Psychological Experimental Study Of Bargaining

Bargaining is popular in economic activities. During the history of research on bargaining, there are three main perspectives: 1) the perspective of game theory/behavioral game theory; 2) the perspective of psychological study of decision-making behaviors; and 3) the perspective that regards bargaining as one kind of negotiation. Although all of these three research fields have produced a lot of theoretical and practical outcomes that are important for further study, they are insufficient to describe and explain the processes and results of actual bargaining behaviors because the research of game theory/behavioral game theory overestimates the value of axiomatic hypothesis system and mathematical analysis; the psychological research of decision-making behaviors tends to deal with such topics too simply and the study of negotiation focuses on the result of negotiation rather than negotiation processes which may-be more valuable.In order to improve the study of bargaining behaviors, we establish a more ecological experimental environment that shares many features with actual bargaining environment and set up a bargainors' pricing strategy, whose dynamic adaptability insures its relative reality, to induce the individual bargaining behaviors of subjects as bargainers in the experiment. An evaluation system is also introduced to estimate the bargaining ability of individual subjects. Within this fundamental framework, we study the bargaining behaviors under three kinds of circumstances: 1) the general environment, in which the bargaining setting is common; 2) the stressful environment, in which the subjects are required to bargain down the prices of the same goods in the general environment so that the total prices will be less than a given amount; and 3) an environment in which subjects are required to rate a series of goods according to their preference and bargain for their favorite and disagreeable goods. The complete process of every bargaining is recorded so that we can get more information for further data analyses and a more comprehensive understanding of bargaining behaviors. Following is the main conclusions of the study:1. Females like shopping more than males and female's frequencies of shopping and bargaining are both higher than those of males. Under the general circumstance, the bargaining ability of female is better than that of male. Females prefer more steps in order to come to an agreement. And the strategy used by females is tougher.2. The possibility of purchasing favorite goods is larger than that of purchasingdisagreeable goods, but such difference is not significant in the index of steps of bargaining, the agreeable price and the toughness of bargaining strategy between these two kinds of goods.3. Compared with the general circumstance, under the circumstance that the total disposable fund is limited, the average agreeable price decreases, the average number of steps to reach an agreement increases, the strategy used by subjects become tougher and the number of agreement increases.4. The higher initial profit ratio of goods will lead to more agreement, higher average agreeable price and higher total profit. However, the bargaining mechanism and the limitation of disposable fund will reduce the degree of affectivity of such relationship.5. Diversity, subjectivity and flexibility are main features of subjects' choice of strategy.