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Ultimatum Bargaining with Emotion Expression: Effects of Social Value

Orientation and of Gender on Responders' Behavior

Yifat Hibner, Yuval Samid & Ramzi Suleiman 

University of Haifa

Paper presented at the 13th International Conference on Social Dilemmas

Kyoto, Japan, August 20-24, 2009

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(M-x, x) (0, 0)Accep

tReject

(M-x, x)1

2

The Ultimatum Game

ProposerResponde

r

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Empirical Evidence

Proposers (who seem ignorant of the game theoretic prediction), usually propose about equal splits

Game theoretic Prediction Proposer offers the smallest amount possible

Responder accepts any positive offer

Modal Offer = 50%, Mean Offer ≈ 40% Significant % of offers of 20% or less are

usually rejected

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We focus on the responders’ behavior and ask: Why do responders use their veto option, when receiving positive offers?

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Results based on brain imaging data indicate that rejections of low offers are tightly connected to emotions (e.g., Sanfey et al., Science, 2003)

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Right anterior insula and right DLPFC activation for unfair offer trials, categorized by subsequent acceptance or rejection

Activation related to the presentation of an unfair offer

(From Sanfey et al., Science, 2003)

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Arousal of Negative Emotions

(Anger, insult)

Responder receives an unfair

offer

Responder Punishes the

unfair Proposer (Rejection)

The Costly Punishment Explanation

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Xiao & Houser (PNAS, 2005) hypothesized, that if prior to their decisions, Responders are given a possibility for emotion expression, then they would be less inclined to reject unfair offers

Two Experimental Conditions: An “Emotion Expression” (EE)

A Standard Ultimatum (NEE)

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Procedure

Subjects were invited to the lab in groups (of even numbers). They were randomly and separately assigned to two rooms, one for Proposers and the other for Responders

Each subject was randomly assigned a letter as her ID in the experiment. A Proposer and a Responder who received the same letter became a pair

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First, the proposer indicated her proposed split (of $20) and wrote her decision on a “decision card”

After all proposers had finished, the experimenter took all the decision cards to the Responders’ room and gave each responder her own decision card

The Responder decided whether to accept or to reject the offer

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In the EE condition, the responder also received a card for writing a message to her proposer

After the responders had finished, the experimenter collected the decision cards (and any message cards in the EE condition) and returned them to the Proposers

Each pair of subjects played the game once

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Main finding

Rejections of unfair offers were less frequent under the EE condition, than under the NEE condition

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Rejection rates when responders are offered <50%

Xiao, E., & Houser, D., PNAS 2005; 102, 7398-7401

In the NEE: 12/20 low offers were rejected In the EE: Only 6/19 low offers were rejected

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Our inspection of the verbal messages sent by responders, revealed that they convey various attitudes and beliefs, in addition to emotion expression

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Most messages included a reference to social norms such as fairness and equality, as well as to motivations like selfishness and greed

Responders who accepted low offers typically stated that "something is better than nothing", or rationalized their acceptance by the fact that they are "broke" and need the money

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We proposed that writing post-decisional messages affects responders' behaviors in two opposite directions:

1. It facilitates the expression of negative emotions (a ventilation effect)

2. It amplifies the responders' negative emotions by calling their attention to social comparisons with "privileged" proposers (an aggravation effect)

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We hypothesized that the effect of emotion expression would be moderated by the responders‘ social Value Orientations (SVO’s)

To test this hypothesis, we classified the responders’ according to their SVO’s (Kuhlman & Marshello, 1975; Van Lange et al., 1997)

We hypothesized that while the "ventilation effect“, detected by Xiao & Houser, could influence the decisions of all social types, the "aggravation effect" might be more pronounced among individualists, who, by virtue of their social type, are usually less influenced by social comparisons

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We tested the hypothesis that writing post-decisional messages to unfair proposers might reduce the rejection rate among cooperative responders, and that no comparable effect, or even a reversed effect, could occur among individualistic responders

We also examined the roles played by emotions and attitudes in the decisions to accept or to reject low offers

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Design: 2 (Message/No-Message) X 2 Offer Size (10%/20%) X 2 SVO (Coop/Ind) factorial design.

Participants: 106 undergraduate students at the University of Haifa. 57 (53.8%) were classified as Cooperatives and 49 (46.2%) as Individualists, using the 9-items SVO questionnaire (Van Lange et al., 1997)

All participants played in the role of responders

Procedure: Similar to the one implemented by Xiao & Houser (2005), except that the proposer was fictitious

“Cake” size = 40 NIS (≈$10), Show-up bonus=10 NIS (≈$2.5)

2020

DECISION RULEDIVISION

AThe proposer gets 36 NIS and the responder gets 4 NIS

BThe proposer gets 32 NIS and the responder gets 8 NIS

CThe proposer gets 24 NIS and the responder gets 16 NIS

DThe proposer gets 20 NIS and the responder gets 20 NIS

EThe proposer gets 16 NIS and the responder gets 24 NIS

FThe proposer gets 8 NIS and the responder gets 32 NIS

GThe proposer gets 4 NIS and the responder gets 36NIS

Decision Rules

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Decision Card

Message Card

Proposer: I choose decision rule ____,That is, out of the 40 NIS I get ___ NIS and the responder gets ___ NIS.

