Phone Call for Senate GOP: Bad Deal May Be Better Than No Deal. Or, Not.

Agreement Attraction and Impasse Aversion: Reasons for Selecting a Poor Deal Over No Deal at All

Ece Tuncel et al.
Psychological Science, forthcoming

Abstract: In the present studies, we examined the positive value of agreement and the negative value of impasse. Participants chose to give up real value and sacrifice economic efficiency in order to attain an agreement outcome and avoid an impasse outcome. A personally disadvantageous option was selected significantly more often when it was labeled "Agreement" rather than "Option A," and a personally advantageous option was avoided significantly more often when it was labeled "Impasse" rather than "Option B." In a face-to-face negotiation, a substantial proportion of individuals reached an agreement that was inferior to their best alternative to agreement. We showed that the appeal of agreement and the aversion to impasse both contribute to this effect, yet the aversion to impasse is the stronger of the two motivations. These findings have important implications for negotiators.

Spirits, Colonels, and the art of the deal.

From the NY Times comes word that the NBA may finally be buying out their agreement with the Silna brothers dating back to the sphinctering of the  Spirits  of St. Louis when the NBA and (part of) the ABA merged.

 

As we recently chronicled, the Silnas have earned around $300 million from their revenue sharing agreement. 

Now the League is proposing to buy them out for another $500 million.

Kudos to you Silnas! Well played.

To see how well, consider that there was another ABA franchise in a similar position also negotiating with the NBA about being frozen out of the merger. They were the Kentucky Colonels. Their owner, the allegedly wily John Y. Brown masterfully negotiated a $3 million dollar lump sum payment.

John Y. no good. Just ask Phillis George.