Are irrational reactions to unfairness truly emotionally-driven? Dissociated behavioural and emotional responses in the Ultimatum Game task.
The "irrational" rejections of unfair offers by people playing the Ultimatum Game (UG), a widely used laboratory model of economical decision-making, have traditionally been associated with negative emotions, such as frustration, elicited by unfairness (Sanfey, Rilling, Aronson, Nystrom, & Cohen, 2003; van't Wout, Kahn, Sanfey, & Aleman, 2006). We recorded skin conductance responses as a measure of emotional activation while participants performed a modified version of the UG, in which they were asked to play both for themselves and on behalf of a third-party. Our findings show that even unfair offers are rejected when participants' payoff is not affected (third-party condition); however, they show an increase in the emotional activation specifically when they are rejecting offers directed towards themselves (myself condition). These results suggest that theories emphasizing negative emotions as the critical factor of "irrational" rejections (Pillutla & Murninghan, 1996) should be re-discussed. Psychological mechanisms other than emotions might be better candidates for explaining this behaviour.
Cognitive Neuroscience Sector, SISSA, Via Beirut 2-4, 34100 Trieste (TS), Italy.
Claudia
C
Civai
Corrado
C
Corradi-Dell'Acqua
Matthias
M
Gamer
Raffaella I
RI
Rumiati
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005712:Galvanic Skin Response / Q000502:physiology; D005716:Game Theory; D005717:Games, Experimental; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012919:Social Behavior; D012938:Social Perception