Responder: I choose (circle your choice):1. To accept the offer (that is, the proposer gets___ NIS and I get ___ NIS).2. To reject the offer (that is, the proposer gets: ___ NIS and I get ___ NIS).

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Main Results Contrary to Xiao & Houser, we found no main

effect for the message condition. The rejection rates were 50.91% and 55.77% for the No-Message and Message conditions, respectively

Sending messages decreased the rejection rate of low offers by cooperative responders, but increased the rejection rate by individualistic responders

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70

28

55.5658.33

0

20

40

60

80

100

I ndividualistic CooperativeSVO

Resp

onde

r rej

ectio

n Ra

te

No Message Message

Rejection rate as a function of “Message” treatment and SVO

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Analysis of Responders’ Messages

89.66% (52 responders) wrote messages, compared to 89.48% (of responders receiving 20% or less), who wrote messages in the Xiao & Houser (2005) study

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Examples for messages OfferReplyMessage

80/20NoUnjust and greedy.80/20YesI would have been glad if you were

more generous. In any case, since I did not want that we both loose and you

had the upper hand I shall accept your offer.

80/20YesIt is a pity that you don't have a sense for justice but it is a pity that we both

loose. Maybe you need the money.90/10NoIf you were decent we would have both

earned money. Pity! 90/10NoPity. If you have chosen 20:20 we

would both had gained. Now we lost. Greedy!!!

90/10YesLook I accepted your offer only in order to receive 4 NIS and give you 36 NIS

but your offer is not fair.

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Analysis of Messages Content Five students independently evaluated all the

messages. They were instructed to probe, in each message, the presence or absence of specific emotions, motivations and intents. These included:

a) Expressions of anger, satisfaction, frustration and insult

b) Reference to self interest, equality and spite, as possible motives and intents behind the responder's decision

We concluded that each dimension is contained in a given message, only if three or more judges indicated its containment in the message

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EmotionEmotionResponder's DecisionResponder's DecisionAcceptAccept(n =22)(n =22)

RejectReject(n = 29)(n = 29)

AngerAnger171777.27% 77.27%

282896.55% 96.55%

InsultInsult151568.18%68.18%

252586.21%86.21%

FrustrationFrustration181881.82%81.82%

282895.5595.55

SatisfactionSatisfaction6627.27%27.27%

226.90%6.90%

Frequency of emotion as a function

of responder’s decision

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MotivationMotivationResponder's DecisionResponder's DecisionAcceptAccept(n =22)(n =22)

RejectReject(n = 29)(n = 29)

Self interest Self interest **212195.45%95.45%

191965.52%65.52%

FairnessFairness191986.36%86.36%

252586.21%86.21%

Spite Spite ********229.09%9.09%

232379.31%79.31%

• * p < 0.05; **** p < 0.0001 • (Fisher's two sided exact test, N = 51)

Frequency of various motivations

as a function of responder’s decision

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Also, an unpredicted gender difference emerged:

Male responders reacted to sending messages similar to individualists, while female responders reacted to sending messages similar to cooperatives

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Rejection Rate by Gender & Treatment

57.5

23.08

48.15

66.67

01020304050607080

Male Female Gender

Resp

onde

r Rej

ectio

n Rat

e No Message Message

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SVOGender Males Females

Overall

Cooperative1750.00%

3856.72%

55

Individualistic1750.00%

2943.28%

46

Overall3467101

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Conclusions

The effect of sending messages on the responder’s behavior is more complex than proposed by Xiao & Houser (2005)

In addition to the ventilation of emotions, a verbal message to the proposer: (a) Conveys attitudes, and

(b) Primes the presence of the Proposer and focuses attention on social comparison with her

The relative valence of such priming in affecting the responder’s behavior depends on the nature of his social value orientation (SVO)

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Negative emotions alone are poor predictors of responder's rejection behavior

Such behavior is better understood by looking at the affective and the rational (calculative) components of the responder's reaction

Regardless of their decision to accept or to reject a low offer, responders are concerned with fairness issues

Responders who accept low offers are more concerned than others with profit maximization, while responders who reject low offers are more motivated by spite

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The emerging gender difference supports findings indicating that compared to females, males experience more difficulty in emotion management and are more outcome oriented and less process oriented (Deaux and Major, 1982; Farmer and Fyans, 1980; Helmreich and Spence, 1978; Veroff, 1977; Veroff, McClelland and Ruhland, 1975)

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Finally... Several scholars have pointed that authorities might use the appearance of fair procedures (e.g., freedom of speech) as an inexpensive way to distract citizens from tangible outcomes

The Message X Social type interaction obtained in our study suggests that heterogeneous societies, comprised of different social types, might be more successful in attaining and stabilizing norms of fairness than homogenous societies

The possibility for cooperation requires that societies include sufficient ratios of cooperators. The presence of individualists could be beneficial in safeguarding fairness norms, by preventing authorities from exploiting citizens' false consciousness

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Thank you!