The ultimatum game
Five strangers will offer you a split of $10. Accept or refuse each offer. If you refuse, nobody gets anything.
The experiment starts as soon as the page has loaded (JavaScript is required).
Try the experiment: your result will appear here, next to what most people do.
What just happened (read it after the experiment)
What most people do: All over the world, offers of less than 20% are turned down about half the time.
For classical economics, accepting is always rational: a dollar is better than nothing. Yet all over the world, offers of less than 20% are turned down about half the time.
The game was studied in 1982 by Werner Güth. It has since been played in dozens of cultures, from students to herders in Mongolia: the sense of fairness varies, but it exists everywhere.
We are ready to lose money to punish unfairness. That anger protects cooperation.
More experiments
Sources
- Werner Güth et al., Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 1982.
- Joseph Henrich et al., “In search of Homo economicus,” American Economic Review, 2001.