Expression of prestige through authentic pride, not dominance through hubristic pride, promotes fairness in ultimatum bargaining

This study examines how people react to different types of high social rank displays during negotiations. We focused on two ways people display high rank: dominance (using force or intimidation) and prestige (demonstrating competence and earning respect). In a pre-registered experiment (N = 309), we tested whether these displays would influence people to make fair offers in a negotiation game. Participants first competed in tasks where they were outperformed by their negotiation partner, creating a power difference. They then decided how much money to share with this partner. We found that participants offered more money to partners who displayed prestige after demonstrating superior performance. However, when partners displayed dominance despite similar superior performance, participants did not increase their offers compared to a neutral condition without power differences, and this pattern persisted even under compliance pressure. A path model revealed that expressions of authentic pride (associated with prestige), but not hubristic pride (associated with dominance), explained why participants made fairer offers. These findings suggest that earning and showing respect through prestige is more effective than asserting dominance when negotiating from a position of power.