How to Screw People in Negotiations (and Get them to See it as Fair)

“The most important trip you may take in life is meeting people half way.”
Henry Boyle

In earlier Blogs I have written about the “pro-social peptide” oxytocin and how it seems to enhance trust and trustworthiness between individuals and teams.  Unfortunately, oxytocin can’t easily be increased artificially but experimentally when it is given to people, they are much more trusting and willing to collaborate and cooperate with others.

Based on some new research, we now have an evidence based way to positively influence and win negotiations with others even when we are blatantly unfair.  Furthermore, this technique even gets them to perceive it is OK.

Curious about the steps?

Step 1:  Pick a “mark” (friend, colleague, family member, or customer) and schedule a lunch or dinner meeting to discuss an important business deal.

Step 2: Serve food and drink and at the beginning of the negotiation meeting “season” the food or drink with a common anti-anxiety drug such as such as valium, Xanax or klonopin.

Step 3: Eat, drink and be merry for about 60 minutes.

Step 4: Make an outrageous and unfair business offer (e.g., offer to purchase something at a ridiculous price, offer something stupid for an outlandish sacrifice by the other party, ask for the “moon” and promise to give nothing in return) and graciously accept when agreed to.

Step 5: Offer to split the bill on the meal (most likely, the other party will offer to pay for it). Tell the other party you enjoyed the meeting and hope to do more business with them soon.

Sound crazy right?  In a new study, both neural and behavioral responses to unfair proposals were able to be completely manipulated by a common anti-anxiety drug.

Winning Negotiations with Others Using Drugs

It is well-established that emotions influence decision making. One way of studying this relationship is the Ultimatum Game (a competitive game used by researchers to study conflict, cooperation and trustworthiness), which has revealed that subjects punish unfair behavior in others in spite of receiving a concomitant economic loss.

Kataruba Gospic and her colleagues from the Center of Integrative Medicine, Karolinska Institute, Sweden, recently designed a paradigm that allows the measure the activity of subcortical brain regions during decision making in the Ultimatum Game, while at the same time using a pharmacological approach that can suppress emotional responses and brain (amygdala) activity ((Gospic K, Mohlin E, Fransson P, Petrovic P, Johannesson M, et al. 2011 Limbic Justice—Amygdala Involvement in Immediate Rejection in the Ultimatum Game. PLoS Biol 9(5): e1001054. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001054)). The pharmacological treatment (a popular benziodiazpine called oxazepam–20 mg taken orally) made subjects punish unfair behavior less, and decreased brain activity in the amygdala in response to unfair proposals, without changing the subjects’ feeling of unfairness. In the control group, punishment was directly linked to an increase in amygdala activity.

How the Experiment Was Run

Thirty-five subjects were randomly assigned to either the control (placebo pill) or the treatment group (oxazepam, 20 mg orally). One hour after treatment subjects played the UG in the MRI scanner by watching 45 movie clips, each with a different human proposer. The proposals were fair, unfair, or neutral. All proposals had the exact same wording, and the proposer ended the sentence by stating the share that he/she would get. The fMRI onset time was defined as when the last word was spoken, i.e., when the fairness of the proposal could be judged. Subjects were instructed to respond either “yes” or “no” to the fair/unfair proposals and “no” to the neutral proposals. After scanning, subjects rated the fairness of the offers (scale 1–7) and likability of the proposers’ faces (scale 0–100).

Results

The functional MRI showed that unfair proposals elicited activity in a particular part of the brain (right insula) but that those taking the anti-anxiety medication showed lowered neural responses related to unfair proposals (i.e., less reaction) compared to a placebo.

• The participants in the anti-anxiety group showed decreased rejection rate to unfair proposals
• Males showed greater brain (amygdala) responses to unfair proposals compared to women in the placebo but not to the drug treatment group
• It is unclear if the drug leads to greater likability of the other negotiating partner or whether it alters the perception of unfairness

The authors state “We have demonstrated that an anxiolytic drug alters the balance between rapid emotional reactions and reflected-feeling-based decisions. The finding prompts an ethical discussion, as we showed that a commonly used drug influences core functions in the human brain that underlie individual autonomy and economic decision making.”

What has not been thoroughly tested is what happens when both parties take benzodiazepines in business negotiations….I think I will get a glass of wine and research the topic a bit further….Be well….

Ken Nowack

Kenneth Nowack, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist (PSY13758) and President & Chief Research Officer/Co-Founder of Envisia Learning, is a member of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations. Ken also serves as the Associate Editor of Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research. His recent book Clueless: Coaching People Who Just Don’t Get It is available for free for a limited time by signing up for free blog updates (Learn more at our website)