Language Style Matching, Engagement, and Impasse in Negotiations

Abstract

Humans and animals alike are known to mirror the behavior of both allies and opponents. However, existing models of behavior matching focus primarily on its prosocial functions. The current study explores whether both prosocial and adversarial sides of behavior matching can be found at different stages of an egoistic negotiation. In negotiations conducted over instant messenger, 64 dyads attempted to reach an agreement on four issues within 20 minutes while focusing solely on personal gain. We measured behavior matching with the language style matching (LSM) metric, which quantifies function word (e.g., pronouns, articles) similarity between partners. Although pairs with higher LSM throughout negotiations were more socially engaged, they were also less focused on the task and more likely to reach an impasse during the negotiation. Furthermore, early but not late style matching predicted more positive, socially attuned interactions. Implications for negotiation and mimicry research are discussed.

She Said, She Said: Differential Interpersonal Similarities Predict Unique Linguistic Mimicry in Online Word of Mouth

“…For example, mimicry of negative emotion words decreases trust in dyadic interactions (Scissors et al 2008). Together with the linguistic style results above, these findings suggest that in an affiliation-oriented context (i.e., when personal similarity is high), mimicry of linguistic content may have positive consequences, while in an achievement-oriented context (i.e., when status similarity is high), mimicry of linguistic content may have negative consequences (Ireland et al 2011;Ireland and Henderson 2014;Scissors et al 2008). Combining this literature with our experimental findings, we predict that personal similarity should increase social and positive emotion word mimicry, and this should increase forum engagement, whereas status similarity should increase cognitive and descriptive word mimicry, and this should decrease forum engagement.…”

“…For example, while linguistic style mimicry increases romantic interest in a speed-dating (affiliation-oriented) context (Ireland et al 2011), it is also more likely to lead to an impasse in negotiations in a competitive (achievement-21 oriented) context (Ireland and Henderson 2014). Based on this, we might expect increased forum engagement from function word mimicry as a result of personal similarity, but decreased forum engagement from function word mimicry as a result of status similarity.…”

“…al 2010;Huffaker et al 2011;Swaab, Maddux and Sinaceur 2011). However, linguistic mimicry can also decrease the likelihood of reaching an agreement in competitive interactions (Ireland and Henderson 2014), and mimicry of negative emotion words decreases trust in dyadic interactions (Scissors, Gill, Geraghty, and Gergle 2010).…”

To be like you to be liked by you

“…Behavioral accommodation, especially language style matching, according to Ireland and Henderson [25], may also lead to impasse in negotiations, because negotiators were less focused on the task itself. They also found accommodation at different stages of a negotiation task matters, in that accommodation in later stages predicts a more positive relationship than that in earlier stages.…”

“…Linguistically, communicators change their accents, speech rate, word choice, utterance duration and syntax to match those of a conversational partner [6,12,17,18]. Communicators also modify nonverbal behaviors such as gaze or frequency of head nods, sometimes without even realizing it [14,21,25].…”