Costly punishment in the ultimatum game evokes moral concern, in particular when framed as payoff reduction
2017 (English)In: Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, ISSN 0022-1031, E-ISSN 1096-0465, Vol. 69, p. 59-64Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
The ultimatum game is a common economic experiment in which some participants reject anothers unfair offer of how to split some money, even though it leaves them both worse off. This costly behavior can be seen as enforcement of a fairness norm and has been labeled "altruistic punishment", suggesting that it is a Moral thing to do. But is this behavior viewed as moral by participants? Is it viewed as punishment? And are the payoff consequences of the behavior sufficient to determine the answers to these questions? To investigate this we framed costly punishment in two different ways: either as rejection of an offer (the standard ultimatum game framing) or as reduction of payoff. In a series of paid and hypothetical experiments we found that moral concerns about costly punishment depended on the framing. Specifically, the reduction frame elicited more moral concern about, and less use of, costly punishment than did the rejection frame. Several implications are discussed. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
ACADEMIC PRESS INC ELSEVIER SCIENCE , 2017. Vol. 69, p. 59-64
Keywords [en]
Costly punishment; Ultimatum game; Norm enforcement; Motives; Framing; Moral judgment
National Category
Philosophy
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-134797DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2016.09.004ISI: 000392774500006OAI: oai:DiVA.org:liu-134797DiVA, id: diva2:1077046
Note
Funding Agencies|Swedish Research Council [2008-2370, 2009-2390, 2009-2678, 2013-7681, 2013-5460]; European Research Council under the European Unions Seventh Framework Programme (FP7)/ERC [324233]; Riksbankens Jubileumsfond [M12-0301:1]; Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation [2015.0005]
2017-02-242017-02-242018-03-29