The decoy effect describes how preferences shift when additional options are introduced, challenging the notion of rational choice. This cognitive bias can impact decisions in both individual and strategic contexts. In a bargaining setting, a decoy may help a party secure a better outcome. We explore whether stakeholders in two-person bargaining attempt to strategically exploit others’ cognitive biases by incorporating a decoy in order to shift the bargaining outcome to their favorite original alternative. Our findings reveal that over one-third of participants opt to add a decoy, despite the small cost it incurs. We examine decoys that create attraction or compromise effects, and we vary the payoff levels of alternatives. Belief elicitation indicates that decoys creating a compromise effect are chosen with self-serving intentions to achieve more favorable outcomes, while decoys creating an attraction effect are also chosen because are considered an acceptable agreement.