IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/soceco/v77y2018icp11-19.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Implicit communication in the ultimatum game

Author

Listed:
  • Brunner, Markus
  • Ostermaier, Andreas

Abstract

We use modified ultimatum games to examine the effect of implicit communication on behavior in bargaining. To manipulate implicit communication, we introduce random noise so that proposers cannot infer responders’ decisions unless we disclose these. We find that responders reject low offers not only because they disapprove them but also because they want to demonstrate their disapproval. Proposers anticipate this effect and make higher offers to evade rejection. In a second study, proposers forward random offers rather than make their own offers. We thus exclude disapproval of the proposer’s choice as a motive of rejection. Our results show that responders refrain from rejecting random offers as rejection might make them appear envious. Our study contributes to the growing literature on communication in bargaining, which has focused on explicit rather than implicit communication.

Suggested Citation

  • Brunner, Markus & Ostermaier, Andreas, 2018. "Implicit communication in the ultimatum game," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 11-19.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:77:y:2018:i:c:p:11-19
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2018.08.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214804318303859
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socec.2018.08.003?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Falk, Armin & Fischbacher, Urs, 2006. "A theory of reciprocity," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 293-315, February.
    2. Güth, Werner & Kocher, Martin G., 2014. "More than thirty years of ultimatum bargaining experiments: Motives, variations, and a survey of the recent literature," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 396-409.
    3. Ben Greiner, 2015. "Subject pool recruitment procedures: organizing experiments with ORSEE," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 1(1), pages 114-125, July.
    4. Eduardo B. Andrade & Teck-Hua Ho, 2009. "Gaming Emotions in Social Interactions," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 36(4), pages 539-552, December.
    5. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, 1999. "A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 114(3), pages 817-868.
    6. Ernst Fehr & Simon Gächter, 2002. "Altruistic punishment in humans," Nature, Nature, vol. 415(6868), pages 137-140, January.
    7. Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
    8. Blount, Sally, 1995. "When Social Outcomes Aren't Fair: The Effect of Causal Attributions on Preferences," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 131-144, August.
    9. Greiner, Ben & Caravella, Mary & Roth, Alvin E., 2014. "Is avatar-to-avatar communication as effective as face-to-face communication? An Ultimatum Game experiment in First and Second Life," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 374-382.
    10. Zultan, Ro’i, 2012. "Strategic and social pre-play communication in the ultimatum game," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 425-434.
    11. Wubben, Maarten J.J. & Cremer, David De & Dijk, Eric van, 2011. "The communication of anger and disappointment helps to establish cooperation through indirect reciprocity," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 489-501, June.
    12. Kirchsteiger, Georg, 1994. "The role of envy in ultimatum games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 373-389, December.
    13. Guth, Werner & Schmittberger, Rolf & Schwarze, Bernd, 1982. "An experimental analysis of ultimatum bargaining," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 367-388, December.
    14. Samahita, Margaret, 2017. "Venting and gossiping in conflicts: Verbal expression in ultimatum games," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 111-121.
    15. Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, "undated". "Third Party Punishment and Social Norms," IEW - Working Papers 106, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    16. Ning Ma & Nan Li & Xiao-Song He & De-Lin Sun & Xiaochu Zhang & Da-Ren Zhang, 2012. "Rejection of Unfair Offers Can Be Driven by Negative Emotions, Evidence from Modified Ultimatum Games with Anonymity," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(6), pages 1-6, June.
    17. Simon Gachter & Ernst Fehr, 2000. "Cooperation and Punishment in Public Goods Experiments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 980-994, September.
    18. Pillutla, Madan M. & Murnighan, J. Keith, 1996. "Unfairness, Anger, and Spite: Emotional Rejections of Ultimatum Offers," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 208-224, December.
