Coupling and decoupling of unfairness and anger in ultimatum bargaining

Although previous research has demonstrated the importance of emotions in ultimatum bargaining, this research provides a more direct, convergent test of the role of anger in explaining rejections of unfair offers in ultimatum bargaining. First, using appraisal theory of emotions, this research examines the extent to which the cognitive appraisal of unfairness leads to the emotion of anger, which in turn, drives punitive behavior (i.e., rejection of offers). Second, this research explores the possibility of decoupling the emotion of anger from its antecedent appraisal of unfairness in order to attenuate responders' inclination to reject unfair offers. Third, following the current research tradition that goes beyond a valence-based approach, we differentiate between the negative emotions of anger and sadness and examine whether it is the specific emotion of anger that is relevant to the cognitive appraisal of unfairness or the general negative valence of the emotion. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

[1]  Andrew Ortony,et al.  The Cognitive Structure of Emotions , 1988 .

[2]  Alan G. Sanfey,et al.  Affective state and decision-making in the Ultimatum Game , 2006, Experimental Brain Research.

[3]  John D. Hey,et al.  Experimental economics and deception: A comment , 1998 .

[4]  Madan M. Pillutla,et al.  Unfairness, Anger, and Spite: Emotional Rejections of Ultimatum Offers , 1996 .

[5]  Gary E. Bolton,et al.  ERC: A Theory of Equity, Reciprocity, and Competition , 2000 .

[6]  N. Frijda,et al.  Relations among emotion, appraisal, and emotional action readiness , 1989 .

[7]  E. Fehr,et al.  Fairness and Retaliation: The Economics of Reciprocity , 2000, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[8]  Self-Regulation in Ultimatum Bargaining: Controlling Emotion with Binding Goals , 2006 .

[9]  Michel Tuan Pham.  Representativeness, Relevance, and the Use of Feelings in Decision Making , 1998 .

[10]  A. Rapoport,et al.  Price and Margin Negotiations in Marketing Channels: An Experimental Study of Sequential Bargaining Under One-sided Uncertainty and Opportunity Cost of Delay , 2000 .

[11]  P. Ellsworth,et al.  Beyond simple pessimism: effects of sadness and anger on social perception. , 1993, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[12]  John Fox,et al.  TEACHER'S CORNER: Structural Equation Modeling With the sem Package in R , 2006 .

[13]  G. Clore,et al.  Mood, misattribution, and judgments of well-being: Informative and directive functions of affective states. , 1983 .

[14]  Jonathan D. Cohen,et al.  The Neural Basis of Economic Decision-Making in the Ultimatum Game , 2003, Science.

[15]  Shane Bonetti,et al.  Experimental economics and deception , 1998 .

[16]  W. Güth.  On ultimatum bargaining experiments — A personal review , 1995 .

[17]  Joydeep Srivastava,et al.  Effect of Response Time on Perceptions of Bargaining Outcomes , 2006 .

[18]  Frans van Winden,et al.  Affect and Fairness in Economics , 2007 .

[19]  S. Blount.  When Social Outcomes Aren't Fair: The Effect of Causal Attributions on Preferences , 1995 .

[20]  Craig A. Smith,et al.  Patterns of appraisal and emotion related to taking an exam. , 1987, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[21]  Leonard Berkowitz,et al.  Toward an understanding of the determinants of anger. , 2004, Emotion.

[22]  D. A. Kenny,et al.  The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. , 1986, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[23]  R. Thaler,et al.  Anomalies: Ultimatums, Dictators and Manners , 1995 .

[24]  J. Keith Murnighan,et al.  An experimental investigation of ultimatum games: information, fairness, expectations, and lowest acceptable offers , 1995 .

[25]  Ira J. Roseman,et al.  Appraisals of emotion-eliciting events: Testing a theory of discrete emotions. , 1990 .

[26]  J. Gross,et al.  PERSONALITY PROCESSES AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES Emotion Regulation and Memory: The Cognitive Costs of Keeping One's Cool , 2004 .

[27]  Craig A. Smith,et al.  Patterns of cognitive appraisal in emotion. , 1985, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[28]  Joydeep Srivastava.  The Role of Inferences in Sequential Bargaining with One-Sided Incomplete Information: Some Experimental Evidence. , 2001, Organizational behavior and human decision processes.

[29]  F. Winden,et al.  Social ties and coordination on negative reciprocity: The role of affect , 2008 .

[30]  Benjamin E. Hermalin,et al.  A model of the effect of affect on economic decision making , 2008 .

[31]  J. Lerner,et al.  Fear, anger, and risk. , 2001, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[32]  A. Doob,et al.  Attribution and aggression: The misattribution of anger ☆ , 1978 .

[33]  R. Thaler,et al.  Ultimatums, Dictators and Manners , 2007 .

[34]  W. Güth,et al.  An experimental analysis of ultimatum bargaining , 1982 .

[35]  Colin Camerer.  Strategizing in the Brain , 2003, Science.