A unified model for bargaining and conflict

A new model of decision making is introduced. It can be applied to two person systems, at the level of the group, as well as at the level of the organization, the society, and the supranational system. It is determinate when bargainers' information is complete, incomplete, or erroeous. The paper includes a determinate treatment of the outguessing regress, wherein each negotiator chooses his bargaining strategy (in part) based upon his expectations concerning the other's strategy, while expecting that the other chooses his strategy based upon corresponding expectations. The conditions under which negotiations break down or result in agreements which are less than Pareto optimal are also specified. The paper concludes with an application of the proposed model to manipulative bargaining, where negotiators employ manipulative tactics that alter their own or the other's expectations, utility functions, or alternatives, as well as to metabargaining, i.e., bargaining concerning which manipulative tactics will occur.

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