Expectations and social decision making: An investigation of gain and loss ultimatum games

• This project uses the Ultimatum Game to investigate how people respond to fair and unfair divisions of gains and losses. • Expectations regarding modal divisions were manipulated. • Responders expecting fair gain offers had lower acceptance rates of unfair offers. • For the loss domain, responders expected a fair division, in spite of information about average offers. • Participants who expected unfair loss offers had the lowest acceptance rate of unfair loss offers. • Our study is the first one to directly investigate expectations in conjunction with decisional domains. Fairness plays a pivotal role in shaping the emergence and evolution of social relationships. The equitable distribution of resources holds significant importance. In addition to resource allocation, the distribution of losses frequently arises within business or personal partnerships. In this study, we used the Ultimatum Game to investigate comparatively how people respond to fair and unfair divisions of gains and losses. In addition, we aimed to expand current knowledge on how expectations regarding monetary divisions interact with the decisional domain. A total sample of 117 undergraduate students was divided into 3 experimental conditions after the expectation induction manipulation. All participants were presented with 30 gain and 30 loss allocation offers. Our results indicate that both the expectation regarding future monetary allocations and individual decisions when confronted with unfair offers were influenced by the decisional domain. Our study is the first one to directly investigate expectations in conjunction with decisional domains.