Posted on: Friday, June 11, 2004

Emotions can cost you big during negotiations

By Mary Umberger
Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO — Researchers at Princeton University are using brain-imaging technology to study which parts of the brain — the ones that control emotion or the ones that control rational thought — essentially "light up" when we're trying to make economic decisions.

They've concluded that when our emotions emerge victorious over our rational abilities, we often make choices that go against our self-interest.

Anyone with any street smarts intuitively knows this to be true. It's called shooting yourself in the foot. Nonetheless, such research is getting attention not only from psychologists, but also from the field of economics, which traditionally has ignored emotion and has assumed that people make rational decisions.

Again, real estate agents have known this for a long time.

"I've had occasions where I've had to say to my clients, 'Wait a minute. You told me you had five priorities in selecting a house to buy, and this place has none of them. And yet you tell me this is the one?' " said agent Colette Cachey of North Side in Chicago.

Connecticut broker Adorna Carroll, who conducts seminars on negotiation strategies, says that emotions tend to show up most dramatically when it comes time to dicker over the contract. For reasons that have nothing to do with rational thought, deals just get stuck, she says.

One thing Carroll has noticed is timing. If talks are going to get stuck, it usually will happen at night, she says.