Married couples (M) and mixed-sex stranger dyads (Ad Hoc, AH) were compared in a mixed-motive game consisting of a series of bargaining trials each involving the division of a joint reward. On each trial, each party to a dyad was privately assigned a minimum necessary share (MNS) which he had to exceed in order to make a profit. Patterns of initial bids, points earned, time to agreement, etc. were examined with reference to type dyad and variations in MNS values. AH dyads appeared more competitive than M dyads, bidding higher initially and taking more time bargaining to agreement. For both M and AH dyads, the party with the lower MNS value tended to earn the most points and bargaining took longer when MNS pairs were unequal. The data for AH dyads were predicted well by a model assuming a competitive non-problem-solving process while data for M dyads reflected cooperative, problem-solving efforts. © 1969.
