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Management Science Vol. 64 No. 7 2018

Predictably Angry—Facial Cues Provide a Credible Signal of Destructive Behavior

Boris van Leeuwen1; Charles Noussair2; Theo Offerman3; Sigrid Suetens1; Matthijs van Veelen4; Jeroen van de Ven5

1 Department of Economics and CentER, Tilburg University, 5037 AB Tilburg, Netherlands; · 2 Department of Economics, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721 · 3 Center for Research in Experimental Economics and Political Decision Making (CREED) and Tinbergen Institute, University of Amsterdam, 1082 MS Amsterdam, Netherlands · 4 Center for Research in Experimental Economics and Political Decision Making (CREED) and Tinbergen Institute, University of Amsterdam, 1082 MS Amsterdam, Netherlands; and Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 · 5 Amsterdam School of Economics, University of Amsterdam, 1018 WB Amsterdam, Netherlands; and Tinbergen Institute, University of Amsterdam, 1082 MS Amsterdam, Netherlands

open access

Abstract

Evolutionary explanations of anger as a commitment device hinge on two key assumptions. The first is that it is predictable, ex ante, whether someone will get angry when feeling that he or she has been badly treated. The second is that anger is associated with destructive behavior. We test the validity of these two assumptions. We collected photos of responders in an ultimatum game before they were informed about the game that they would be playing, and we filmed responders with webcams during play. We then showed pairs of photos consisting of one responder who rejected and one responder who accepted (a low offer) to an independent group of observers. We find that observers are better than chance at detecting who rejected the low offer; they do 10% better than random guessing would. We also find that anger at receiving a low offer is associated with rejection. Data and the online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2017.2727 .

DOI
10.1287/mnsc.2017.2727
Volume
64
Issue
7
Pages
3352-3364
Language
en
Sources
bibtex:phds-export.bib openalex crossref

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