Initial Perceptions in Negotiations: Evaluation and Response to ‘Logrolling’ Offers

In negotiations, where several issues are under consideration and parties have different priorities among these issues, integrative agreements can be reached through ‘logrolling’: concessions on low priority issues in exchange for gains on higher priority issues. The present research focuses on the potential role of initial offers in the development of integrative agreements. We show first, that in a simulated competitive market the specific composition of initial offers influences the final agreements, beyond the effect predicted by their overall value. In order to obtain some insight into the judgmental processes that might play a role, we explore the way in which inexperienced negotiators presented with a hypothetical negotiation context evaluate and respond to logrolling versus distributive initial offers. Three hypotheses were tested: logrolling offers convey an implicit message of cooperation, logrolling offers promote understanding of the mutual interest structure of the task, and, finally, logrolling offers establish within-issue anchors. Results do not support the first two hypotheses: logrolling offers were not necessarily judged more attractive than distributive ones, and they did not seem to affect the deeply rooted fixed-pie assumption. However, initial offers did establish within-issue anchors: counter-offers were affected by the specific composition of the initial offers beyond the effect of their overall value. This anchoring process resulted in logrolling offers yielding a higher profit for their initiator, as well as higher combined profits for both parties. Copyright # 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. key words multi-issue negotiation; anchoring; initial offer; fixed-pie bias