Mad and misleading: Incidental anger promotes deception

Comedy, consensus, and conflict framework: Comedy as a norm violation can build consensus or escalate conflict in negotiations

In this work, we propose that humor violates norms that can build consensus or escalate conflict in negotiations. Drawing on social identity theory, we propose that humor commits norm violations that are more likely to be perceived as benign among ingroup observers in negotiations, but perceived as offensive to outgroup observers in negotiations. We introduce the Comedy, Consensus, and Conflict Framework to shed light on the interpersonal effect of humor on negotiations. When humor is expressed to an ingroup observer, relative to neutral communication, humor is more likely to violate weak norms that govern social group membership resulting in the violation as being perceived as benign, which promotes cooperative behaviors in negotiations such as concessions and collaborative problem-solving. By contrast, when humor is expressed to an outgroup observer, relative to neutral communication, humor is more likely to violate strong norms that define social group membership resulting in the violation as being interpreted as offensive, which triggers competitive behaviors in negotiations such as aggressive offers and hardened positions. Furthermore, we suggest that humor not only generates appraisals of social identity threats, but also affective responses that influence negotiation behavior. Finally, we expand our theoretical model about humor to consider key relational factors that influence norm strength, which motivates whether negotiators appraise norm violations as offensive or benign.

Laughter and lies: Unraveling the intricacies of humor and deception

Deception and humor are ubiquitous in interpersonal interactions and intricately interrelated. In this article, we review and integrate prior research on humor and deception and propose a theoretical model - the Interpersonal Humor Deception Model (IHDM) - to understand the interpersonal effects of humor on deception. We argue that humor can both promote and curtail the use of deception, as well as influence the detection of deception and responses to detected deception (retraction, retaliation, and the restoration of trust). The specific effects of humor depend on whether it is successful or unsuccessful. In all, our article provides a theoretical framework to guide research on humor and deception and offers important insights into the costs and benefits of humor in negotiations, organizations, and everyday life.

Embracing Complexity: A Review of Negotiation Research

In this review, we identify emerging trends in negotiation scholarship that embrace complexity, finding moderators of effects that were initially described as monolithic, examining the nuances of social interaction, and studying negotiation as it occurs in the real world. We also identify areas in which research is lacking and call for scholarship that offers practical advice. All told, the existing research highlights negotiation as an exciting context for examining human behavior, characterized by features such as strong emotions, an intriguing blend of cooperation and competition, the presence of fundamental issues such as power and group identity, and outcomes that deeply affect the trajectory of people's personal and professional lives.

Emotions and ethics: How emotions sensitize perceptions of the consequences for self and others to motivate unethical behavior

In this work, we suggest that emotions differentiated by cognitive appraisals may promote self-concern or other-concern that alter the utilitarian calculus of weighing the harm and benefits associated with moral decision-making. We introduce the Emotions and Ethics Framework to elucidate the intrapsychic effect of emotion on deception. When emotions promote self-concern, individuals are more likely engage in selfish deception. By contrast, when emotions promote other-concern, individuals are more likely to exhibit honesty. Furthermore, we extrapolate our theoretical model to consider how felt emotions influence different types of deception: selfish lies, prosocial lies, spiteful lies, and pareto lies. Finally, we theorize about the interpersonal effect of emotional expressions on deception, suggesting that the ethical consequences of emotion contagion and reverse-appraisal processes are distinct.

Deception in negotiations: Insights and opportunities

Deception pervades negotiations and shapes both the negotiation process and outcomes. In this article, we review recent scholarship investigating deception in negotiations. We offer an integrative review of recent theoretical and empirical research, and we argue that the dominant experimental paradigms that scholars have used to study deception have limited our understanding of deception in negotiations. We call for future work to develop new paradigms to investigate the role of relationships, reputations, emotions, and negotiation experience. We also call for future work to expand our understanding of practical prescriptions to curtail a negotiator's risk of being deceived.

