplay between state and trait affect on judgment and decision making.

According to the Approach-Inhibition Theory of Power, an individual’s behavioral approach system is activated when the individual has a relative power advantage, leading to a greater awareness of potential rewards and goal-directed motor behavior (Keltner et al., 2003). Besides, individuals with power may exhibit lower sensitivity to social norms and standards (Galinsky et al., 2003). Thus, people who have more relative power may well believe that their goals supersede conventional social norms and that alternatives exist if a prospective counterpart responds otherwise. An increase in goal-directed motor behavior along with a concomitant decrease in one’s sensitivity to social strictures, therefore, suggests a willingness to engage other parties who might aid in goal achievement.

While engaging can occur without requesting (as when a negotiator introduces him/herself into the conversation in the hopes that the context will spur the other party to raise a desired issue or wait until the timing is more appropriate), there is also support for a relationship between power and the second phase of the initiation process—requesting. When individuals have perceived power, they are likely to express their opinions more in social situations (Aries et al., 1983; Anderson and Berdahl, 2002). In contrast, individuals who lack power may prefer reticence with respect to goal pursuit, for fear that a request not only might be negatively received but prompt punitive action (De Dreu et al., 1998).

The third phase of initiation—optimization—also can be affected by relative power. The perception of a power advantage can imply that one’s counterpart has few if any alternatives to a negotiated agreement (e.g., no other suppliers), and therefore it is possible to optimize one’s request. This optimization, for example, can take the form of an exaggerated if not hyper-exaggerated first offer. In contrast, an initiator who him/herself lacks viable alternatives may be more inclined to lower his or her expectations and demands (Pinkley et al., 1994). In addition, prior research has shown that possessing more power increase individuals’ propensity to make a first offer and improve negotiators’ outcomes (Galinsky and Mussweiler, 2001; Magee et al., 2007).

Affect is a catch-all term that captures a broad range of ephemeral or enduring preferences, evaluations, moods, or emotions (Fiske and Taylor, 1991). Dispositional or trait affect refers to more stable tendencies to experience certain moods more frequently or to display specific emotional reactions to some stimulus (Scherer, 2005). In contrast, state affect reflects transitory emotional states caused by specific events that may be relevant or irrelevant to the negotiation (Barry et al., 2004; Lerner et al., 2015). While state and dispositional affect originate from different sources (situations vs. biological processes or genetic influences), research has shown that they may produce similar effects to a wide range of intrapersonal (e.g., decision making), interpersonal (e.g., performance appraisals), and organizational (e.g., cooperation, prosocial behavior) processes (Baron, 2008; Druckman and Olekalns, 2008).

Prior literature suggests that integral and incidental emotions can influence judgment and decision making (Lerner and Keltner, 2000). The former focus on the impact of emotions that are relevant to the particular situation. For example, the anticipated happiness after receiving a large bonus for the contribution to the company’s annual profits while preparing to meet with a client. The latter, which is the concern of this paper, document the influences of subjective emotional experiences that are irrelevant to the situation. For example, the anticipated sadness after seeing a fatal car accident while driving the car to an interview with an employer. Although integral emotions have shown that they can bias otherwise prudent course of action (Loewenstein et al., 2001), research on incidental emotions indicate that they can also spill over from one situation to the next (e.g., Loewenstein and Lerner, 2001; Lerner et al., 2015).

In the negotiation literature, most studies are concerned with integral affect since they have shown to convey more strategic information and thus have a stronger influence on the recipients’ judgments and behavior (Van Kleef, 2016; Hillebrandt and Barclay, 2017). Recent studies have shown that incidental emotions have stronger intrapersonal carry over than integral emotions (Schwarz and Clore, 1983; Lerner et al., 2015; Van Kleef, 2016). Nonetheless, not all emotions have a similar impact on decision making and specifically on the decision to initiate negotiations.

