Values and Interests: Impacts of Affirming the Other and Mediation on Settlements

By randomly assigning bargainers to role, as a representative of the bar owner or customers, we assume that the distribution of personal beliefs about charity or voluntariness would be virtually the same for both roles. Further, by acting as representatives or agents with obligations to their principals, their personal beliefs are likely to be modulated. Research has shown that experimental subjects respond to the induced roles created in scenarios (see Druckman 1994). Although we did not inquire about role identification, earlier studies that used similar negotiation scenarios showed that experimental subjects were able to identify with their assigned role as representative irrespective of the positions or values being represented (e.g., Druckman 1993). Further, none of the participants indicated that they would have a problem representing the assigned role in our pre-experimental screening. Thus, we conclude that we have satisfied criteria for experimental realism (see Aronson et al. 1990).

This scenario was familiar to the college population students participating in the experiment, thereby satisfying concerns about mundane realism (Aronson et al. 1990).