When person A makes an offer to person B and B rejects it, then A may "lose face". This loss of face is assumed to occur only if B knows for sure of A's offer. While under some circumstances loss of face can be rationalized by the consequences for future reputation, it may also enter directly...

Previous work has found that in social dilemmas, the selfish always free-ride, while others will cooperate if they expect their peers to do so as well. Outcomes may thus depend on conditional cooperators’ beliefs about the number of selfish types. An early round of the game may be played...

Costly signaling of commitment to a group has been proposed as an explanation for participation in religion and ritual. But if the signal’s cost is too small, freeriders will send the signal and behave selfishly later. Effective signaling may then be prohibitively costly. If the average level...

When person A takes an action that can be interpreted as “making an offer” to person B and B “rejects the offer,” then A may “lose face.” This loss of face (LoF) and consequent disutility will occur only if these actions are common knowledge to A and B. While under some circumstances...