Foreign Language Effect in Negotiations: Negotiation language and framing effect on objective and subjective outcomes

Foreign Language Effect (Keysar, Hayakawa, & An, 2012) suggested bilinguals are less susceptible to framing bias when using a foreign language than native language because bilinguals make less emotional and intuitive decisions in a foreign language condition. Despite increasing international business activities and language diversity (Lauring & Selmer, 2012), there is no research on bilingual negotiators and the effect of negotiation language. We hypothesized for different negotiation outcomes in negotiations when people negotiate in their foreign language than their native language. Testing a 2 (Task Frame: gain vs. loss) × 2 (Language: foreign vs. native) model with 250 Korean-English bilinguals, we found partial support for a difference in objective outcomes (offers made). Also, framing and language conditions had a significant interaction effect on negotiators’ positive emotions and satisfaction to the offer.