Seeing what you want: How goal-oriented descriptions of the status quo alter outcomes in ethno-territorial conflict bargaining experiments

In conflict bargaining models, variation in initial conditions is expected to have a significant impact. Better initial conditions should make the status quo more acceptable and likely to persist, and worse initial conditions should make crisis and conflict more likely. At the same time, players' preferences over the different possible bargaining outcomes are expected to influence perceptions of initial conditions. We use conflict bargaining experiments in ethno-territorial conflict settings—in which participants are asked to advise leaders—to investigate these relationships. First, we find that variation in leaders' nationalist preferences indeed affects perception of initial conditions. Next, preference-influenced, goal-oriented descriptions reduce the effect of variation in initial conditions by making factually better initial conditions seem more similar to factually worse ones. As a result, the conflict-reducing effects of better initial conditions are weakened. In addition, and perhaps counter-intuitively, those advising moderate nationalists react more confrontationally to goal-oriented descriptions of initial conditions than those advising extreme nationalists. The main policy implication is that, as a general rule, more factual, less goal-oriented description of initial conditions is likely to improve conflict outcomes.