Research has proposed several models of emotional appraisals such as Russell’s (1980) circumplex, Frijda et al. (1989) action readiness, and Lazarus’s (1991) goal-relevance and goal congruence framework. However, the ATF (Lerner and Keltner, 2000, 2001) has moved research one step forward by suggesting that each emotion relates to a unique core appraisal that activates a cognitive predisposition (i.e., appraisal tendency). This tendency, in turn, drives individuals to appraise particular events in ways that are consistent with the emotional appraisal (Han et al., 2007). Hence, even emotions of the same valence (e.g., sadness and anger) or activation (e.g., happiness and anger) may have different influences on judgment and decision making.

To form this appraisal tendency, the ATF relies on the empirical work of Smith and Ellsworth (1985) and distinguishes emotions based on six different characteristics (Lerner et al., 2015): attentional activity, certainty about what happened, pleasantness, control, anticipated effort, and accountability. Happiness is a positive emotion associated with an elevated sense of certainty, individual control, and accountability. Moreover, those who are happy may display more attentional activity to a task, and their activation seems easier as they require less effort to overcome obstacles attached to a challenge. In contrast, sadness is a negative emotion characterized mostly by the absence of personal control, which enhances the tendency to perceive the situational elements of the prospective negotiation as responsible for its outcome (Winterich et al., 2010; Lerner et al., 2015). Also, sadness may be experienced as a burden, so individuals need to exert more effort to achieve their goal. Furthermore, sadness is associated with low attentional control which suggests that people facing a negotiation will be less concentrated to the task or repelled by it. Therefore, happiness and sadness are two discrete emotions with different underlying characteristics that each may affect differently the decision to initiate negotiations.

The previous discussion made clear that trait affect may influence the decision to initiate negotiations. Surprisingly, prior research on decision making has focused on the action tendencies of either dispositional affect or state affect (as general tendencies or discrete emotions). Yet, trait and state affect may interact within the same individual. For example, a job candidate may have a happy disposition, but be in a sad mood during an interview because of a previous integral or incidental event. This interplay of trait and state affect raises new questions about the implications of their interaction in decision making and negotiation initiation, in particular.

The tenet that emotional experiences may influence each other across time is not new, although empirical evidence are still sparse (e.g., Branscombe, 1985; Neumann et al., 2001; Winterich et al., 2010; Pe and Kuppens, 2012). For example, Branscombe (1985) relied on the incompatible response model (Baron, 1976, 1984) and argued that when one emotion immediately follows another of the same valence, these will sum and result in a more intense response to the second stimulus. In another study, Winterich et al. (2010) argued that since appraisal tendencies influence judgment and cognition, they may as well influence an existing appraisal. In their study, they focused on contrasting appraisals that inhibit previous emotions, which they referred to as emotional blunting. Specifically, they used sadness and anger, two emotions negatively valenced that mainly differ in situational control (i.e., sadness is characterized by appraisals of situational control whereas anger by appraisals of individual control) and found that sadness will blunt the elicitation of sadness in a subsequent event that should elicit anger and in turn carry over to optimism in risk estimates. In addition, Pe and Kuppens (2012) suggested that one emotion can either augment or blunt the experience of another subsequent emotion. In their study, they found that emotions of similar valence augmented the experience of another whereas they blunted it in the case of emotions of the opposite valence.

Based on the previous discussion, we expect that when state happiness (sadness) is congruent with dispositional happiness (sadness), the effect of the latter will be amplified. Thus, being in a happy (sad) state, while having a happy (sad) disposition, will increase (decrease) the likelihood of initiating, especially when bargaining power is also high (low). In contrast, we expect that when state happiness (sadness) is infused to a sad (happy) individual, the negative (positive) effect of dispositional sadness (happiness) on negotiation initiation will attenuate, even when bargaining power is low (high).

