ILLUMINATION OF NEGOTIATION

Dissertation project by Mag. Dr. Tomaš Klimann, MSc

Negotiations are a central part of everyday and professional life. Yet research and training in this field have traditionally focused on personality traits and skills, although these are often difficult to change or develop. In contrast, contextual factors such as environmental lighting are relatively easy to modify but have received little attention in negotiation research. Findings from other fields, including architecture and consumer research, have suggested that lighting can influence experience and behavior. This research project therefore examined whether optimized lighting—defined as a combination of multiple direct and indirect light sources—promoted more cooperative negotiation behavior than standard office lighting, and whether this effect was mediated by affect.

Across five studies, the project investigated the effects of lighting on affect and negotiation-related outcomes using both experimental and scenario-based approaches. Initial findings suggested that optimized lighting was associated with more positive implicit evaluations and, in one online study, with a greater intention to use cooperative strategies. However, these effects were not consistently replicated in subsequent studies. In addition, the assumption that affect would explain the relationship between lighting and cooperative behavior was not supported. A final laboratory study likewise found no reliable differences in either affect or negotiation behavior between lighting conditions.

Overall, the findings did not provide consistent evidence that lighting influenced cooperative negotiation behavior. The project nevertheless contributed to negotiation research by examining an environmental factor that had previously received little attention and by testing its effects across multiple methodological approaches.

The industrial partner for this project was the lighting company XAL from Graz.