Donna L. Bahry
Department of Political Science
Penn State University
dbahry@psu.edu
Rick K. Wilson
Department of Political Science
Rice University
Houston, TX
rkw@rice.edu
Abstract
Field experiments conducted in the Russian Republics of Tatarstan and Sakha showed that the proposers in the "ultimatum game" almost invariable made offers that split a day's wage at 50/50. These experiments were conducted in a variety of settings, from small isolated villages to large urban areas. While the consistency in proposer behavior seemed odd, it was not given the expectations of the responders. Using the strategy method to elicit a profile of rejections, we find that responders invoke an exceedingly strong norm of a 50/50 split or nothing at all. This paper focuses on the profile of rejections, and combines the experimental data with data drawn from an extensive face-to-face attitudinal survey conducted on the same subjects six weeks prior to participating in the experiment.
