The purpose of this research is to examine the issue of coalition formation, with specific reference to individual studies of coalition strategy and predictions. The plan of the research will be to set forth the pattern of ideas in each reported study, and then to discuss the means by which the studies analyzed coalition formation, with a view toward suggesting certain difficulties that seem to be apparent in making conclusive statements about the ability of coalition theory to account for patterns of human behavior in groups.
Nydegger and Owen look at coalition formation in a circumstance involving allocation of scarce resources among members of a group. Seeking to investigate the role of psychological processes versus the norms of game theory in bargaining for the splitting of money, their study invited groups of two players to exclude or include the third player of their group in the split, and then asked each player to rate (characterize) the others. It was hypothesized that the third player would be excluded in most group cases and that the post-bargaining rating of each player would, in effect, justify that exclusion. However, in the event, third players were more often included. This caused Nydegger and Owen to transform their hypothesis. In other words, they analyzed the results so as to account for the more equitable distribution of money. They concluded that psychological and social norms, including "the complexity of the forces acting on the subjects' behavior" (p. 36), accounted for the "impressive demonstration of equity theory."
Another view of coalition formation is provided by Miller, whose study looks at three theories: minimum resource theory, which is connected to equity norms; minimum power theory, which predicts division of benefits (payoff) in proportion to the maximum benefit possible to be derived by the participant whose support (pivotal power) is needed by others for them to benefit; and bargaining theor...