Alternative cooperative strategies in a bargaining game

Shure, Meeker, and Hansford (1965), at the Systems Development Corporation (Santa Monica, California), have attempted to show the "effectiveness" of a pure "pacifist" strategy in a bargaining situation (hereafter referred to as the SMH game). Their experiment may be summarized as follows: 143 Ss were asked to transmit messages in a communications system with the following conditions and restraints: (1) all messages had to be entered into a communication channel with a total storage capacity of six message units, (2) each S could only enter one letter of the message at a time in the communication channel, (3) only a complete message, of five units, could be transmitted, (4) only one S could transmit at a time, because each S needed five of the six units of capacity within the common channel to transmit, (5) deadlock occurred and neither S could transmit if both Ss attempted to transmit at the same time, for example, if both entered three letters apiece into the common channel. (In such a situation, it was necessary for one of the Ss to withdraw two letters before the other could transmit) . The basic objective of the game was to send as many messages as possible during