Post #1: Roleplay The Two-Dollar Game

Roleplay: The Two-Dollar Game

Within the framework of our Business Negotiation classes in Paris-Sorbonne University we had an occasion to play the two-dollar game. The last one was consisting in a bargaining simulation between two people in order to divide $2 found on the ground. There were 2 rounds of the game. Before starting negotiating we were given a secret play card, which described a play role for each participant. Our partner had not to know the role of another one. Our goal was to make up any story we wanted to get as much of $2 as possible. That game was an objective to understand some basic tools of negotiation theory. 

In the first case we were all best friends with our partners. According to my secret play card I needed only 50 cents to take a bus to get home. Being a gambling person and having an objective to get as much money as possible, I bargained about getting all penny. As I knew, later, it was a competition strategy which was considered as a negative bargaining range. For real, I created incredible stories about everything coming to my mind, sometimes I was absolutely illogical so all my reasons were not much convincing which made me lower my sum in order to get at least something. This was my strategy mistake. Even if at the end I got only 50 cents (money I needed), I was not satisfied by the deal because I wanted to get more. I can consider that our first round of negotiations had the nature win-lose bargaining, in which my gain was the loss than my partner’s gain. 

However, I was “smarter” in the second round of the game. The general instruction was the same but the roles of the participants were different. The second round was more intangible which above all played on emotions. I had to act as an important famous person for whom the reputation was extremely important, so I had to get as much of the $2 as I could and at the same time to keep my reputation. If in the first round, I was concentrated on the amount of money I could win, this time my objectives were more concerned about the emotional aspects. Honestly, I felt a big difference and I realized that it had prevented me from negotiating. At the end, in order to finish our discussion, my partner and I broke the rules and came up with collaborative side deals. As a result we were both satisfied (win-win bargaining).