Studying the Effects of Stress on Negotiation Behaviour

Negotiation is a collaborative activity that requires the participation of different parties whose behaviours influence the outcome of the whole process. The work presented here focuses on the identification of such behaviours and their impact on the negotiation process. The premise for this study is that identifying and cataloguing the behaviour of parties during a negotiation may help to clarify the role stress plays in the process. To do so, an experiment based on a negotiation game was implemented. During this experiment, behavioural and contextual information about participants was acquired. The data from this negotiation game was analysed in order to identify the conflict styles used by each party and to extract behavioural patterns from the interactions, useful for the development of plans and suggestions for the associated participants. In sooth, the work highlights the importance of the knowledge about social interactions as a basis for informed decision support in situations of conflict