SRA-E Lisbon 2017

When making economic decisions, uncertainties and risks often have to be considered. Risk can arise from unknown factors that might happen with a certain probability (i.e., probabilistic risk) or from uncertainty about other people’s reactions (i.e., relational risk). In social situations, people draw on social norms to guide their behaviour and anticipate the behaviour of others (Fehr & Schmidt, 2006). Financial markets are a good example. For instance, if a sufficient number of people sell their stocks, then others imitate this behaviour and stock prices may collapse in a cascade effect. However, norms are not universally stable but are influenced by various situational and relational aspects. The relational models theory (Fiske, 1992) suggests that people use four fundamental relational models and related moral motives for relationship regulation: communal sharing, authority ranking, equality matching and market pricing. These models influence social interaction, evaluation and affect and are used to construct mental schemata of relationships. In social interactions, situational, cultural and relational factors make one of the models salient. The model then influences people’s evaluation of the situation, their judgement and norms, and guides their behaviour. The current research addresses two models, communal sharing and market pricing, and examines their influence on punishment behaviour in risky decision making. In communal sharing, people perceive themselves as members of a group in which resources are shared and members are friendly towards each other. The market pricing frame is based on cost-benefit-ratios and calculations of efficiency and expected utility. In this study, 160 participants, of which 80 fulfilled the role of dictator and 80 fulfilled the role of receiver, played a one-shot dictator game. The receivers were given a post-game punishment option. Framing occurred for either the communal sharing or the market pricing model to examine whether the salient relational model influences participants’ expectations regarding money distribution, and their punishment behaviour. Results indicate that relational models affect both money distribution and punishment behaviour. Participants in the market pricing condition invested more points to punish other players, which violates utility maximization. The study suggests that social norms and moral motives have to be considered when predicting individuals’ decision making in social situations that contain relational risks. In particular, the culture of organisations might frame certain relational models, which in turn influence employees’ interactions and decision making.