Concession-Making and Conflict Resolution

Assuming that the extent to which a concession (or a conciliatory act) is exploited or reciprocated depends upon the situational context in which the concession is made, the effects of two situational variables on cooperative choice were investigated: (a) the length of the competitive stalemate prior to conciliatory acts, and (b) the consequence or cost to the party initiating such acts. Pairs of undergraduate males were led to believe they were playing a Prisoner's Dilemma game, but were playing against a preprogrammed strategy of the experimenter. The dependent variable was the level of cooperation on the last block of trials. The results suggest that (a) a long stalemate initiated by a sequence of competitive acts may be effective against a competitive person, but not against a cooperative person; (b) conciliatory acts which are costly may facilitate the communication and perception of cooperative intent and, thereby, facilitate a mutually cooperative solution.