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Thirty-six two-man teams participated in a negotiation experiment that used two-by-two game matrices. An attempt was made to shape the negotiating behavior by manipulating the prior experiences of the teams. There were three experimental conditions. Each was designed to foster one particular orientation towards the negotiations. The intended orientations were (a) competitive, (b) cooperative, and (c) limited-trust. No systematic differences were found, however, between the teams in the three conditions. The implication of this result, with particular reference to the position forwarded by Blake and Mouton, was discussed. In addition, differences in the perception of the negotiations by participants and nonparticipants (observers) highlighted the arbitrariness of experimental procedures that depend on self-report or observational rating but not on both. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]