deal or no deal psychology study

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Today I participated in a psych study called Deal or No Deal. The situation is that one of you is a potential employee, and the other person is the potential employer, and you have to negotiate a contract with things like salary, holidays, performance bonuses, job position and location. The point system is set up so that for most of the criteria, the two people want opposite things.

I was the potential employee... I kept trying to negotiate and my partner wouldn't! He simply wouldn't compromise at all. I only got tiny concessions when time ran out and we had to make a contract. He won, 20,000 points to my 10,000. He was also making stuff up preventing me from getting certain combinations that I needed. ("There is no consulting department in the tokyo office, so you can't do that")

Now I'm frustrated. I know how to negotiate! Did I do so badly because he wasn't negotiating - or because I'm not good at figuring out what was and wasn't important to him? Sigh.

I find negotiations go better when you have a big stick. Remember, they need you. Go in with that attitude and you'll do better. He won because he won before it even started. He adopted the idea that you needed him. You need to turn the tables.

You should be able to recognize a stance like that pretty quickly. As soon as you do, go... well apparently you don't have a need for my services but I'm sure your competitor does. Thank you for the tour of your facility, I'll be leaving now and taking my notes. Get up and leave.

Don't sweat it. It was just an experiment. The experimenters may have wanted to put you in a no-win position by giving the employer all the negotiating leverage and seeing if you blew the whole thing up by refusing to negotiate.

BTW, if you're feeling distressed by the outcome of the experiment then they technically have a ethical obligation to repair the damage.

Don't sweat it. I would've probably done worse on this task.