A Little Humor Goes a Long Way? The Influence of Humor on Concessions in One-Shot Online Negotiations

Abstract: This paper examines the effect of humor in a one-shot online negotiation. We conducted an experiment among 589 participants who took the perspective of a seller in an online marketplace scenario. We compared a condition in which the buyer used a joke versus a condition without a joke. Humor had a significant impact on the sellers’ willingness to lower their asking price. Further analysis suggests this is partially explained by the buyer being perceived as friendlier in the humor condition. The effect of humor in one-shot online negotiation is as yet not well understood. We address this gap by extending the existing literature on humor and negotiation to the area of online interactions characterized by psychological distance between the parties. The conclusion that humor is beneficial for buyers in a one-shot online negotiation is important because, intuitively, one might believe that humor is inappropriate in these settings.

Keywords: humor, online negotiation, concession, friendliness