Using psychophysiological data to investigate differences by gender and negotiation styles in e-negotiation

Computer-mediated negotiation is characterized as an interactive communication and decision-making process between at least two individuals using a digital environment. The negotiators' behavior — which can be described in terms of negotiation style or conflict management — often changes when negotiators interact with other parties in a negotiation. This study considers a negotiation support system and an eye-tracking apparatus to analyzes how is the cognitive workload of men and women when assessing information about the opponent to formulate a counteroffer. Collected data were analyzed regarding two factors: gender and negotiation styles. Results confirm the existence of cognitive workload differences by gender and negotiation styles. An interactive effect between this two factors was also detected and was noted that competitive women presented the greatest pupil size variation, while the avoiding men showed the smallest. Such kind of study can provide insights to NSS developers since cognitive aspects can be considered to improve technical issues, user interaction with the system and user confidence over the negotiation outcomes.