Does communicating disappointment in negotiations help or hurt? Solving an apparent inconsistency in the social-functional approach to emotions.

Abstract

On the basis of a social-functional approach to emotion, scholars have argued that expressing disappointment in negotiations communicates weakness, which may evoke exploitation. Yet, it is also argued that communicating disappointment serves as a call for help, which may elicit generous offers. Our goal was to resolve this apparent inconsistency. We develop the argument that communicating disappointment elicits generous offers when it evokes guilt in the target, but elicits low offers when it does not. In 4 experiments using both verbal (Experiments 1-3) and nonverbal (Experiment 4) emotion manipulations, we demonstrate that the interpersonal effects of disappointment depend on (a) the opponent's group membership and (b) the type of negotiation. When the expresser was an outgroup member and in representative negotiations (i.e., when disappointment did not evoke guilt), the weakness that disappointment communicated elicited lower offers. When the expresser was an ingroup member and in individual negotiations (i.e., when disappointment did evoke guilt), the weakness that disappointment communicated elicited generous offers from participants. Thus, in contrast to the common belief that weakness is a liability in negotiations, expressing disappointment can be effective under particular circumstances. We discuss implications for theorizing about the social functions of emotions.

Deriving meaning from others’ emotions: attribution, appraisal, and the use of emotions as social information

“…Interestingly, the expression of disappointment did increase self-reported intentions to help the expresser. This finding is in line with research on prosocial behavior (Van Doorn et al, 2015) and negotiation (Van Kleef et al, 2006; Lelieveld et al, 2013), which also yielded evidence that expressions of disappointment can elicit cooperative behavior. Whether disappointment reliably yields a social appraisal that someone should be helped, however, is a question for further research.…”

Disappointment expression evokes collective guilt and collective action in intergroup conflict: the moderating role of legitimacy perceptions

“…Specifically, we showed that communicating intergroup disappointment can potentially stimulate collective guilt and action in the context of an intractable conflict. Lelieveld et al (2013) previously demonstrated that disappointment expressions by ingroup members increased guilt in negotiations, whereas if the expresser was an outgroup member, disappointment did not induce individual guilt in the observer in the interpersonal conflict. Our work expands on this by demonstrating for the first time that expressions of outgroup disappointment evoke collective guilt and collective action specifically among ingroup members who do not justify the ingroup transgression, even in a severe type of intergroup conflict.…”

“…Previous work using this perspective has mostly focused on expressions of emotions in the interpersonal context (e.g. Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2004a;Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2006) and surprisingly little attention has been given to the role of emotional expressions in the intergroup context (for some exceptions, see Kamans et al, 2014;Lelieveld et al, 2013;de Vos, Van Zomeren, Gordijn, & Postmes, 2013;de Vos, Van Zomeren, Gordjin, & Postmes, 2016). Indeed, we are not aware of any study that investigates whether the communication of intergroup disappointment evokes collective guilt and collective action in the intergroup realm.…”

“…Examples of moderators that influence predictive power of observers' emotions and subsequent behaviour are power, need for closure, and group membership (Lelieveld et al, 2012(Lelieveld et al, , 2013Van Kleef, De Dreu, & Manstead, 2004b). One plausible moderator for the effect of the expression of disappointment on the target's affective and behavioural tendencies is the appraisal of the receiver's actions' legitimacy (see also Van Kleef & Côté, 2007).…”

“…So far this literature has paid little attention (e.g. Lelieveld, Van Dijk, Van Beest, & Van Kleef, 2013) to the impact of emotional expression made by members of the outgroup on ingroup members' affective responses and behavioural orientations.…”