Situational clues in bargaining; The influence of commitment and clues on the resistance to competitive strategy

In Experiment I. it was shown that in implicit bargaining, subjects, 154 college students, could coordinate their expectations independently without aids of communication, relying on clues found in the situations. In Experiment II using the same conflict situations and 48 college students, each subject engaged in explicit bargaining with a stooge who always took the competitive strategy. Either the subjects or the stooge made a “commitment” by making the first choice and announcing it before the other could make his choice. The other's choice was also communicated to the first person, so that the outcome was known to both. A high degree of resistance to the stooge's non-compromising choice was observed only when subjects could take advantage of the Situational clues and could make the commitment. It was indicated that even if the first person's choice has complete control over the outcome, clues that can coordinate expectations in implicit bargaining have powerful influences in explicit one as well.