Abstract
Economic games such as the Ultimatum Game (UG) and Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD) are widely used paradigms for studying fairness and cooperation. Monetary versions of these games involve two players splitting an arbitrary sum of money. In real life, however, people’s propensity to engage in cooperative behavior depends on their effort and contribution; factors that are well known to affect perceptions of fairness. We therefore sought to explore the impact of relative monetary contributions by players in the UG and PD. Adapted computerized UG and PD games, in which relative contributions from each player were manipulated, were administered to 200 participants aged 18–50 years old (50% female). We found that players’ contribution had large effects on cooperative behavior. Specifically, cooperation was greater amongst participants when their opponent had contributed more to joint earnings. This was manifested as higher acceptance rates and higher offers in the UG; and fewer defects in the PD compared to when the participant contributed more. Interestingly, equal contributions elicited the greatest sensitivity to fairness in the UG, and least frequent defection in the PD. Acceptance rates correlated positively with anxiety and sex differences were found in defection behavior. This study highlights the feasibility of computerized games to assess cooperative behavior and the importance of considering cooperation within the context of effortful contribution.
Highlights
Economic games, such as the Ultimatum Game (UG) and Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD) have become popular paradigms for exploring social decision-making
We further demonstrated that acceptance rates in the UG correlated positively with state anxiety, suggesting that negative affect is an important factor in cooperative behavior
Our results demonstrate that contribution is an important motivating factor that affects behavior in economic social exchange games
Summary
Economic games, such as the Ultimatum Game (UG) and Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD) have become popular paradigms for exploring social decision-making. The striking finding observed in the UG is that players do not behave according to predictions made by classical economic theories of utility (Von Neumann and Morgenstern, 1947) These theories assume that the receiver should accept any offer proposed in order to maximize their own financial gain since the alternative is to receive nothing. Previous studies suggest that at least half of receivers reject offers below 30% (Güth et al, 1982; Rubinstein, 1982; Thaler, 1988), a finding that has been replicated consistently, with some variations observed in gender (Eckel and Grossman, 2001), social distance (Page et al, 2000), hypothetical vs real money rewards (Fantino et al, 2007; Gillis and Hettler, 2007) and cultures (Henrich et al, 2005). Acceptance rates can differ quite dramatically between societies, any generalizing from behavior in the games to potential social cognition deficits may only be applicable within a particular culture
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