On the Acceptance of Apologies

An apology is a strong and cheap device to restore social or economic relationships that have been disturbed. In a laboratory experiment we find that harmdoers use apologies in particular if they fear punishment and when their intentions cannot be easily inferred. After offenses with ambiguous intentionality apologizers are punished less often than nonapologizers. Victims expect an apology and punish if they do not receive one. If an apology is possible, harmdoers who apologize are punished with lower probability. An apology only affects the event of punishment but not the level of punishment. An apology does not help at all after clearly intentionally committed offenses. On the contrary, after such offenses harmdoers do better not to apologize since sending an apology in this situation strongly increases punishment compared to remaining silent.Apology, Intentions, Experiment

When apology is sincere, cooperation evolves, even when mistakes occur frequently

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Strategic Ignorance in Bargaining

In his classic article "An Essay on Bargaining" Schelling (1956) argues that ignorance might actually be strength rather than weakness. We test and confirm Schelling's conjecture in a simple take-it-or-leave bargaining experiment where the proposer can choose between two possible offers. Option A always gives the proposer a higher payoff than option B. The payoff of the responder depends on the (randomly determined) state of nature, i.e., in state s2 payoffs of the two players are aligned while they are not in state s1. The responder is always informed about the actual state. The proposer knows the actual state in our first treatment but not in the second. We find that proposers indeed benefit from ignorance because the responders accept almost all offers (even the unfavorable ones) if the payoffs of the responder have not been transparent for the proposer. In additional treatments we investigate situations where the proposer can deliberately remain ignorant. One could assume that remaining ignorant on purpose would be punished by the responder at least if an unfavorable outcome results. Surprisingly, we find that strategically remaining ignorant tends to be beneficial for the proposer particularly if the responder does not know with certainty whether it was the proposer's intention to remain ignorant or whether it was not her intention.strategic ignorance, bargaining, intentions, experiment

A bocsánatkérés és a jóvátétel hatása a megbocsátásra közeli és távoli kapcsolatokban

Jelen tanulmányban két vizsgálatot ismertetünk, amelyeknek az volt a célja, hogy feltárja a bocsánatkérés és a jóvátétel megbocsátásra gyakorolt hatását. Az első vizsgálatunkban egy nem túl nagy volumenű sérelmet követően egy nem túl szoros kapcsolatban szcenáriós és laboratóriumi vizsgálatban ellenőriztük, hogyan segítheti a jóvátétel a megbocsátást. A második vizsgálatunk felidézéses jellegű volt, arra kértük a vizsgálati személyeket, hogy írjanak le egy nehezen megbocsátható sérelmet. Eredményeink szerint a jóvátétel segíthet egy sérelmet megbocsátani. A jóvátétel hatékonyságát befolyásolja, hogy a jóvátételről szóló döntést ki hozza meg: a jóvátételről intézményes keretek között született döntés hatásosabb, mint ha a jóvátételről maga az elkövető dönt, legalábbis kis volumenű sérelmek esetében, nem túl szoros kapcsolatban. A jóvátétel közeli kapcsolatban is segítheti a megbocsátást, de egy sérelmet követően a kapcsolat teljes helyreállításában a bocsánatkérést nem pótolja, mindkét viselkedésnek megvan a maga szerepe. A jóvátétel elsősorban a megbocsátást segíti a sérelem negatív következményeinek enyhítése révén, a bocsánatkérés pedig a kapcsolatok helyreállását közvetlenül segíti elő

Synergy between intention recognition and commitments in cooperation dilemmas

Commitments have been shown to promote cooperation if, on the one hand, they can be sufficiently enforced, and on the other hand, the cost of arranging them is justified with respect to the benefits of cooperation. When either of these constraints is not met it leads to the prevalence of commitment free-riders, such as those who commit only when someone else pays to arrange the commitments. Here, we show how intention recognition may circumvent such weakness of costly commitments. We describe an evolutionary model, in the context of the one-shot Prisoner's Dilemma, showing that if players first predict the intentions of their co-player and propose a commitment only when they are not confident enough about their prediction, the chances of reaching mutual cooperation are largely enhanced. We find that an advantageous synergy between intention recognition and costly commitments depends strongly on the confidence and accuracy of intention recognition. In general, we observe an intermediate level of confidence threshold leading to the highest evolutionary advantage, showing that neither unconditional use of commitment nor intention recognition can perform optimally. Rather, our results show that arranging commitments is not always desirable, but that they may be also unavoidable depending on the strength of the dilemma.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