    19. Erte Xiao & Daniel Houser, 2005. "Emotion expression in human punishment behavior," Experimental 0504003, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 18 May 2005.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Brosig-Koch, Jeannette & Heinrich, Timo & Sterner, Martin, 2023. "Bilateral communication in procurement auctions," MPRA Paper 117612, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bigoni, Maria & Bortolotti, Stefania & Nas Özen, Efşan, 2021. "Economic polarization and antisocial behavior: An experiment," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 387-401.
    2. Leibbrandt, Andreas & López-Pérez, Raúl & Spiegelman, Eli, 2023. "Reciprocal, but inequality averse as well? Mixed motives for punishment and reward," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 210(C), pages 91-116.
    3. Reuben, Ernesto & van Winden, Frans, 2008. "Social ties and coordination on negative reciprocity: The role of affect," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1-2), pages 34-53, February.
    4. Leibbrandt, Andreas & López-Pérez, Raúl, 2011. "Individual Heterogeneity in Punishment and Reward," Working Papers in Economic Theory 2011/01, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain), Department of Economic Analysis (Economic Theory and Economic History).
    5. Leibbrandt, Andreas & López-Pérez, Raúl, 2012. "An exploration of third and second party punishment in ten simple games," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(3), pages 753-766.
    6. Brownback, Andy & Kuhn, Michael A., 2019. "Understanding outcome bias," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 342-360.
    7. Lisa Bruttel & Werner Güth & Juri Nithammer & Andreas Orland, 2022. "Inefficient Cooperation Under Stochastic and Strategic Uncertainty," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 66(4-5), pages 755-782, May.
    8. repec:dgr:uvatin:20040098 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Murnighan, J. Keith & Wang, Long, 2016. "The social world as an experimental game," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 80-94.
    10. Nikos Nikiforakis & Helen Mitchell, 2014. "Mixing the carrots with the sticks: third party punishment and reward," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 17(1), pages 1-23, March.
    11. Hans-Rüdiger Pfister & Gisela Böhm, 2012. "Responder Feelings in a Three-Player Three-Option Ultimatum Game: Affective Determinants of Rejection Behavior," Games, MDPI, vol. 3(1), pages 1-29, February.
    12. Güth, Werner & Kocher, Martin G., 2014. "More than thirty years of ultimatum bargaining experiments: Motives, variations, and a survey of the recent literature," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 396-409.
    13. Andreas Nicklisch & Irenaeus Wolff, 2011. "Cooperation Norms in Multiple‐Stage Punishment," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 13(5), pages 791-827, October.
    14. Bogliacino, Francesco & Codagnone, Cristiano, 2021. "Microfoundations, behaviour, and evolution: Evidence from experiments," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 372-385.
    15. Bicskei, Marianna & Lankau, Matthias & Bizer, Kilian, 2016. "Negative reciprocity and its relation to anger-like emotions in identity-homogeneous and -heterogeneous groups," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 17-34.
    16. Ernst Fehr & Urs Fischbacher, "undated". "Third Party Punishment and Social Norms," IEW - Working Papers 106, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    17. Andreas Fuster & Stephan Meier, 2010. "Another Hidden Cost of Incentives: The Detrimental Effect on Norm Enforcement," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 56(1), pages 57-70, January.
    18. KAMEI Kenju, 2022. "Self-regulatory Resources and Institutional Formation: A first experimental test," Discussion papers 22084, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    19. Houser, Daniel & Xiao, Erte, 2010. "Inequality-seeking punishment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 109(1), pages 20-23, October.
    20. Kovarik, Jaromir, 2009. "Social Preferences - Literature Survey," IKERLANAK 2009-36, Universidad del País Vasco - Departamento de Fundamentos del Análisis Económico I.
    21. Sturm, Bodo & Riechmann, Thomas & Dannenberg, Astrid & Vogt, Carsten, 2007. "Inequity Aversion and Individual Behavior in Public Good Games: An Experimental Investigation," ZEW Discussion Papers 07-034 [rev.], ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bargaining; Implicit communication; Punishment; Ultimatum game;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C78 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Bargaining Theory; Matching Theory
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:77:y:2018:i:c:p:11-19. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620175 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.