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We consider a behavioral model of voting in multi-candidate elections under plurality rule. In the case of a positive impression of the campaign leader, voters increase their propensity to vote for that candidate, while in the case of a negative impression voters decrease their propensity. The formation of positive or negative impressions depends on an endogenous aspiration level. We show that in multi-candidate elections, in any stationary distribution, the winner receives a share of 50% of votes. Our results suggest that achieving coordination is ‘path-dependent’: whether voters manage to coordinate on the majority-preferred candidate critically depends on the initial state. We then identify conditions that make the election of the majority-preferred candidate more likely. However, even if the majority candidate is elected for sure, voting behavior is only partially coordinated.

Both normative theories of ethics in philosophy and contemporary models of moral judgment in psychology have focused almost exclusively on the permissibility of acts, in particular whether acts should be judged on the basis of their material outcomes (consequentialist ethics) or on the basis of rules, duties, and obligations (deontological ethics). However, a longstanding third perspective on morality, virtue ethics, may offer a richer descriptive account of a wide range of lay moral judgments. Building on this ethical tradition, we offer a person-centered account of moral judgment, which focuses on individuals as the unit of analysis for moral evaluations rather than on acts. Because social perceivers are fundamentally motivated to acquire information about the moral character of others, features of an act that seem most informative of character often hold more weight than either the consequences of the act or whether a moral rule has been broken. This approach, we argue, can account for numerous empirical findings that are either not predicted by current theories of moral psychology or are simply categorized as biases or irrational quirks in the way individuals make moral judgments.

The purpose of this study is to examine how language affects coalition formation in multiparty negotiations. The authors relied on communication accommodation theory for theoretical framing and hypothesized that language can help coalition partners reach an agreement when it is used to increase a sense of unity. Findings of an experimental study support this hypothesis, demonstrating that greater linguistic convergence and assent increase agreements between potential coalition partners whereas the expression of negative emotion words decrease agreement. The implications for coalition formation and the study of language in negotiations are discussed.

This research explores the impact of dyadic side conversations on group norms within three- and four-person groups. The authors propose a link between dyadic communication and group norms such that the absence of dyadic communication enhances a norm of group unity, whereas its presence enhances a norm of faction-forming. In two studies, we demonstrate that the presence of dyadic communication opportunities can both help and hurt group performance and that this depends on a fit between the content of the norm and the wider social context. In negotiation tasks that benefit from group unity, the absence of dyadic communication results in a stronger focus on the group and its future as well as increased group performance. However, in problem-solving tasks that benefit from faction-forming, the mere presence of dyadic communication opportunities leads to increased openness to unique information, disagreement, and group performance.

We present an experimental approach to study the micro-dynamics of coalition formation in an unrestricted bargaining environment. Specifically, we investigate a fundamental feature of sequential coalition bargaining models: expectations about future bargaining behavior will influence current bargaining outcomes. To do so, we test the hypothesis that coalition bargaining may lead to inefficient outcomes as agents are unable to effectively commit to preliminary agreements during the bargaining process. We conjecture that communication plays an important role in establishing such commitments. We then experimentally manipulate the communication channels and show that restrictions undermine trust and lead to decreased efficiency.

We provide a definition of institutionalism and a schematic account that differentiates between institutional theories (in which institutions are exogenous) and theories of institutions, in which some (but not necessarily all) institutions are endogenous. Our primary argument is that institutionalism in the contemporary context is better characterized as a method than as a body of substantive work motivated by the so-called chaos problem. Secondary arguments include the following. (1) While it is important to differentiate sharply between institutions and behavior, institutionalism presupposes a well-defined behavioral concept. (2) When making the challenging transition from developing institutional theories to developing theories of institutions, it is essential to hold behavioral axioms fixed and to choose a form of equilibrium that exists for the class of games studied. (3) For most research programs today, a form of Nash equilibrium has the requisite properties while the core, and structure-induced equilibria (SIE) that rely on the core, often lack the requisite properties.