Negotiation and Emotions: Does Empathy Affect Virtual Bargaining?

Virtual negotiations are becoming increasingly important as most of current interactions take place online or via computer-mediated media (CMC). The present study aims to analyze the role of empathic and emotional skills in virtual bargaining. For this purpose, 320 people aged between 19 to 25 were involved in a simulated virtual negotiation through a specifically created software. Subjects who took part in the experiment were faced with a written description of a scenario. Each subject interacted with one scenario. Scenarios could be related to either a monetary or non-monetary bargaining negotiation and proposed a bid for the presented asset, framing it in a positive or negative state of mind. Subjects were also given a Basic Empathy Scale (BES) questionnaire. Results show that negotiation was affected by emotions experienced during the test and by the perception of the opponent as real more than by empathy.