Sleep Deprivation and Compensation in Negotiations

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Jan A. Häusser; Professor Dr. Joachim Hüffmeier
• Subject Area: Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology
• Term: since 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 399229969

Negotiations play a crucial role in solving conflicts in social contexts, examples are coalition negotiations or collective bargaining. Such negotiations are frequently carried out under conditions of acute sleep deprivation (e.g., the Brexit negotiations or the negotiations regarding COVID-19 guidelines between federal government and federal states in Germany. In the research project “Effects of Sleep Deprivation in Integrative Negotiations” we conducted first time empirical tests of the influence of sleep deprivation in negotiations. Starting point of this project was the assumption that sleep deprivation would jeopardize the use of integrative potential in negotiations. An integrative potential in negotiation results from different priorities of the negotiation partners regarding the different negotiation issues. The different priorities have to be recognized and used in a logrolling process to arrive at higher joint outcomes. We argue that sleep deprivation impairs the exploitation of the integrative potential. We postulated that three distinct mechanisms are responsible for this effect: reduced cognitive capacities, reduced epistemic motivation, and impaired perspective taking. However, in two controlled laboratory studies with experimentally induced sleep deprivation (one night of total sleep deprivation) and simulated negotiations on the next morning, no empirical support was found for the postulated negative effect of sleep deprivation on the quality of agreements (use of integrative potentials). In these studies, we found evidence that individual impairments inflicted by sleep deprivation might have been mitigated by compensatory effort during the negotiation. A qualitative interview study with German politicians highly experienced in negotiating while sleep deprived (e.g., members of federal and state parliaments, ministers, majors) supported this interpretation and provided in-depth insights into specific compensation strategies to counteract negative effects of sleep deprivation in negotiations. In a second project phase, we will further clarify the null effect and its valid interpretation. To this end, we will conduct a study with high testpower and ecologic validity. This study will have an increased negotiation duration over multiple rounds. If we find evidence for the postulated effect in this study, we will then in a second study, examine the proposed underlying mechanisms (cognitive capacities, epistemic motivation, perspective taking). In case the first study will again show a null effect, in the second study we will conduct a systematic examination of potential compensation strategies. In sum, the second project phase will clarify if sleep deprivation has negative effects in negotiation settings with high ecological validity and how such negative effects could be compensated for.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: United Kingdom
• Cooperation Partner: Professorin Dr. Nadira Faber