{"title":"Undervaluation versus unaffordability as negotiation tactics: Evidence from a field experiment","authors":"Haimanti Bhattacharya, Subhasish Dugar","doi":"10.1016/j.joep.2023.102609","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We use a field experiment to evaluate the impacts of two price negotiation tactics on buyers’ bargaining payoffs in a marketplace where face-to-face haggling determines price and sellers often cheat on the weight. We implement three scripted interventions, all involving undercover buyers requesting a non-specific price discount. In one of the non-baseline interventions, buyers undervalue the product, while in the other, buyers reveal their inability to pay the quoted price, both at the discount-request phase. The data from a within-seller design show that compared to devaluing the opponent’s product, mentioning one’s lack of affordability leads to a higher rate of bargaining success and a higher mean price discount, culminating in a higher buyer payoff net of the monetary value of cheating. We also find that merely asking for a discount without furnishing a reason, as in our baseline intervention, leads to better bargaining outcomes for buyers than underestimating the opponent’s product.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48318,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.5000,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Economic Psychology","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167487023000107","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
We use a field experiment to evaluate the impacts of two price negotiation tactics on buyers’ bargaining payoffs in a marketplace where face-to-face haggling determines price and sellers often cheat on the weight. We implement three scripted interventions, all involving undercover buyers requesting a non-specific price discount. In one of the non-baseline interventions, buyers undervalue the product, while in the other, buyers reveal their inability to pay the quoted price, both at the discount-request phase. The data from a within-seller design show that compared to devaluing the opponent’s product, mentioning one’s lack of affordability leads to a higher rate of bargaining success and a higher mean price discount, culminating in a higher buyer payoff net of the monetary value of cheating. We also find that merely asking for a discount without furnishing a reason, as in our baseline intervention, leads to better bargaining outcomes for buyers than underestimating the opponent’s product.
期刊介绍:
The Journal aims to present research that will improve understanding of behavioral, in particular psychological, aspects of economic phenomena and processes. The Journal seeks to be a channel for the increased interest in using behavioral science methods for the study of economic behavior, and so to contribute to better solutions of societal problems, by stimulating new approaches and new theorizing about economic affairs. Economic psychology as a discipline studies the psychological mechanisms that underlie economic behavior. It deals with preferences, judgments, choices, economic interaction, and factors influencing these, as well as the consequences of judgements and decisions for economic processes and phenomena. This includes the impact of economic institutions upon human behavior and well-being. Studies in economic psychology may relate to different levels of aggregation, from the household and the individual consumer to the macro level of whole nations. Economic behavior in connection with inflation, unemployment, taxation, economic development, as well as consumer information and economic behavior in the market place are thus among the fields of interest. The journal also encourages submissions dealing with social interaction in economic contexts, like bargaining, negotiation, or group decision-making. The Journal of Economic Psychology contains: (a) novel reports of empirical (including: experimental) research on economic behavior; (b) replications studies; (c) assessments of the state of the art in economic psychology; (d) articles providing a theoretical perspective or a frame of reference for the study of economic behavior; (e) articles explaining the implications of theoretical developments for practical applications; (f) book reviews; (g) announcements of meetings, conferences and seminars.