Opening the black box of emotion expression: how anger expression shapes beliefs, attitudes and tastes in negotiation

Abstract

In social interactions, emotions serve as information that helps reduce social ambiguity. In this project, we adopt a rigorous economics framework to study how anger, often viewed as a male-stereotypical emotion, affects decisions, beliefs, and perceptions in a negotiation setting. We also investigate whether the anger effect differs by gender. We run an online experiment on Prolific (N = 800). Participants act as proposers in an ultimatum game. Before making their offer, they receive a verbal message from the counterpart. The message is either angry or neutral and comes from either a male or a female counterpart. In addition to the final offer, we also measure participants’ beliefs, altruism, ambiguity aversion, and perceptions of their counterparts. The main results will be presented at the seminar. Joint paper with David Gonzales-Jimenez and Chen Li.