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Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences pp 1–5Cite as

Ultimatum Game

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Synonyms

Ultimatum bargaining; Ultimatum Bargaining Game

Definition

The Ultimatum Game is an experimental paradigm used in behavioral economics. In the Ultimatum Game, two anonymous participants (referred to as players), who typically have never met before, are randomly assigned to either the role of proposer or responder. The proposer receives a predetermined endowment from the experimenter and then has to decide how to split this endowment in any way they like between themselves and the responder. The responder then decides to accept or reject the proposed split. If the responder accepts the offer, the endowed amount is split according to the proposers’ suggested division; if the responder rejects the offer, neither the proposer nor the responder receives any money. Both players are informed about these rules prior to the start of the game, and thus, both players know the consequences when the responder accepts or rejects.

Introduction

Bargaining situations such as those in the...

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References

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Author information

Author notes

  1. $Mascha van ’t Wout and Johannes Leder are contributed equally.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, RI, USA

    Mascha van ‘t Wout

  2. Institute of Psychology, University of Bamberg, Bamberg, Germany

    Johannes Leder

Authors
  1. Mascha van ‘t Wout
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  2. Johannes Leder
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mascha van ‘t Wout .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Virgil Zeigler-Hill

  2. Oakland University, Rochester, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

Section Editor information

  1. Department of Educational Sciences, University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy

    Patrizia Velotti

  2. Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

    Patrizia Velotti

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van ‘t Wout, M., Leder, J. (2018). Ultimatum Game. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_880-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_880-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

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