The Open and Closed Mind

Trust development, the GRIT proposal, and the effects of conciliatory acts on conflict and cooperation.

Scales for the Measurement of Attitudes.

To test the reciprocity and level of aspiration hypotheses with respect to concession rate, this study utilized a bilateral negotiation paradigm involving coercive power capabilities. Subjects bargained against a confederate who followed a programmed strategy. Three independent variables (the confederate's concession rate, the subject's relative power position, and the confederate's punishment frequency) were manipulated in a 2 X 2 X 2 factorial design. When subjects occupied the strong power

Factors Affecting Concession Rate and Threat Usage in Bilateral Conflict

(1963) suggest that there are three relational characteristics associated with social power: (1) There must be a conflict of interest between two or more persons or groups; (2) Power exists only if the target actually bows to the source’s wishes; and (3) Power exists only if the source can threaten to use sanctions. Therefore, power is defined as the process of affecting the policies of others by the threat of deprivations for nonconformity to the policies requested. The insistence that power should be equated only with successful coercion has led Bach-

A paradigm for the study of coercive power

Shure, Meeker, and Hansford (1965), at the Systems Development Corporation (Santa Monica, California), have attempted to show the "effectiveness" of a pure "pacifist" strategy in a bargaining situation (hereafter referred to as the SMH game). Their experiment may be summarized as follows: 143 Ss were asked to transmit messages in a communications system with the following conditions and restraints: (1) all messages had to be entered into a communication channel with a total storage capacity of six message units, (2) each S could only enter one letter of the message at a time in the communication channel, (3) only a complete message, of five units, could be transmitted, (4) only one S could transmit at a time, because each S needed five of the six units of capacity within the common channel to transmit, (5) deadlock occurred and neither S could transmit if both Ss attempted to transmit at the same time, for example, if both entered three letters apiece into the common channel. (In such a situation, it was necessary for one of the Ss to withdraw two letters before the other could transmit) . The basic objective of the game was to send as many messages as possible during

James O. Tindell

Papers

Alternative cooperative strategies in a bargaining game