Third Party Intervention and the Bargaining Behavior of Group Representatives

Abstract

The present study compared the effects of content, process, and passive types of third party intervention on the bargaining behavior of pairs of group representatives. The setting was a simulated school board-teachers' union dispute over a new contract. Each side was represented by one person who was instructed to bargain tenaciously and to obtain as much as possible. The job of the representatives was either in jeopardy (high accountability) or not (low accountability). In the content intervention condition, a reasonable settlement was suggested to the representatives by the third party. In the process intervention condition, he taught them how to paraphrase. In the passive condition he had them take a break from their negotiations. For the high accountable representatives, as predicted, the order of effectiveness of the interventions (number of agreements, average joint profit, and speed of resolution), from most to least, was content, process, and passive. Contrary to expectations, the process intervention did not produce the highest average joint profit for the low accountability representatives. The representatives who did reach agreement in the low accountability process and content conditions, however, achieved higher joint profits than the representatives in the passive condition. Directions for further research were indicated.