EMOTION EXPRESSION AND INDIRECT RECIPROCITY

Hui Xu () and Daniel Houser
Additional contact information
Hui Xu: Business School, Beijing Normal University, Haidian District, Beijing 100875, P. R. China

The Singapore Economic Review (SER), 2024, vol. 69, issue 04, 1537-1558

Abstract: This study explores how emotion expression (EE) can help promote positive indirect reciprocity while also breaking chains of negative indirect reciprocity. We report data from a two-stage dictator game and compare the decisions subjects make towards a third party both with and without the chance to express emotion. Standard economic models suggest opportunities to express emotion should have no impact on behavior. In sharp contrast to these predictions, we find that subjects who are treated unkindly behave more generously towards others in subsequent interactions if they have the opportunity to convey their emotions to a third party. Our findings have important welfare implications. In particular, they suggest that opportunities to express emotion can break negative reciprocity chains and promote generosity and social well-being even among those who have not themselves been previously well-treated. We argue that reference-dependent valuations can help to explain our results.

Keywords: Emotion expression; indirect reciprocity; dictator game; message content (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C91 D01 D64 D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0217590824450024
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers

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:wsi:serxxx:v:69:y:2024:i:04:n:s0217590824450024

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from

DOI: 10.1142/S0217590824450024

Access Statistics for this article

The Singapore Economic Review (SER) is currently edited by Euston Quah

More articles in The Singapore Economic Review (SER) from World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tai Tone Lim ().