Explaining Bargaining Impasse: The Role of Self-Serving Biases
- 1 February 1997
- journal article
- Published by American Economic Association in Journal of Economic Perspectives
- Vol. 11 (1) , 109-126
- https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.11.1.109
Abstract
The authors review studies conducted by themselves and coauthors that document a 'self-serving' bias in judgments of fairness and demonstrate that the bias is an important cause of impasse in negotiations. They discuss experimental evidence showing that (1) the bias causes impasse; (2) it is possible to reduce impasses by debiasing bargainers; and (3) the bias results from selective evaluation of information. The authors also review results from a field study of negotiations between teachers' unions and school boards in Pennsylvania that both document the fairness bias in a naturalistic setting and demonstrates its impact on strikes.Keywords
This publication has 1 reference indexed in Scilit:
- Unemployment through the Filter of MemoryThe Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1985