Dishonest helping and harming after (un)fair treatment

People experience fair and unfair treatment daily, and at times may react by breaking ethical rules and lying. Here, we assess the extent to which individuals engage in dishonest behavior aimed at helping or harming others after they experience (un)fair treatment. Across three financially incentivized experiments, recipients in a dictator game received a fair or unfair amount and then could, by means of dishonesty, inflate or deflate their counterparts’ pay. Results show that dishonest helping is a common and robust behavior. Individuals lie to help others after fair, unfair, and no prior treatment. Dishonest harming, however, is less prevalent. Only after unfair treatment, some, but not all, individuals engage in dishonest harming. Dishonest harming was associated with high levels of anger and disappointment, and low levels of gratitude. Interestingly, the source of (un)fairness, whether it is intentional or not, did not attenuate peoples’ behavior, suggesting that dishonest reactions to (un)fairness were driven by the mere (un)fair treatment, and not by a motivation to reciprocate an (un)fair counterpart.

An indirect debiasing method: Priming a target attribute reduces judgmental biases in likelihood estimations

Understanding the underlying psychological process that leads to a bias is crucial for developing remedies to correct or reduce the bias. As one of the psychological processes that underlie judgmental biases, attribute substitution provides an explanation as to why people rely on heuristics and commit judgmental biases. Attribute substitution occurs when people make a judgment that requires the use of a target attribute, but make the judgment using a heuristic attribute that comes more readily to mind. This substitution inevitably introduces systematic errors because these two attributes are different. The current work explores an indirect debiasing method-the priming of a target attribute. Across three experiments, we demonstrate that priming a target attribute in prior tasks reduces judgmental biases in likelihood estimations: ratio-bias and base-rate neglect. However, this outcome only occurs when participants have enough cognitive resources. When they experience cognitive load, the priming of the target attribute does not reduce their judgmental biases.

Perceived deception in negotiation: Consequences and the mediating role of trust

Previous research on deception in negotiation focused primarily on the deceiver. It was posited that studying perceived deception from the recipient of a suspected deception is critical, but it receives scant attention in research. Drawing from the research on paranoid cognition and on detection of deception, perceived deception was examined through the display of nonverbal cues that are stereotypical of deception. Using videos simulating a negotiation scenario, Study 1 showed that deceptive nonverbal cues triggered perceived deception, and it was related to trustworthiness perception, intended concession, willingness to disclose information, and satisfaction with the negotiation counterpart negatively. Study 2 provided support for a sequential mediation model: The effect of deceptive nonverbal cues on negotiation responses was first mediated by perceived deception and subsequently by trust. Subtle cues of gaze aversion and speech pauses were able to trigger the effect. Implications of the findings on trust in negotiation are discussed.

The Psychology of Morality: A Review and Analysis of Empirical Studies Published From 1940 Through 2017

We review empirical research on (social) psychology of morality to identify which issues and relations are well documented by existing data and which areas of inquiry are in need of further empirical evidence. An electronic literature search yielded a total of 1,278 relevant research articles published from 1940 through 2017. These were subjected to expert content analysis and standardized bibliometric analysis to classify research questions and relate these to (trends in) empirical approaches that characterize research on morality. We categorize the research questions addressed in this literature into five different themes and consider how empirical approaches within each of these themes have addressed psychological antecedents and implications of moral behavior. We conclude that some key features of theoretical questions relating to human morality are not systematically captured in empirical research and are in need of further investigation.

Infuriating Impasses

Prior research has focused on the influence of emotional expressions on the value of negotiated outcomes. Across three studies, we demonstrate that people interacting with angry counterparts become more likely to walk away from a negotiation, resulting in an impasse. In Study 1, participants who encountered counterparts expressing anger were more likely to choose an impasse, relative to those with neutral counterparts. In Study 2, building on the emotion-as-social-information model, we found that inferences of selfishness mediate the effect of angry expressions on impasses. In Study 3, we found that timing moderates the relationship between angry expressions and impasses. Furthermore, we demonstrated that perceptions of inappropriateness mediate the interactive effect of timing and angry expressions on impasses. Taken together, our work reveals that expressing anger is risky in negotiations because people infer that angry counterparts are selfish and become more likely to exit negotiations.