CPN Communication Skills & Persuasion Techniques 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which listening technique involves reflecting the emotional content of what someone has said, not just the words?
- Selective listening
- Empathic listening (Correct answer)
- Evaluative listening
- Passive listening
Correct answer: Empathic listening
Empathic listening acknowledges feelings and emotional context, helping the other party feel understood beyond the literal content of their words.
Question 2: A negotiator who consistently speaks more slowly and with lower pitch is likely attempting to project:
- Urgency and impatience
- Credibility and calm authority (Correct answer)
- Eagerness to close quickly
- Confusion about the terms
Correct answer: Credibility and calm authority
Slower speech and lower pitch are associated with confidence, authority, and deliberateness, which enhance perceived credibility.
Question 3: The 'door-in-the-face' technique involves:
- Starting with a very large request before making the real, smaller request (Correct answer)
- Using silence to pressure the other side
- Anchoring high and refusing to move
- Repeating the same offer until it is accepted
Correct answer: Starting with a very large request before making the real, smaller request
By first making an extreme request that will be refused, the negotiator's actual, more modest request seems more reasonable by comparison.
Question 4: Open-ended questions are preferred in information-gathering phases of negotiation because they:
- Limit the response to yes or no
- Force the other party to commit immediately
- Encourage elaboration and reveal underlying interests (Correct answer)
- Signal that you are ready to make a final offer
Correct answer: Encourage elaboration and reveal underlying interests
Open-ended questions invite the other party to share more detail, exposing interests, priorities, and constraints that closed questions would not surface.
Question 5: In persuasion, the 'contrast principle' suggests that a negotiator should:
- Always present the worst option first to make the preferred option look better (Correct answer)
- Match the speaking style of the other party exactly
- Use only factual data to influence decisions
- Never make the first offer
Correct answer: Always present the worst option first to make the preferred option look better
Presenting a less favorable option first makes subsequent options appear more attractive by contrast, a well-documented cognitive bias.
Question 6: Which non-verbal behavior is most commonly associated with deception in negotiation research?
- Maintaining steady eye contact
- Increased rate of self-touching (face, neck, hair) (Correct answer)
- Leaning slightly forward
- Mirroring the other party's posture
Correct answer: Increased rate of self-touching (face, neck, hair)
Self-touching behaviors (also called adaptor gestures) often increase under stress or when someone is being deceptive, though no single cue is definitive.
Question 7: When a negotiator summarizes agreed points before moving to the next issue, this technique is known as:
- Bracketing
- Logrolling
- Conditional closing
- Accumulating agreements (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Accumulating agreements
Accumulating agreements builds momentum and psychological commitment to the deal by anchoring each settled point before advancing.
CPN Communication Skills & Persuasion Techniques 3
Which listening technique involves reflecting the emotional content of what someone has said, not just the words?