Mastering facial expressions crucial for negotiating better deals

If you tend to be more expressive with your facial movements, you may naturally excel at negotiation. Researchers at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) discovered that people with more expressive faces, showing movements like smiles, raised eyebrows, wrinkled noses, and pulled lip corners, are better negotiators. This conclusion was drawn after analyzing facial muscle movements in over 1,500 conversations.

The researchers noted that individuals with expressive faces are generally more likeable and socially successful compared to those who maintain neutral expressions during conversations.

Bridget Waller, a professor of evolution and social behavior in NTU’s Department of Psychology, led the study. Her goal was to explore why humans have more complex facial expressions compared to other species.

She said, “Our comparisons between humans and other primates show that humans produce more facial movement on the whole and have more expressive faces.” She further added, “Our research shows that being expressive makes you more likable, which might make it easier to live in social groups, which is a clear evolutionary advantage.”

The researchers had 170 participants watch brief videos of conversations. They then asked these participants to rate how well they could interpret the emotions and expressions of the people in the videos, as well as how much they liked them.

Subsequently, the researchers observed unscripted Zoom conversations between 1,456 strangers. During these interactions, participants rated their liking for the person they were speaking with. The researchers discovered that, on average, people made around 71 facial movements per minute during these conversations. The researchers found that individuals who displayed a high level of facial expression were generally more liked, both by the video viewers and by their conversation partners on Zoom.

Professor Waller stated, “We asked the participant to decide how to split a monetary reward between themselves and the experimenter, who was masquerading as a participant. Our experimenter offered an unfair split, taking 80 percent of the reward. We measured how well they negotiated down from this and what they eventually agreed to,” she further added. “Roughly half our participants agreed to taking less than 50 percent (poor negotiation), and the other half split the reward equally (good negotiation).”

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