An Angry Face and a Guilty Conscience: The Intrapersonal Effects of Fake Anger in Negotiation

Research on anger in negotiation suggests that expressing anger can have detrimental effects on the relationship between the parties but may also improve the expresser's economic outcomes, resulting in the use of fake anger (i.e., anger that is expressed but not felt) as a negotiation strategy. Based on research on moral emotions, we argue that fake anger in negotiation will lead to expressers' guilt, which in turn negatively impacts their self-perception and their overall subjective experience of the negotiation. Across three studies (two online and one face-to-face), we consistently demonstrate that fake anger lowers negotiators' feelings about themselves as well as their overall subjective value, and that guilt mediates this effect. We discuss implications of these findings for theory and practice of negotiation and propose an agenda for future research.