Making Reputation Salient: Using the Reputation Index with Law Students

Would negotiation students act the way they do in simulations, if they knew this might come back to haunt them? Analyzing the consequences of basing part of students final grades on objective results they achieve in negotiation simulations, Welsh found a need for something to counterbalance the expected incentives to engage in distributive tactics and sharp practice. She settled on an explicit focus on reputation. While the reputation index compiled for each student is only a small fraction of the students grade, it is based on recent thinking about the value of negotiators reputations even in the short term, and gives some reason for pause to any student who contemplates defecting, in classic game theory terms. Whats more, it supports the trend toward giving greater autonomy and responsibility to students themselves because the reputation that counts here is not the students reputation with the teacher, but her reputation with other students.

Making Reputation Salient: Using the Reputation Index with Law Students Chapter