To test these propositions, we designed two scenario studies. The first tests the impact of dispositional affect (happiness and sadness) on three distinct stages of negotiation initiation (engage, request, optimize). In the second study, we manipulate state affect (happiness vs. sadness) and test its interplay with dispositional affect (happiness and sadness) on each stage of the negotiation initiation process. In both studies, bargaining power is manipulated to test these effects under power asymmetry (high vs. low relative bargaining power). To our knowledge, this research is the first to investigate the role of affect on negotiation initiation and one of the few that empirically tests the interaction between trait and state affect (e.g., Van Knippenberg et al., 2010). Finally, the current research is unique since the role of affect is tested in light of power asymmetries.

In models of negotiation initiation, traits and situational factors are considered as significant driving forces (e.g., Magee et al., 2007; Kong et al., 2011; Kapoutsis et al., 2013; Volkema et al., 2013; Reif and Brodbeck, 2017). In this paper, we posed the question of whether or not working adults facing a negotiation situation under power asymmetry would be willing to initiate (engage a prospective counterpart, make a suboptimal request, and optimize it) depending on their affect (trait and state: happiness and sadness). Specifically, we aimed our attention on two primary discrete emotions (happiness and sadness) which differ in several characteristics that lead to different appraisal tendencies (Smith and Ellsworth, 1985). Collectively, the results of the two studies revealed some interesting patterns about the role of trait affect and its interaction with state affect on negotiation initiation under power asymmetry.

In Study 1, we found that powerful individuals are more likely to engage, request, and optimize, compared to powerless ones. This finding is aligned to the tenets of the Approach-Inhibition Model of power (Keltner et al., 2003) and adds to the mounting evidence (e.g., Magee et al., 2007; Kapoutsis et al., 2013) that power asymmetry is a decisive driving force of negotiation initiation. Also, we drew from the ATF (Lerner and Keltner, 2000, 2001) and argued that happiness and sadness represent two affect dispositions with different appraisal tendencies that each may influence the decision to initiate negotiation under high and low bargaining power conditions. The results showed that trait affect interacts with bargaining power. For all three stages of the initiation process, dispositional sadness reduced the likelihood of initiating although having a relative power advantage. Still, we found no enhancing effect for sadness on initiation, under a relative power disadvantage. This finding is in line with those from other studies which argued that sadness may indeed increase pessimism about future events (Keltner et al., 1993; Smith and Lazarus, 1993; Helweg-Larsen and Shepperd, 2001), increase propensity for risk avoidance (Lerner et al., 2015) and hence neutralize the benefits that stem from processing more relative power. This may also be attributed to the fact that negatively valenced affect constrains individuals from engaging in negotiations because of the fear in reviving a past failure that may enlarge their potential loss (Morris and Keltner, 2000). On the other hand, we found that people who tend to be happy are more likely to make a request even when power is low. Moreover, happy participants were twice as likely to optimize their request, although the probability was statistically insignificant. The finding that they preferred to skip engaging the counterpart may be explained by the fact that happy individuals tend to take more risks while they tend to reside in heuristic processing which requires minimal cognitive effort (Lerner et al., 2015). Meanwhile, trait happiness had no effect on the propensity of powerful individuals to initiate. Such finding adds up to those from other researches that suggest that happy people may overlook situational cues to avoid cognitive effort that could threaten their ability to maintain their pleasant state (Isen, 1984; Wood et al., 1990). Therefore, our results contradict Overbeck et al.’s. (2010) assertion that trait affect is not an influential factor of judgment in powerless situations.

Study 2 was interested in the interaction between trait and state (incidental) affect. Results reveal that the incidental emotions of happiness or sadness per se do not have any impact on negotiation initiation, controlling for bargaining power. However, they interact with trait affect. In line with what we found in Study 1, for those who lack bargaining power, the results show that initiation is less probable no matter their current state of happiness or sadness or their general tendency to be happy or sad. The only exception was observed for optimizing; those who were induced with incidental sadness and were usually sad (congruent trait-state affect) had very little likelihood of optimizing. With this exception, the emotional augmentation of powerless individuals in dual emotion situations received only limited support.

