Unilateral initiatives as a conflict resolution strategy

In conflict and bargaining, unilateral initiatives can produce concessions by another and can set the stage for conflict resolution. Whether such tact ics are effective depends on the impressions "given off." According to the theory tested here, power positions help to shape the impressions created b y unilateral initiatives. On this basis, we hypothesize that (I) unilateral initiatives are more effective when parties have equal as opposed to unequ al, power relations; and (2) the size of the initiatives has different effe cts contingent on the relative power of user and target Large initiatives a re more effective than small ones when, the user is high-power and the targ et is low-power, but small initiatives are more effective when the situatio n is reversed We found qualified support for these hypotheses. Unilateral i nitiatives, as expected, created impressions of the user's trustworthiness and decreased the perceptions of the user's strength. The impression-manage ment aspects of unilateral initiatives are more complicated than initially thought, because unilateral initiatives affected not only the impressions g iven off by users but also the impressions that the targets wanted to give off in response. implications for conflict resolution ape discussed.