Gratefully Perceived, Gratefully Rejected, or Repaid? The Role of Gratitude and Perceived Fairness in Economic Interactions

Theoretical background / Presenting problem: Ma et al. (2014) demonstrated that 87.5% of recipients accepted their unfair offers, and of which 38% responded uncooperatively by repaying less than agreed previously. However, it remains unaddressed as of why nearly all these defaulters chose to partially but not completely defect. While Yamagishi et al. (2009) concluded that negative emotions facilitated the disapproval of unfair offers, positive emotions like gratitude were demonstrated, as a trait, to influence how people appraise a ‘gift’ they received (Wood et al., 2008); and as a state, to engender cooperative behaviours directed back to one’s benefactors (Tsang, 2007). Clinical evidence (e.g. Chang et al., 2012) had also addressed the link between low gratitude and anti-social behaviours. Taken together, we hypothesized that under-repaying observed should be attributed to low gratitude (as state or trait) instead of negative emotions.

Objectives and Method: We intend to examine the above hypothesis by having 135 students play a one-shot variant of trust game. Every participant was informed that he/she played with an anonymous—indeed fictitious—‘partner’. All participants lost on a dice-rolling game and hence were entitled to no bonus. They all received an offer from that lucky partner who ‘won’ the game and claimed the maximum bonus. By accepting that offer the recipients could earn some bonuses on the condition that they repaid part of that new earning—with varying interest obligations— to their givers. All offers were ‘unfair’ as an average fair person in this context should share his/her resources with others equally, i.e. help unconditionally (Elster, 2006). We asked whether the participants would accept their offers. Those who accepted subsequently learned of their ‘options’ to NOT repay. We further assessed, via participant ratings, how recipients felt toward their offers (e.g. Annoyance, Gratitude, Indebtedness), and also how dispositionally grateful the participants were.

Results & Interpretation of Findings: T-Tests revealed that recipients who rejected were more likely to experience lower gratitude toward their offers. No other emotions significantly differentiated participants who accepted or rejected their offers. Path analyses further revealed that— Dispositionally Gratitude among beneficiaries (recipients who accepted their offers, N=87) indirectly and inversely predicted under-repayment (i.e. defaulting) via mediators of perceived fairness and reciprocating tendency.

Conclusion: Our analyses suggested that the rejection of unfair offers was due to the low experienced gratitude but not negative emotions. We further demonstrated that dispositional gratitude could inversely and indirectly predict the defecting when recipients had the moral grounds to behave selfishly, and doing so had minimal repercussions."