EFL STUDENT’S APOLOGY WHEN COMING LATE TO THE CLASSROOM

This research investigates the apology’s utterances performed by EFL students when they are coming late to the classroom. The politeness theory of Lakoff and the elements of Apology proposed by Smith are used as the basis for approaching this topic. This research is conducted to deeply describe (1) the kinds of elements of apology found in students’ utterance of apology and (2) how the elements of apology represent the politeness principles. It utilizes descriptive qualitative research since it is conducted to obtain a deep and detailed analysis of the object, which is in the form of utterances and words. The data is taken from the students of Faculty of Humanities majoring in English Language and Letters Department in Maulana Malik Ibrahim State Islamic University, Malang. The results demonstrate that there are at least 3 elements found and maximumly 6 elements involved. Students generally realize that what they are doing suffered other party but the utterances do not fully mean apologizing even some indicate good apology. Further, it enables to conclude that modesty maxim of politeness principle is the dominant maxim found in this study. The politeness principle is well represented by the elements of apology found in the students’ utterances

EFL STUDENT’S APOLOGY WHEN COMING LATE TO THE CLASSROOM

This research investigates the apology’s utterances performed by EFL students when they are coming late to the classroom. The politeness theory of Lakoff and the elements of Apology proposed by Smith are used as the basis for approaching this topic. This research is conducted to deeply describe (1) the kinds of elements of apology found in students’ utterance of apology and (2) how the elements of apology represent the politeness principles. It utilizes descriptive qualitative research since it is conducted to obtain a deep and detailed analysis of the object, which is in the form of utterances and words. The data is taken from the students of Faculty of Humanities majoring in English Language and Letters Department in Maulana Malik Ibrahim State Islamic University, Malang. The results demonstrate that there are at least 3 elements found and maximumly 6 elements involved. Students generally realize that what they are doing suffered other party but the utterances do not fully mean apologizing even some indicate good apology. Further, it enables to conclude that modesty maxim of politeness principle is the dominant maxim found in this study. The politeness principle is well represented by the elements of apology found in the students’ utterances

Discontent with taxes and the timing of taxation : experimental evidence

Published in Revue économique, novembre 2019This paper reports results from a linear sanction cost variant of the power-to-take game, with implications for tax policies. We compare a pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) system with an ex-post taxation system in which payroll taxes are collected at the end of the fiscal year. Dissatisfaction with taxation, as proxied by the sanction in the power-to-take game, is significantly higher in an ex-post taxation system compared with the PAYE system. However, in anticipation of the higher sanction, the "tax authority" will not apply lower taxes in the former system. Communication does not decrease dissatisfaction in a significant manner, and it is not used extensively by participants.L’article présente les résultats d’une expérience basée sur une variante du jeu « power-to-take » avec des implications concernant les modalités de prélèvement de l’impôt sur le revenu. L’étude compare le système d’impôt à la source avec un système a posteriori, dans lequel l’impôt est prélevé bien après le moment où le contribuable a perçu le revenu brut. Dans cette seconde situation, les contribuables peuvent développer un sentiment de propriété du revenu total, et ressentir un mécontentement plus important, à taux d’imposition identique. Nos résultats indiquent que l’insatisfaction associée à l’impôt, mesurée par la sanction imposée sur l’agent qui prélève, est signi…cativement plus importante dans le système a posteriori comparée au prélèvement à la source. La communication vers le contribuable permet de réduire le taux de sanction, mais les participants n’exploitent pas vraiment cette opportunité