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Explaining Unfair Offers in Ultimatum Games and their Effects on Trust: An Experimental Approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

David De Cremer ,
Eric van Dijk  and
Madan M. Pillutla
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Abstract

Unfair offers in bargaining may have disruptive effects because they may reduce interpersonal trust. In such situations future trust may be strongly affected by social accounts (i.e., apologies vs. denials). In the current paper we investigate when people are most likely to demand social accounts for the unfair offer (Experiment 1), and when social accounts will have the highest impact (Experiment 2). We hypothesized that the need for and impact of social accounts will be highest when the intentions of the other party are uncertain. The results provided support for this reasoning.

Type
Special Issue Behavioral Ethics: A New Empirical Perspective on Business Ethics Research
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , January 2010 , pp. 107 - 126
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 2010

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