Effects of Moral Concerns on Negotiations

There is now considerable evidence that emotion plays an important role in negotiation. Emotions, such as anger and happiness, affect concession-making, not only in human vs. human negotiations but also in human vs. agent negotiations. Recent research has demonstrated the impact of emotional expressions in morally-charged negotiations. Thus, taking people’s moral concerns into account is crucial for building agents that operate in morally sensitive domains. This paper explores the interplay between people’s moral concerns, emotional expressions and concession-making during a morally charged negotiation. Our results demonstrate that participants who had stronger concerns for the Individualizing foundations (Harm and Fairness) make greater concessions for sacred negotiation items when faced with a sad opponent than an angry opponent. Also, we find that participants who had high Binding foundations (In-group, Authority and Purity) are more sensitive to social status, and make greater concessions in scenarios that involve agents in a higher social status.