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When More Is Better – Consumption Priming Decreases Responders’ Rejections in the Ultimatum Game

During the past decades, economic theories of rational choice have been exposed to outcomes that were severe challenges to their claim of universal validity. For example, traditional theories cannot account for refusals to cooperate if cooperation would result in higher payoffs. A prominent illustra...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Zürn, Michael, Strack, Fritz
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5742421/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29326637
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02226
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author Zürn, Michael
Strack, Fritz
author_facet Zürn, Michael
Strack, Fritz
author_sort Zürn, Michael
collection PubMed
description During the past decades, economic theories of rational choice have been exposed to outcomes that were severe challenges to their claim of universal validity. For example, traditional theories cannot account for refusals to cooperate if cooperation would result in higher payoffs. A prominent illustration are responders’ rejections of positive but unequal payoffs in the Ultimatum Game. To accommodate this anomaly in a rational framework one needs to assume both a preference for higher payoffs and a preference for equal payoffs. The current set of studies shows that the relative weight of these preference components depends on external conditions and that consumption priming may decrease responders’ rejections of unequal payoffs. Specifically, we demonstrate that increasing the accessibility of consumption-related information accentuates the preference for higher payoffs. Furthermore, consumption priming increased responders’ reaction times for unequal payoffs which suggests an increased conflict between both preference components. While these results may also be integrated into existing social preference models, we try to identify some basic psychological processes underlying economic decision making. Going beyond the Ultimatum Game, we propose that a distinction between comparative and deductive evaluations may provide a more general framework to account for various anomalies in behavioral economics.
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spelling pubmed-57424212018-01-11 When More Is Better – Consumption Priming Decreases Responders’ Rejections in the Ultimatum Game Zürn, Michael Strack, Fritz Front Psychol Psychology During the past decades, economic theories of rational choice have been exposed to outcomes that were severe challenges to their claim of universal validity. For example, traditional theories cannot account for refusals to cooperate if cooperation would result in higher payoffs. A prominent illustration are responders’ rejections of positive but unequal payoffs in the Ultimatum Game. To accommodate this anomaly in a rational framework one needs to assume both a preference for higher payoffs and a preference for equal payoffs. The current set of studies shows that the relative weight of these preference components depends on external conditions and that consumption priming may decrease responders’ rejections of unequal payoffs. Specifically, we demonstrate that increasing the accessibility of consumption-related information accentuates the preference for higher payoffs. Furthermore, consumption priming increased responders’ reaction times for unequal payoffs which suggests an increased conflict between both preference components. While these results may also be integrated into existing social preference models, we try to identify some basic psychological processes underlying economic decision making. Going beyond the Ultimatum Game, we propose that a distinction between comparative and deductive evaluations may provide a more general framework to account for various anomalies in behavioral economics. Frontiers Media S.A. 2017-12-20 /pmc/articles/PMC5742421/ /pubmed/29326637 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02226 Text en Copyright © 2017 Zürn and Strack. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Zürn, Michael
Strack, Fritz
When More Is Better – Consumption Priming Decreases Responders’ Rejections in the Ultimatum Game
title When More Is Better – Consumption Priming Decreases Responders’ Rejections in the Ultimatum Game
title_full When More Is Better – Consumption Priming Decreases Responders’ Rejections in the Ultimatum Game
title_fullStr When More Is Better – Consumption Priming Decreases Responders’ Rejections in the Ultimatum Game
title_full_unstemmed When More Is Better – Consumption Priming Decreases Responders’ Rejections in the Ultimatum Game
title_short When More Is Better – Consumption Priming Decreases Responders’ Rejections in the Ultimatum Game
title_sort when more is better – consumption priming decreases responders’ rejections in the ultimatum game
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5742421/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29326637
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02226
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