Implicit communication in the ultimatum game

Markus Brunner and Andreas Ostermaier

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), 2018, vol. 77, issue C, 11-19

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.

Keywords: Bargaining; Implicit communication; Punishment; Ultimatum game (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C78 C91 D83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214804318303859
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:soceco:v:77:y:2018:i:c:p:11-19

DOI: 10.1016/j.socec.2018.08.003

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics) is currently edited by Pablo Brañas Garza

More articles in Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics) from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().