In theory, we also expected that incongruent trait-state affect would influence decision making under relative bargaining power asymmetry. Contrary to the nature of our prediction we found that individuals who tend to be happy is almost sure that they engage a prospective counterpart, but only when there are induced with sadness rather than happiness. This pattern was repeated for requesting and optimizing as well. However, for powerful individuals who tend to be sad, being infused with incidental happiness increased the likelihood to initiate negotiations (engage, request, optimize), but not to a statistically significant degree. This pattern may explain the lack of support to Study’s 1 proposition that powerful, happy individuals would be more likely to initiate negotiations. As shown in Study 2, this may be attributed to state affect. But, instead of an emotional blunting due to emotional incongruence, we found an emotional augmentation. This finding highlights the fascinating interplay between state and trait affect and contributes to the literature on emotional augmentation and blunting (Winterich et al., 2010; Pe and Kuppens, 2012). Although research on this area is still insufficient, our results indicate that powerful individuals with a tendency to be happy need a sad external stimulus to increase the likelihood of initiation; otherwise the positive carry over of trait happiness on initiation becomes inactive. Nonetheless, this pattern was not observed for powerless, sad individuals infused with incidental happiness.

Study 2 findings corroborate George’s (2011) assertion that both positive and negative affect can be useful. For example, Forgas (2007) found that negative mood may promote a more attentive, accommodating and concrete information processing style. In his study, he found that those primed in a negative mood developed more persuasive arguments than those in a positive mood. In another study, Tamir and Ford (2009) suggested that some individuals may be willing to experience negative affect as it may prove useful to attain instrumental gain. Additionally, Kawakami et al. (2014) found that listening to sad music can be perceived as sad but can evoke positive emotional responses. They suggest that if a negative emotion does not constitute any real threat to the individual, then it generates a positive reaction. In our case, people were primed into sadness and happiness using incidents that were unrelated to the context of the negotiation. Thus, although feeling sad, it may have activated the action tendency of happiness and evoked a positive response. Furthermore, Forgas (2013) noted that negative mood (e.g., sadness) relates to less artificial self-handicaps (i.e., avoidance of effort to protect self-esteem from potential failure). Sadness has also been associated with reduced fundamental attribution error. Thus, sad people may be less prone to ignore situational factors (Forgas, 1998). Moreover, Schwarz (1990) noted that those infused with negative mood process information more systematically and carefully while happy individuals preserve their good mood by avoiding cognitive effort and relying on heuristic processing (Clark and Isen, 1982). Finally, because sadness was incidental, our findings may suggest that a happy disposition could motivate powerful individuals to become more attentive to the negotiation opportunity rather than thinking of the unpleasant incident that caused negative mood. As such, combining happiness as a tendency with ephemeral sadness indicates that activating negative emotions (e.g., anger) may increase the likelihood of initiating. Therefore, future research could test whether emotions that combine unpleasantness with activation (e.g., angry) would make individuals more likely to initiate a negotiation.

Overall, although the self-motivating role of positive affect on individuals’ behavior is well documented (George, 2011; George and Dane, 2016), this research shows that happiness is a driving force, but only for those who are powerful and in a sad state. However, we also found that some negative dispositions (i.e., sadness) have the potency to make individuals direct their attention and behavior toward minimizing potential losses from avoiding to negotiate when they find themselves in a powerful position. The interaction of affect × power can also be viewed using power as a reference point. Although we know that power dramatically increases the likelihood of initiating negotiations (Keltner et al., 2003; Magee et al., 2007; Kapoutsis et al., 2013; Volkema et al., 2013), our results indicate that specific affect dispositions may moderate this likelihood.

