Putting Yourself in Someone Else’s Shoes: Order of Play and Subjects’ Behavior in Ultimatum Games

Abstract In real-life negotiation situations, the opportunity to consider the situation from the perspective of the opponent can promote prosocial choices and increase the likelihood of an agreement. We show this result through a randomized experiment administered to a sample of 1008 subjects representative of the entire Italian adult population, which required them to play two Ultimatum Games. We find that playing as a Responder after acting as a Proposer reduces the minimum acceptable amount (MAO). We also find weak evidence that playing as a Proposer after acting as a Responder increases the proposed amount offered to the counterpart (Offer). This position increases the subject’s ability to put himself in the opponent’s shoes, affecting player behavior and ultimately the outcomes of the second game. We therefore suggest that reversing the sequence of actions in social dilemmas may increase the probability of reaching an agreement between two conflicting parties or achieving a mutually satisfactory result. A practical method to enhance this potential is to employ a role-reversal technique, a standard approach often used by dispute negotiation experts.