DECISION-MAKING THEORY AND RESEARCHBargaining and Fairness. Bargaining and ne-
gotiation have received increasing attention in
decision theory and research (e.g., Pruitt and
Carnevale 1993), as has the issue of justice or
fairness (e.g., Mellers and Baron 1993). These
issues are involved in the ‘‘ultimatum game,’’ which
involves two people and a resource (often a sum of
money). The rules of the game are that one person
proposes a division of the resource between them
(a bargain), and the other person accepts or rejects
the proposal. If the proposal is rejected, then both
people get nothing, so the bargain is an ultima-
tum: this or nothing.
Expected utility (EU) theory suggests that the
person dividing the resource should offer the
other person just enough to get him to accept the
bargain, but no more. Furthermore, EU suggests
the person should accept any division, because any
division will be more than zero, which is what the
person will receive if the bargain is refused. How-
ever, typically the bargain is a fifty-fifty split (half of
the resource to each person). Indeed, if people are
offered anything less than a fifty-fifty split, they will
often reject the offer, although that will mean they
get nothing, rather than what they were offered,
because that seems unfair.
In studies, people have evaluated these bar-
gains in two ways. People can rate how attractive a
bargain is (e.g., on a 1–7 scale). Possible divisions
to be rated might be: $40 for you, $40 for the other
person; $50 for you, $70 for the other person, and
so on. Thus, bargains are presented in isolation,
one after another, as if each was an individual case
unrelated to anything else. This type of presenta-
tion is generally referred to as ‘‘absolute judg-
ment’’ (Wever and Zener 1928).
Alternatively, people may evaluate bargains in
pairs, and choose one. For example, do you prefer
a bargain where you get $40, and the other person
gets $40, or a bargain where you get $50, and the
other person gets $70? Thus, the bargains are
presented such that they can be compared, so
people can see the relative outcomes. This type of
presentation is generally referred to as ‘‘compara-
tive judgment.’’
Absolute and comparative judgment have dif-
ferent results in the ‘‘ultimate’’ bargaining game.
Blount and Bazerman (1996) gave pairs of partici-
pants $10 to be divided between them. In absolute
judgment (i.e., is this bargain acceptable?), the
money holder accepted a minimum division of $4
for him and $6 for the other person. But asked in a
comparative judgment format (i.e., do you prefer
this bargain or nothing?), participants were willing
to accept less (a minimum division of $2.33 for the
money holder and $7.67 for the other person).
This result suggests that considering situations
involving the division or distribution of resources
on a case-by-case basis (absolute judgment) may
result in sub-optimal choices (relative to those
resulting from comparative judgment) for each
person involved, as well as the group as a whole.Comparative and absolute judgment can be
applied to social issues as adoption. There has
been controversy about adoption, when the adopt-
ing parents have a different cultural heritage than
the child being adopted. Some argue that a child
should be adopted only by parents of the same
cultural heritage as the child to preserve the child’s
connection to his or her culture. That argument
views this situation as an absolute judgment: should
children be adopted by parents of a different
cultural heritage or not?However, there is an imbalance between the
cultural heritages of the children to be adopted
and those of the parents wanting to adopt. That
imbalance creates the dilemma of what to do with
children who would like to be adopted when there
are no parents of the same cultural heritage want-
ing to adopt them. That dilemma suggests this
comparative judgment: should children be adopt-
ed by parents of a different cultural heritage than
their own, or should children be left unadopted
(e.g., be brought up in a group home)?The answers to these absolute and compara-
tive judgments may differ, because the answer may
be that a child should not be adopted by parents of
a different cultural heritage as an absolute judg-
ment, but as a comparative judgment the answer
may be that a child should be adopted by such
parents, despite the cultural differences, because
having parents is better than not having parents.
Thus, the best answer may differ depending on