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Venting and Gossiping in Conflicts: Emotion Expression in Ultimatum Games

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Abstract

Conflicts often lead to expression of emotion to unrelated parties. We study non-instrumental emotion expression in binary ultimatum games, where receivers can express emotion either privately or to a third-party audience prior to accepting or rejecting the offer. The possibility of emotion expression to an audience increases welfare, but this is driven by senders behaving more fairly rather than any change in receivers' behaviour. We thus show that the role of emotion expression in increasing co-operation is mainly driven by the punishment motive. There is demand for emotion expression even when it is unobserved, this is motivated by low self-esteem.

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  • Samahita, Margaret, 2015. "Venting and Gossiping in Conflicts: Emotion Expression in Ultimatum Games," Working Papers 2015:33, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:lunewp:2015_033
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    Cited by:

    1. 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.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    ultimatum game; co-operation; emotion; fairness; self-esteem;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C91 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Individual Behavior
    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement

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