And sympathy is what we need my friend—Polite requests improve negotiation results

The wording negotiators use shapes the emotions of their counterparts. These emotions, in turn, influence their counterparts’ economic decisions. Building on this rationale, we examined how the language used during negotiation affects discount rate and willingness to engage in future deals. In three studies, participants assumed the role of retailers. Alleged counterparts (actually a computerized program) asked for a discount under three conditions: request, want, and demand. Results show that less extreme language (request/want) resulted in better outcomes than demanding a discount. Moreover, while the language used by the customer had an effect on experienced emotions, the positive emotions (sympathy and empathy) participants felt toward the customer mediated the relationship between the linguistic cue and the negotiation outcome. Our results inform both psycholinguistic research and negotiation research by demonstrating the causal role of linguistic cues in activating concept-knowledge relevant to different emotional experiences, and point to the down-the-line impact on shaping negotiation preferences.