Sharing norms and negotiations across cultures: Experimental interactions within and between Egypt and Germany

We report experimental findings on distribution decisions by Germans and Egyptians. We explore their sensitivity along three different dimensions: we study (i) the impact of the price of giving, (ii) how giving responds to the cultural and gender identity of the recipient, and (iii) how a threat of rejection in a bargaining situation affects the distribution choice. We show substantial differences in generosity between participants in Egypt vs. Germany, the former showing substantial equality-seeking behavior. Correspondingly, both genders in Egypt increase giving when it becomes more costly as do German females, in contrast to German males who give particularly when it is cheap. While Egyptian participants choose according to an equality norm independently of the recipient’s identity, we detect substantial discrimination by German females when giving to Egyptian males. This discrimination is in line with prejudice as males in Egypt give significantly more than what Germans expect from them. Conversely, males in Egypt overestimate the generosity of Germans towards them. We finally show that, relative to giving in the dictator game, the ultimatum game offers increase among German participants, but not among participants in Egypt. Females in Egypt even decrease giving in UG relative to DG when allocating to males in Egypt. This finding is in line with highly favorable offers being rejected by a substantial fraction of participants in Egypt.