Rules and origins
The dictator game is the ultimatum game with the responder's veto removed. In the ultimatum game proposers often offer fair shares, but it was hard to know whether they valued fairness or feared rejection. Kahneman, Knetsch and Thaler (1986) had participants choose between splitting money equally with an anonymous partner or keeping more, and many chose the equal split. Comparing the two games directly, Forsythe and colleagues (1994) showed that offers fall in the dictator game without a veto but that many people still share. This suggests that some fair offers stem from strategic calculation, but that a genuine motive to share also exists.
How much people give
In a meta-analysis of over 100 studies, Engel (2011) reported that dictators give about 28 percent of the pie on average. Roughly a third gave nothing, and a substantial number gave half. The amount varied greatly with circumstances. Hoffman and colleagues (1994) reported that giving fell sharply under double-blind anonymity, where even the experimenter could not see who gave what, showing the importance of how one appears to others. Running economic games in 15 small-scale societies, Henrich and colleagues (2005) reported that sharing differs greatly across cultures depending on market integration and cooperative practices.
Debates over interpretation
Whether dictator giving truly reflects altruism is debated. List (2007) reported that adding an option to take money from the recipient sharply reduced the number of givers, and Bardsley (2008), citing similar results, argued that giving is influenced by participants' interpretation of what the experiment expects. Dana, Weber and Kuang (2007) reported that when given moral wiggle room to remain ignorant of how their choices affected others, people behaved less fairly. These findings led to the interpretation that people care not only about being fair but about appearing fair. The dictator game, along with the trust game and the public goods game, is a basic tool for measuring social preferences.
FAQ
- What is the dictator game in simple terms?
- One person receives money and alone decides how to split it with another, who must accept. Since there is no penalty for giving nothing, how much people share reveals altruism and fairness.
- How much do people give on average in the dictator game?
- According to meta-analysis, about 28 percent of the money on average. Results vary greatly, however, with experimental conditions such as anonymity and the option to take.
Sources reviewed: 2026-10-26
References
- Kahneman, D., Knetsch, J. L., & Thaler, R. H. (1986). Fairness and the assumptions of economics. The Journal of Business, 59(4, Pt. 2), S285–S300. Contains the precursor of the dictator game — where the idea came from.
- Forsythe, R., Horowitz, J. L., Savin, N. E., & Sefton, M. (1994). Fairness in simple bargaining experiments. Games and Economic Behavior, 6(3), 347–369. Compares dictator and ultimatum games directly — fairness vs. fear of rejection.
- Hoffman, E., McCabe, K., Shachat, K., & Smith, V. (1994). Preferences, property rights, and anonymity in bargaining games. Games and Economic Behavior, 7(3), 346–380. Double-blind anonymity sharply reduces giving — being watched matters.
- Henrich, J., Boyd, R., Bowles, S., Camerer, C., Fehr, E., Gintis, H., et al. (2005). "Economic man" in cross-cultural perspective: Behavioral experiments in 15 small-scale societies. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28(6), 795–815. Economic games in 15 small-scale societies — how sharing varies by culture.
- Dana, J., Weber, R. A., & Kuang, J. X. (2007). Exploiting moral wiggle room: Experiments demonstrating an illusory preference for fairness. Economic Theory, 33(1), 67–80. Given moral wiggle room, people act less fairly — what really drives 'fair' giving.
- List, J. A. (2007). On the interpretation of giving in dictator games. Journal of Political Economy, 115(3), 482–493. Allowing 'taking' sharply reduces giving — design shapes results.
- Bardsley, N. (2008). Dictator game giving: Altruism or artefact? Experimental Economics, 11(2), 122–133. Is dictator giving altruism or a lab artefact? Read for critical interpretation.
- Engel, C. (2011). Dictator games: A meta study. Experimental Economics, 14(4), 583–610. A meta-study of over 100 papers — average giving and what moves it.