No abstract

Research in bilateral bargaining has shown reciprocal and tough strategies to be superior to soft strategies in producing favorable bargaining outcomes. However, previous research has not examined the effectiveness of opponent strategies in oligopoly bargaining. It was hypothesized that in oligopoly bargaining a soft reciprocal strategy would produce better outcomes than either tough reciprocal or tough strategies. Female students from introductory psychology classes bargained utilizing three programmed strategies. Subjects were afforded the opportunity to bargain with the strategy of their choice and to change opponents (strategies) as they wished. Results indicated that subjects (1) bargained more often with the soft reciprocity strategy than with either the tough reciprocity or tough strategy, (2) made more concessions t o the soft reciprocity strategy, (3) reached more agreements with the soft reciprocity strategy. Furthermore, although the soft reciprocity strategy earned the lowest profit per agreemenf it also earned the largest total profit by virtue of the greater number of agreements.'Requests for reprints should be sent to