Between Joy and Sympathy: Smiling and Sad Recipient Faces Increase Prosocial Behavior in the Dictator Game

Abstract

In human interactions, the facial expression of a bargaining partner may contain relevant information that affects prosocial decisions. We were interested in whether facial expressions of the recipient in the dictator game influence dictators' behavior. To test this, we conducted an online study (n = 106) based on a modified version of a dictator game. The dictators allocated money between themselves and another person (recipient), who had no possibility to respond to the dictator. Importantly, before the allocation decision, the dictator was presented with the facial expression of the recipient (angry, disgusted, sad, smiling, or neutral). The results showed that dictators sent more money to recipients with sad or smiling facial expressions and less to recipients with angry or disgusted facial expressions compared with a neutral facial expression. Moreover, based on the sequential analysis of the decision and the interaction partner in the preceding trial, we found that decision-making depends upon previous interactions.

Keywords: dictator game; emotional influence; facial expression; social decision-making.

Figure 1

Boxplots of decisions of dictators toward the five different recipient identities. The dots within the boxes indicate the mean per recipient identity.

Figure 2

Interactions between fixed effects predictors. (A) Two-way interaction between the decision in the preceding trial (previous decision) and recipient identity; (B) Three-way interaction between empathic concern, previous decision, and recipient identity. For the illustration of the latter, we used a median split (median = EUR 5) for previous decision. Shaded areas represent the 95% confidence interval.