5 A classic example of this behaviour is represented by the Ultimatum
Game, in which a player (the proposer) is asked to suggest a one-time
division of a certain sum of money between himself or herself and
another player, and this one (the responder) must accept or reject it.
Although standard game theory predicts a unique equilibrium where
the proposer offers the smallest possible amount and the responder
accepts it, evidence across hundreds of experiments in highly
heterogeneous cultural circumstances and with different amounts
show that offers are substantially higher and, even so, rejections are
often observed (25, 26). When the responder can choose between
different proposers with all non-chosen proposers getting zero, a Nash
equilibrium where all proposers offer the full amount or close to it
is reached. This finding suggests that a sizeable fraction of human
beings in most societies care not only about their own individual
opportunities and outcomes but also about “fairness” (14).
6 The World Value Survey is a multicountry survey of individuals designed
and sponsored by the Inter-university Consortium for Political and
Social Research, based at the University of Michigan. The survey
aims to “enable a cross-national comparison of values and norms on
a wide variety of topics”. Four main waves have been fielded since
the early 1980s.