Want a better deal? Your facial expressions matter most while negotiating

Are you facially more expressive? If yes, you are highly likely a master negotiator naturally. Researchers at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) have found that those who are facially more expressive are better at negotiating. They analysed muscle movements in the face, such as smiles, eyebrow raises, nose wrinkles and lip corner pulls in more than 1,500 conversations before concluding.

The researchers said people with expressive faces were more likeable and socially successful than those who prefer straight faces while conversing.

The study was led by Bridget Waller, professor of evolution and social behaviour at NTU’s Department of Psychology. She aimed to study the reasons behind the complex facial expressions of humans than any other species.

“Our comparisons between humans and other primates show that humans produce more facial movement on the whole and have more expressive faces," she said.

“Our research shows that being expressive makes you more likeable, which might make it easier to live in social groups, which is a clear evolutionary advantage,” she added.

The researchers made 170 people watch short videos of conversations. They were asked to say how well they could understand the emotions and expressions of the people in the videos, and also how much they liked them.

Then, the researchers watched unscripted Zoom chats between 1,456 people who didn't know each other. These chatters rated how much they liked the person they were talking to.

The researchers found that during these conversations, people made about 71 facial movements every minute on average.

They found that people who showed a lot of expression were generally liked more, both by those watching the videos and by the people they were chatting with on Zoom.

“We asked the participant to decide how to split a monetary reward between themselves and the experimenter – who was masquerading as a participant," Waller said.

“Our experimenter offered an unfair split – taking 80 per cent of the reward. We measured how well they negotiated down from this, and what they eventually agreed to," she added.

“Roughly half our participants agreed to taking less than 50 per cent (poor negotiation) and the other half split the reward equally (good negotiation).”