Imagine you are planning to meet someone for a business deal. You have the choice to either meet face to face or virtually. Which would you choose?

Your answer should depend on if the other person is more powerful than you.

Michael Taylor from Imperial College London presented this finding at the Annual Conference of the British Psychological Society in Harrogate this week. Taylor and his co-researchers ran two studies of identical negotiations; one face to face, the other virtually. Both times, those less powerful performed better negotiations virtually compared to when they conducted them face to face.

“It looks as though it is a good idea for less powerful parties to negotiate from remote locations rather than face to face,” Taylor said. “When people negotiate from further apart, it affects their whole way of thinking. This can mean the contextual details of the negotiations, such as power hierarchies, have less impact on the outcome. This has implications for team negotiation and shared decision-making in the workplace.”

In addition to those two examples, what are some other implications of this research?

(Story quote from the British Psychological Society. Image via Flickr: Baltic Development Forum/Creative Commons.)