Ultimatum game like

This project is a multiplayer economic game built to pit power and reward directly against each other, and to observe — quite literally, in the movement of a mouse — how people wrestle with that choice.

The Game

Three players are placed in a small network of roles inspired by the classic Ultimatum Game, with one added twist: a third role holding pure veto power. The Proposer splits a sum of money between themselves and a Receiver; a third player, the Commander, then decides whether that split is approved or rejected — controlling both other players' payoffs while earning no money at all. After a set of rounds, each player chooses whether to keep their current role or try to change it, effectively choosing between financial reward (Proposer, Receiver) and unpaid social power (Commander).

Every one of these role choices is captured through mouse-tracking: rather than recording only what someone decided, we record how they got there — the hesitation, the pull toward the option they ultimately didn't choose.

Research Questions

• When power and money are placed in direct competition, which one do people actually choose?
• Does holding power over others — even without any financial benefit — hold appeal on its own?
• Can internal conflict about giving up power be detected in the decision process itself, even when the final choice looks clear-cut?

What We Found

People overwhelmingly prioritized financial reward: the powerful-but-unpaid role was consistently the least popular choice, both relative to a role combining power and money, and to one offering money alone. Yet the mouse-tracking data told a more nuanced story. Decisions to abandon the unpaid power role were markedly more conflicted than decisions involving the other two roles — cursors were pulled more strongly toward "keep," and changed direction more often, even though people ultimately walked away from power. In other words, people said no to power with their choice, but their hand hesitated on the way there.

This work is currently under review.