Do we perceive failing to hear one's voice out as disrespectful?

Abstract

In an experimental study of a modified dictator game, a recipient can send out a message to a proposer before the proposer makes the payoff division. The proposer can choose to ignore the message. Then in the next stage, before revealing proposers’ decisions, recipients can punish or reward proposers at their own costs conditional on which payoff division was made and whether messages were read. We show that 1) recipients tend to punish more harshly when they read recipients’ messages but still selected a more selfish payoff division; however, 2) recipients tend to reward more generously when they did not read recipients’ messages and nonetheless selected a more prosocial payoff division. Our findings suggest that people do not simply interpret failing to hear one’s voice out as disrespectful. It seems that respect is more about whether the ask is followed than whether the voice was heard