title: The role of cognitive and emotional perspective taking in economic decision making in the ultimatum game.
abstract: We conducted a simple resource allocation game known as the ultimatum game (UG) with preschoolers to examine the role of cognitive and emotional perspective-taking ability on allocation and rejection behavior. A total of 146 preschoolers played the UG and completed a false belief task and an emotional perspective-taking test. Results showed that cognitive perspective taking ability had a significant positive effect on the proposer's offer and a negative effect on the responder's rejection behavior, whereas emotional perspective taking ability did not impact either the proposer's or responder's behavior. These results imply that the ability to anticipate the responder's beliefs, but not their emotional state, plays an important role in the proposer's choice of a fair allocation in an UG, and that children who have not acquired theory of mind still reject unfair offers.
authors.affiliation: Tamagawa University Brain Science Institute, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Haruto
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Takagishi
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Child Mental Development, University of Fukui, Fukui, Japan.
authors.forename: Michiko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Koizumi
authors.affiliation: Department of Brain Science, Tamagawa University, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Takayuki
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Fujii
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, United States of America.
authors.forename: Joanna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Schug
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Welfare, Kansai University of Welfare Sciences, Osaka, Japan.
authors.forename: Shinya
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kameshima
authors.affiliation: Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy, Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, Japan.
authors.forename: Toshio
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yamagishi
mesh_terms: D002675:Child, Preschool; D002755:Choice Behavior; D003071:Cognition; D003657:Decision Making; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D005717:Games, Experimental; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male