Unraveling the Tapestry of Deception and Personality: A Deep Dive into Multi-Issue Human-Agent Negotiation Dynamics

Nusrath Jahan, Johnathan Mell

Abstract: Exploring the intricacies of human behavior in negotiations is pivotal in developing advanced human-agent interaction systems. This study delves into the complex interplay between deception, personality traits, and self-reported truthfulness in the context of human-agent negotiations, leveraging the IAGO platform [34] to facilitate multi-issue bargaining tasks. Our exploration, which also ventures into the realm of agent avatar gender and personality trait display, is centered around understanding how individual personality traits influence deceptive behaviors and perceptions in negotiations. Our findings establish a significant alignment between participants' self-reported truthfulness and their actual behaviors, underscoring the reliability of self-reports. Moreover, intricate relationships were uncovered between the Big Five personality dimensions-Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism [3, 9]-and human user's self-reported truthfulness, as well as beliefs about the necessity of deception in negotiations. To illustrate, individuals with higher levels of Openness were more likely to report being truthful but also believed more strongly in the necessity of deception for successful negotiations. These nuanced insights into personality-driven behaviors and perceptions are instrumental in fostering the development of adaptive and sophisticated negotiation agents, enhancing the comprehension of dynamics in human-agent interactions. Our findings present refined perspectives on the congruence and potential divergences between perceived necessity and the actual enactment of deceptive behaviors, laying a robust foundation for future investigations in agent personalization and human-agent interactions within negotiation contexts.