ABSTRACT
Most people have some idea of their tolerance for ambiguous situations. People who engage in bargaining are interdependent, or mutually tied, at some level. Ambiguity implies some degree of behavioural conflict: that different aspects of a situation evoke discordant reactions or else that a particular reaction is called forth by one aspect and inhibited by another. An ambiguous situation is one which is perceived to be too complex to be structured or categorised; thus ambiguity is called 'subjective uncertainty'. People with low tolerance of ambiguity (TOA) strongly prefer familiarity, symmetry, definite-ness, and regularity. They also express needs for clarity, righteousness, seriousness, routine, high standards, moral strictness, determination, hard work, authority, decisiveness, conventionality, and conformity. People with high TOA tend to demand less clarity, less routine, and so on in their relationships. An experiment was designed to test some sets of hypotheses about the relationship between TOA and bargaining: Rationale; Methodology; Results and Discussion.
