Skip to main content

The Effect of Virtual Agents’ Emotion Displays and Appraisals on People’s Decision Making in Negotiation

  • Conference paper

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 7502))

Abstract

There is growing evidence that emotion displays can impact people’s decision making in negotiation. However, despite increasing interest in AI and HCI on negotiation as a means to resolve differences between humans and agents, emotion has been largely ignored. We explore how emotion displays in virtual agents impact people’s decision making in human-agent negotiation. This paper presents an experiment (N=204) that studies the effects of virtual agents’ displays of joy, sadness, anger and guilt on people’s decision to counteroffer, accept or drop out from the negotiation, as well as on people’s expectations about the agents’ decisions. The paper also presents evidence for a mechanism underlying such effects based on appraisal theories of emotion whereby people retrieve, from emotion displays, information about how the agent is appraising the ongoing interaction and, from this information, infer about the agent’s intentions and reach decisions themselves. We discuss implications for the design of intelligent virtual agents that can negotiate effectively.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Pruitt, D., Carnevale, P.: Negotiation in social conflict. Brooks/Cole Publishing Co., Pacific Grove (1993)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Jennings, N., Faratin, P., Lomuscio, A., Parsons, S., Wooldridge, M., Sierra, C.: Automated negotiation: Prospects, methods and challenges. Group Decis. Negot. 10(2), 199–215 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Faratin, P., Sierra, C., Jennings, N.: Using similarity criteria to make issue trade-offs in automated negotiations. Artificial Intelligence 142(2), 205–237 (2002)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  4. Lin, R., Kraus, S.: Can automated agents proficiently negotiate with humans? Communications of the ACM 53(1), 78–88 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Van Kleef, G., De Dreu, C., Manstead, A.: An interpersonal approach to emotion in social decision making: The emotions as social information model. Adv. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 42, 45–96 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Hareli, S., Hess, U.: The social signal value of emotions. Cognition & Emotion 26(3), 285–289 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Morris, M., Keltner, D.: How emotions work: An analysis of the social functions of emotional expression in negotiations. Res. Organ. Behav. 22, 1–50 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Blanchette, I., Richards, A.: The influence of affect on higher level cognition: A review of research on interpretation, judgment, decision making and reasoning. Cognition & Emotion 15, 1–35 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Frijda, N., Mesquita, B.: The social roles and functions of emotions. In: Kitayama, S., Markus, H. (eds.) Emotion and Culture: Empirical Studies of Mutual Influence, pp. 51–87. American Psychological Association, Washington, DC (1994)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  10. Keltner, D., Haidt, J.: Social functions of emotions at four levels of analysis. Cognition & Emotion 13(5), 505–521 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Keltner, D., Kring, A.M.: Emotion, social function, and psychopathology. Rev. Gen. Psychol. 2, 320–342 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Van Kleef, G., De Dreu, C., Manstead, A.: The interpersonal effects of anger and happiness in negotiations. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 86, 57–76 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Van Kleef, G., De Dreu, C., Manstead, A.: Supplication and appeasement in negotiation: The interpersonal effects of disappointment, worry, guilt, and regret. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 91, 124–142 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Van Kleef, G., De Dreu, C., Manstead, A.: An interpersonal approach to emotion in social decision making: The emotions as social information model. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 42(10), 45–96 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. de Melo, C., Carnevale, P., Gratch, J.: The effect of expression of anger and happiness in computer agents on negotiations with humans. In: Proceedings of Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, AAMAS (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  16. de Melo, C., Carnevale, P., Read, S., Gratch, J.: Reverse appraisal: The importance of appraisals for the effect of emotion displays on people’s decision-making in a social dilemma. To be presented at The 34th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2012 (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  17. Ellsworth, P., Scherer, K.: Appraisal processes in emotion. In: Davidson, R., Scherer, K., Goldsmith, H. (eds.) Handbook of Affective Sciences, pp. 572–595. Oxford University Press, New York (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Hareli, S., Hess, U.: What emotional reactions can tell us about the nature of others: An appraisal perspective on person perception. Cognition & Emotion 24, 128–140 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Preacher, K., Hayes, A.: Asymptotic and resampling strategies for assessing and comparing indirect effects in multiple mediator models. Behav. Res. Meth. 40, 879–891 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. de Melo, C., Gratch, J.: Expression of Emotions Using Wrinkles, Blushing, Sweating and Tears. In: Ruttkay, Z., Kipp, M., Nijholt, A., Vilhjálmsson, H.H. (eds.) IVA 2009. LNCS, vol. 5773, pp. 188–200. Springer, Heidelberg (2009b)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  21. Smith, C., Ellsworth, P.: Patterns of cognitive appraisal in emotion. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 48, 813–838 (1985)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Scherer, K.: Appraisal considered as a process of multi-level sequential checking. In: Scherer, K., Schorr, A., Johnstone, T. (eds.) Appraisal Processes in Emotion: Theory, Methods, Research, pp. 92–120. Oxford University Press, New York (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Frijda, N.: Relations among emotion, appraisal, and emotional action readiness. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 57, 212–228 (1989)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Baron, R., Kenny, D.: The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic and statistical considerations. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 51, 1173–1182 (1986)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Aviezer, H., Hassin, R., Ryan, J., Grady, C., Susskind, J., Anderson, A., et al.: Angry, disgusted, or afraid? Studies on the malleability of emotion perception. Psychological Science 19(7), 724–732 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Scherer, K., Grandjean, D.: Facial expressions allow inference of both emotions and their components. Cognition & Emotion 22(5), 789–801 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Parkinson, B., Manstead, A.S.R.: Making sense of emotion in stories and social life. Cognition & Emotion 7(3/4), 295–323 (1993)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Hertwig, R., Ortmann, A.: Experimental practices in economics: A methodological challenge for psychologists? Behav. Brain Sci. 24(3), 383–451 (2001)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

de Melo, C.M., Carnevale, P., Gratch, J. (2012). The Effect of Virtual Agents’ Emotion Displays and Appraisals on People’s Decision Making in Negotiation. In: Nakano, Y., Neff, M., Paiva, A., Walker, M. (eds) Intelligent Virtual Agents. IVA 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 7502. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33197-8_6

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-33197-8_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-33196-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-33197-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics