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Social preferences trump emotions in human responses to unfair offers
People commonly reject unfair offers even if this leaves them worse off. Some explain this as a rational response based on social preferences. Others argue that emotions override self-interest in the determination of rejection behavior. We conducted an experiment in which we measured responders’ bio...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10264406/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37311882 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-36715-y |
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author | Buskens, Vincent Kovacic, Ingrid Rutterkamp, Elwin van de Rijt, Arnout Terburg, David |
author_facet | Buskens, Vincent Kovacic, Ingrid Rutterkamp, Elwin van de Rijt, Arnout Terburg, David |
author_sort | Buskens, Vincent |
collection | PubMed |
description | People commonly reject unfair offers even if this leaves them worse off. Some explain this as a rational response based on social preferences. Others argue that emotions override self-interest in the determination of rejection behavior. We conducted an experiment in which we measured responders’ biophysical reactions (EEG and EMG) to fair and unfair offers. We measured biophysical trait anger using resting-state EEG (frontal alpha-asymmetry), state anger using facial expressions, offer expectancy processing using event-related EEG (medial-frontal negativity; MFN) and self-reported emotions. We systematically varied whether rejections led proposers to lose their share (Ultimatum Game; UG) or not (Impunity Game; IG). Results favor preference-based accounts: Impunity minimizes rejection despite increasing subjectively reported anger. Unfair offers evoke frowning responses, but frowning does not predict rejection. Prosocial responders reject unfair UG offers more often after unmet fairness expectations. These results suggest that responders do not reject unfairness out of anger. Rather, people seem motivated to reject unfair offers when they violate their behavioral code but only when rejection has payoff consequences for the proposer, allowing them to reciprocate and restore equity. Thus, social preferences trump emotions when responding to unfair offers. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10264406 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-102644062023-06-15 Social preferences trump emotions in human responses to unfair offers Buskens, Vincent Kovacic, Ingrid Rutterkamp, Elwin van de Rijt, Arnout Terburg, David Sci Rep Article People commonly reject unfair offers even if this leaves them worse off. Some explain this as a rational response based on social preferences. Others argue that emotions override self-interest in the determination of rejection behavior. We conducted an experiment in which we measured responders’ biophysical reactions (EEG and EMG) to fair and unfair offers. We measured biophysical trait anger using resting-state EEG (frontal alpha-asymmetry), state anger using facial expressions, offer expectancy processing using event-related EEG (medial-frontal negativity; MFN) and self-reported emotions. We systematically varied whether rejections led proposers to lose their share (Ultimatum Game; UG) or not (Impunity Game; IG). Results favor preference-based accounts: Impunity minimizes rejection despite increasing subjectively reported anger. Unfair offers evoke frowning responses, but frowning does not predict rejection. Prosocial responders reject unfair UG offers more often after unmet fairness expectations. These results suggest that responders do not reject unfairness out of anger. Rather, people seem motivated to reject unfair offers when they violate their behavioral code but only when rejection has payoff consequences for the proposer, allowing them to reciprocate and restore equity. Thus, social preferences trump emotions when responding to unfair offers. Nature Publishing Group UK 2023-06-13 /pmc/articles/PMC10264406/ /pubmed/37311882 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-36715-y Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Article Buskens, Vincent Kovacic, Ingrid Rutterkamp, Elwin van de Rijt, Arnout Terburg, David Social preferences trump emotions in human responses to unfair offers |
title | Social preferences trump emotions in human responses to unfair offers |
title_full | Social preferences trump emotions in human responses to unfair offers |
title_fullStr | Social preferences trump emotions in human responses to unfair offers |
title_full_unstemmed | Social preferences trump emotions in human responses to unfair offers |
title_short | Social preferences trump emotions in human responses to unfair offers |
title_sort | social preferences trump emotions in human responses to unfair offers |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10264406/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37311882 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-36715-y |
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