ABSTRACT
BARGAINING and negotiation, first studied from an economicstandpoint (Nash, 1950), and later from a psychological standpoint(Siegel & Fouraker, 1960), recently has entered the domain of the communication scientist (Donohue, Diez, & Stahle, 1983; Putnam & Jones, 1982). As the study of bargaining has progressed, different aspects of the negotiation situation have been emphasized in each of the major theoretical approaches. Economic analyses typically have been grounded in game theory, a branch of mathematics devoted to the strategic dimension of conflict, and explicated in the classic works of von Neumann and Morgenstern (1944), Rappoport (1960), and Luce and Raiffa (1957). As a consequence of the game-theoretic emphasis, economists see bargaining as a phenomenon to be explained on the basis of the utility functions of the players and the payoff structure of the situation (Roth, 1979). Psychologists, although not ignoring utilities and payoffs, have tended to incorporate nonstrategic components into their theories. This tendency has led to the investigation of a number of behavioral, motivational, and personality variables in bargaining research (Rubin & Brown, 1975). The present AUTHOR'S NOTE: The study reported in this chapter is based on the author's doctoral dissertation, and would not have been possible without the help of many people, including Carol MillerTutzauer, Michael Roloff, Charles Berger, and Robin Lester.
