No Need to Keep Your Cool: Feeling Tense Can Boost Negotiation Skills

From counselheal.com

Symptoms of nervousness may actually help people get what they want, a new study suggests.

New research reveals that you don't have to keep your cool to get a bargain. The thought of having to negotiate over the price of a new car may trigger sweaty palms and racing hearts in some people. However, new evidence reveals that physiological arousal isn't always damaging and may actually help some people get a good deal.

"It turns out that the effect depends on whether you are someone who dreads or looks forward to negotiating," lead researcher Ashley D. Brown, of the Jared R. Curhan of the Sloan School of Management at MIT, said in a news release. "It's not inherently harmful."

In one experiment, researchers assessed participants' attitudes toward negotiation. Afterwards, they had participants walk on a treadmill while negotiating over the price of a used car. Some participants walked quickly to increase their heart rates while others walked at a slower pace...

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Permalink Reply by John C. Turley on September 6, 2013 at 1:14pm

I enjoyed reading this article because it helped me to understand the physiological crossover between negotiations and competitive sports. For me, every aspect of life is competitive. This is just the way I am. I have difficulty distinguishing between a sales competition and negotiation and a physical contact sport, a vestige of my basketball career and growing up in NYC. I am not a grind; however, there is a tendency to go hard in every endeavor worth pursuing.