Unilateral face-to-face communication in ultimatumbargaining – A video experiment

It is commonly accepted that face-to-face communication inducescooperation. The experiment disentangles communication and socialeffect (replication of Roth, 1995) and examines the components of thesocial effect with the help of unilateral communication. Results suggestthat separate processes, both of a strategic and of an affective-socialnature may induce cooperative outcomes in ultimatum bargaining withpre-play communication, depending on the communication protocol.Unilateral communication is found to have weaker effects than bilateralcommunication, and affects especially the recipient of thecommunication.