What this research practically tells negotiators is that to increase the chances of acting upon negotiable opportunities, they need to account for the situational parameters of the prospective negotiation. For example, negotiators may try to enhance relative bargaining power because it facilitates not only engaging but also requesting and optimizing. To increase relative bargaining power, individuals may look for other alternatives, possess resources that are valuable to the other party, impose time constraints on the other party, setting goals and forming if-then plans, etc. (Overbeck and Kim, 2013; Jäger et al., 2017). They need to be aware, however, that such advantage may attenuate for those with a sad disposition. To put it differently, having a happy disposition while in a power disadvantage may not vest individuals from withdrawing or from making and optimizing a request. But, having a sad disposition may block the driving force produced by power advantage. Yet, powerful negotiators with a happy disposition may find it useful to think of sad or negative vicarious experiences (unrelated to the negotiation task) or simply associate with other people who have a sad disposition in life. Such connections may make happy people to become more attentive and give the necessary push to engage in negotiation, making a request, and optimizing it. Therefore, if we view initiation behavior not only as the first step before starting negotiations but also as a critical step throughout the negotiation process (e.g., making requests as the negotiation unfolds), then being able to infuse specific emotions and regulate bargaining power may increase concessions and facilitate cooperative agreements.

As with all vignette studies, the application of these findings comes with several caveats. First, the two studies measured implementation intentions rather than actual behaviors. However, intentions are likely to predict behaviors, particularly when individuals have control over behavior, social reactions are unlikely, and habitual strength is low (e.g., avoiding behavior as a habit) (Webb and Sheeran, 2006). Second, this article focused on two primary discrete emotions, happiness and sadness. These two emotions represent two different semantic components of emotion appraisal models. It would be worthwhile to design similar studies and focus on other emotions that differ in their characteristics (e.g., anger and calmness). Finally, state affect in this study was manipulated using incidental emotions, which were unrelated to that situation. Future research may as well find a different pattern in the results if these emotions arose from a decision at hand (integral emotion; Lerner et al., 2015; Hillebrandt and Barclay, 2017).

Naturally, individuals are more likely to engage in negotiations when they feel that the other party will accommodate their request. Emotions convey information about social interactions and how people perceive the other party (Frijda, 1986), which in turn influences the behavioral response of the recipient (Barry et al., 2004; Van Kleef et al., 2004). Hence, emotions can be contagious and be transmitted from the initiator to the recipient subconsciously (Levy and Nail, 1993). And being able to transfer the positive affect to the other party can influence the judgment that relates to first impressions (Forgas, 2011). To this end, individuals who can prime or regulate their affect and match the situation can control the information sent to counterparts and increase the likelihood of eliciting the desired response. Therefore, future research on negotiation initiation may examine how this pre-negotiation decision making stage is affected by the emotional state of the prospective counterpart, how affect between the two interact, and how emotion regulation may help elicit the desired behavior and response.

Future researchers may also investigate the role of emotions and power not only on the initial decision to negotiate but also when this first attempt has failed (e.g., failing to receive the intended preliminary response). Will the asking party abandon the re-initiation attempt when bargaining power is low, irrespective of his or her affective state or will it similarly influence this second decision? We suggest that even if negotiators have more power initially, re-engaging will be less likely unless coupled with positive affect; otherwise bargaining power will remain a valuable but inactive resource. Antithetically, the party with the lower bargaining power can ignore the initial approach (a tactic that restores power imbalance). If this attempt fails, then inducing negative emotions to the initiator may set the initiation threshold at a higher level and make the asking party reluctant to re-engage.

We argue that the theoretical and empirical research in negotiations will advance as researchers start looking at early negotiation stages. While demographic and personality factors have heretofore been the primary focus, situational factors may offer greater predictability (Bazerman et al., 2000). Based on these two studies, affect, power, and their interaction appear to hold both theoretical and practical promise for understanding the engaging, requesting, and optimizing phases of the initiation process.

IK substantially contributed the conception and design of the two studies, the collection and analysis of the data, and to the writing of the paper. RV contributed to the conception and design of the two studies and made contributions to the writing of the article. AL made substantial contributions to the analysis and interpretation of the data, and to the writing of the paper. All authors approved the current version of the manuscript.

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.