Resolving conflicts of interest and ideologies: a simulation of political decision-making

This study was designed to assess the relative importance of conflicting interests and ideologies as determinants of conflict resolution. The conflict was defined in the context of a simulation of political decision-making. Decision-makers had different preferences for the allocation of resources to alternative programs. Six male and six female dyads were run in each cell of a design that made size of conflicting interests orthogonal to amount of ideological dissensus. A significant main effect for conflict of interest was attained on each measure of negotiating behavior. High conflict of interest dyads took longer to negotiate, allocated less funds, produced more asymmetrical outcomes, and had more unresolved conflicts than low conflict of interest dyads. Perceptions of the situation corresponded to negotiating behavior. High conflict dyads viewed the negotiation more like a "win-lose" competition, were less willing to compromise, regarded compromise as being more like defeat, and so on. The amount of variance accounted for by the ideology and sex variables was negligible on most of the behavioral and perceptual indices. The implications of these results were discussed in terms of a weighting that is affected by aspects of the conflict situation.