How Much Is Our Fairness Worth? The Effect of Raising Stakes on Offers by Proposers and Minimum Acceptable Offers in Dictator and Ultimatum Games

Julie Novakova and Jaroslav Flegr

PLOS ONE, 2013, vol. 8, issue 4, 1-9

Abstract: Background: The aim of this study was to determine whether people respond differently to low and high stakes in Dictator and Ultimatum Games. We assumed that if we raised the stakes high enough, we would observe more self-orientated behavior because fairness would become too costly, in spite of a possible risk of a higher punishment. Methods: A questionnaire was completed by a sample of 524 university students of biology. A mixed linear model was used to test the relation between the amount at stake (CZK 20, 200, 2,000, 20,000 and 200,000, i.e., approximately $1–$10,000) and the shares, as well as the subjects’ gender and the design of the study (single vs. multiple games for different amounts). Results: We have discovered a significant relationship between the amount at stake and the minimum acceptable offer in the Ultimatum Game and the proposed shares in both Ultimatum and Dictator Games (p = 0.001, p

Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0060966 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 60966&type=printable (application/pdf)

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:plo:pone00:0060966

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0060966

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().