Study On The Effect Of Interpersonal Factors On Mixed-motive Conflict Decision Making

The history of human civilization can be said a blend of conflicts and harmony. There come conflicts as long as people interact in the society. Among the most popular research topics, mixed-motive conflict refers to a situation in which two or more parties are faced with a conflict between the motive to cooperate and the motive to compete with each other (hereinafter refer to conflict decision making for short) . Social dilemmas and bargaining are two basic types of mixed-motive conflict situations. In answer to the calling for a harmonious society, people become increasingly emphasizing on communication and negotiation to promote cooperation, to develop harmonious interpersonal relationship, and to construct a harmonious society. Hence, the research on the influential factors of conflict solution has theoretical and practical significance.There are mainly three research approaches to conflict decision making. The game theory approach attempted to test axiomatic models based on rational norms. The behavioral decision approach put forward many cognitive biases and believed that conflicts can be solved by understanding and changing cognitive biases. The social psychological approach, focusing on personality, the way to perceive and construct the decision making problem, and cognitive biases in processing information, claimed to investigate the best solutions to conflicts by integrating cognitive factors and social factors. All these three approaches had many findings on the feature of conflict decision making, the characteristics of decision makers, and the effective strategies to solve conflicts.Parties in conflict situations are human beings living under the influence of certain culture and society. The social psychological approach, however, focused more on the effects of the features of conflict situation and decision makers' personalities on decision, with little research on the effects of social roles and social environment on decision. Besides, most research on conflict decision making have been done in western societies dominated by individualism culture. Thereby the findings of these researches cannot well describe Chinese decisions in conflict situations as Chinese society is dominated by Confucianism。Accordingly the present study proposes that interpersonal factors can greatly influence decision makers' strategies and behaviors in the context of conflict decision making. In view of bargaining as an effective way to solve conflicts, the present study use ultimatum bargaining (Guth, 1988) as experimental material. The present study investigates the effects of interpersonal advantage, social role, and social influence on conflict decision making. Interpersonal advantage refers to the relative advantage of one party over the other party on some aspects. The interpersonal advantages in the present study include two factors: decision making power and uncertainty of the other party's information. Decision making power means which kind of power the decision maker have to influence the decision making processes. Uncertainty of the other party's information means whether or not the decision maker knows exactly what information the other party has. Social role refers to individual's social identity and social class in accordance with some social expectancy in the particular social environment, and collection of corresponding behavior models as well. Social role reflects individual's identity and responsibilities endowed by the society. The social roles in the present study include two factors: the roles engendered by intimacy in informal situations and the roles engendered by work relationship in formal situations. Social influence refers to the process to change people's attitudes, opinions and behaviors. Social influence in the present study includes two factors: previous experience and the other party's attitudes.Experiment 1 and experiment 2 adopt between-subject design and use ultimatum bargaining as experiment material. The two experiments investigate the effects of decision making power and uncertainty of the other party's information on decision maker's strategy and decision. The two experiments find that: (1) decision making power can influence decision maker on strategy and decisions. The decision makers with distribution power tend to adopt competitive strategy. Both the decision makers with veto power and the decision makers with claim power tend to adopt cooperative strategy. (2) decision makers can judge and choose the power which help to gain more profits. (3) uncertainty of the other party's information influence decision maker on strategy and decision by decision making power. When it is uncertain whether or not the other party knows the critical information, decision makers with distribution, veto, or claim power tend to assume the other party's information status is in his / her favor. The decision makers with distribution power and claim power tend to assume the other party does not know the critical information. The decision makers with veto power tend to assume the other party does know the critical information. The results indicate that decision makers' power and uncertainty of information have significant effects on decision in conflict decision making situation.Experiment 3 and experiment 4 introduce different social roles into ultimatum bargaining. The two experiments investigate the effects of intimacy roles and work roles on decision maker's strategy and decision. The two experiments find that: (1) after the introduction of social roles, decision makers with distribution, veto, or claim power tend to adopt cooperative strategy, whereas their decisions about amount are significantly different from each other. (2) in comparison with the stranger role, the decision makers on good friend role decide to get significantly less. (3) work roles have significant effect on decision by gender. In comparison with the role of even position and the role of subordinate position, decision makers on the role of supervisory position decide to get lest. Female decision makers on the role of supervisory position decide to get significant less that males do. The results show that social roles have significant effects on decision in conflict decision making situation.Experiment 5 integrates "21 points" game and ultimatum bargaining by testing on computer. The experiment investigates the effects of decision making power, experience and the other party's attitude on decision makers, and finds that: (1) on the condition that both the two parties invest efforts and gain the profit to distribute, decision makers with distribution, veto, or claim power tend to adopt cooperative strategy. (2) experience has significant effect on decision by decision making power. In comparison with success experience, on the condition of failure experience, significantly more decision makers with distribution power adopt competitive strategy, and significantly more decision makers with veto power and claim power adopt cooperative strategy. (3) the other party's attitude has significant effect on decision by decision making power. In comparison with modest attitude, on the condition of rebuking attitude, significantly more decision makers with distribution power and veto power adopt equal strategy, and significantly more decision makers with claim power adopt competitive strategy. The results show that experience and the other party's attitude have significant effects on decision in conflict decision making situation.The results of five experiments indicate that interpersonal factors can significant effect decision makers on strategy and decision. As decision maker's power and uncertainty of the other party's information vary, the relative advantage between both parties changes. Accordingly, decision makers adopt different strategies and made different decisions. On the condition of being endowed with particular social roles, decision makers with distribution, veto or claim power tend to adopt cooperative strategy. In work situation, work role influences decision makers by gender. On the condition that both parties invest effort and gain the profit to distribute, decision makers with distribution, veto, or claim power tend to adopt cooperative strategy. Experience has significant effect on decision by decision making power. The other party's attitude has significant effect on decision by decision making power.