{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,17]],"date-time":"2026-03-17T15:52:22Z","timestamp":1773762742885,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":78,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2017,1,3]],"date-time":"2017-01-03T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1483401600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Games"],"abstract":"<jats:p>We propose an epistemic theory of micro-economic interactions, termed Economic Harmony. In the theory, we modify the standard utility, by changing its argument from the player\u2019s actual payoff, to the ratio between the player\u2019s actual payoff and his or her aspired payoff. We show that the aforementioned minor epistemic modification of the concept of utility is quite powerful in generating plausible and successful predictions of experimental results, obtained in the standard ultimatum game, and the sequential common pool resource dilemma (CPR) game. Notably, the cooperation and fairness observed in the studied games are accounted for without adding an other-regarding component in the players\u2019 utility functions. For the standard ultimatum game, the theory predicts a division of \u03c6 and 1 \u2212 \u03c6, for the proposer and responder, respectively, where \u03c6 is the famous Golden Ratio (\u22480.618), most known for its aesthetically pleasing properties. We discuss possible extensions of the proposed theory to repeated and evolutionary ultimatum games.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/g8010002","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2017,1,3]],"date-time":"2017-01-03T10:26:49Z","timestamp":1483439209000},"page":"2","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":15,"title":["Economic Harmony: An Epistemic Theory of Economic Interactions"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"8","author":[{"given":"Ramzi","family":"Suleiman","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology, University of Haifa, Abba Khoushy Avenue 199, Haifa 3498838, Israel"},{"name":"Department of Philosophy, Al Quds University, East Jerusalem and Abu Dies, P.O.B. 51000, Palestine"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2017,1,3]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"433","DOI":"10.1017\/S0140525X01564146","article-title":"Experimental practices in economics: A methodological challenge for psychologists","volume":"24","author":"Hertwig","year":"2001","journal-title":"Behav. 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