Understanding the influence of outcome valence in bargaining: A study on fairness accessibility, norms, and behavior

Abstract

In this study we investigate how outcome valence affects the importance of self-interest and fairness in ultimatum bargaining. In three experiments we systematically study the effect of outcome valence on fairness accessibility, norms, and behavior. Results on all three aspects show strong evidence for the hypothesis that fairness becomes more important and self-interest becomes less important in negative valence bargaining. Fairness accessibility was higher when bargaining involved negative payoffs than when it involved positive payoffs (Experiment 1), the fairness norm was stronger in negatively versus positively valenced bargaining when an identical unequal offer benefiting the allocators was evaluated (Experiment 2), and allocators allocated more to recipients in negative valence bargaining than in positive valence bargaining (Experiment 3). We relate our findings to insights derived from the do-no-harm principle.