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Can monetary incentives overturn fairness-based decisions?
Fairness norms and resulting behaviours are an important prerequisite for cooperation in human societies. At the same time, financial incentives are commonly used to motivate social behaviours, yet it remains unclear how financial incentives affect fairness-based behaviours. Combining a decision par...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
The Royal Society
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10282581/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37351499 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.211983 |
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author | Weiß, Martin Saulin, Anne Iotzov, Vassil Hewig, Johannes Hein, Grit |
author_facet | Weiß, Martin Saulin, Anne Iotzov, Vassil Hewig, Johannes Hein, Grit |
author_sort | Weiß, Martin |
collection | PubMed |
description | Fairness norms and resulting behaviours are an important prerequisite for cooperation in human societies. At the same time, financial incentives are commonly used to motivate social behaviours, yet it remains unclear how financial incentives affect fairness-based behaviours. Combining a decision paradigm from behavioural economics with hierarchical drift-diffusion modelling, we investigated the effect of different financial incentives on two types of fairness-based decisions in four experimental groups. In two groups, participants divided points between themselves and a disadvantaged person, inciting fairness-based compensation behaviour, in two other groups they divided points between themselves and a fairness violator, inciting fairness-based punishment behaviour. In addition, each group received financial incentives that were either aligned or in conflict with the respective fairness-based behaviour. This design allowed us to directly investigate how different incentives shape the cognitive mechanism of fairness-based decisions and whether these effects are comparable across different fairness domains (fairness-based punishment versus fairness-based compensation). Results showed that offering conflicting incentives diminished fairness-congruent decision behaviour and rendered the fairness-congruent decision process less efficient. These findings demonstrate that financial incentives can undermine fairness-based behaviour, and thus are relevant for the development of incentive schemes aimed at fostering cooperative behaviour. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10282581 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | The Royal Society |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-102825812023-06-22 Can monetary incentives overturn fairness-based decisions? Weiß, Martin Saulin, Anne Iotzov, Vassil Hewig, Johannes Hein, Grit R Soc Open Sci Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience Fairness norms and resulting behaviours are an important prerequisite for cooperation in human societies. At the same time, financial incentives are commonly used to motivate social behaviours, yet it remains unclear how financial incentives affect fairness-based behaviours. Combining a decision paradigm from behavioural economics with hierarchical drift-diffusion modelling, we investigated the effect of different financial incentives on two types of fairness-based decisions in four experimental groups. In two groups, participants divided points between themselves and a disadvantaged person, inciting fairness-based compensation behaviour, in two other groups they divided points between themselves and a fairness violator, inciting fairness-based punishment behaviour. In addition, each group received financial incentives that were either aligned or in conflict with the respective fairness-based behaviour. This design allowed us to directly investigate how different incentives shape the cognitive mechanism of fairness-based decisions and whether these effects are comparable across different fairness domains (fairness-based punishment versus fairness-based compensation). Results showed that offering conflicting incentives diminished fairness-congruent decision behaviour and rendered the fairness-congruent decision process less efficient. These findings demonstrate that financial incentives can undermine fairness-based behaviour, and thus are relevant for the development of incentive schemes aimed at fostering cooperative behaviour. The Royal Society 2023-06-21 /pmc/articles/PMC10282581/ /pubmed/37351499 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.211983 Text en © 2023 The Authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience Weiß, Martin Saulin, Anne Iotzov, Vassil Hewig, Johannes Hein, Grit Can monetary incentives overturn fairness-based decisions? |
title | Can monetary incentives overturn fairness-based decisions? |
title_full | Can monetary incentives overturn fairness-based decisions? |
title_fullStr | Can monetary incentives overturn fairness-based decisions? |
title_full_unstemmed | Can monetary incentives overturn fairness-based decisions? |
title_short | Can monetary incentives overturn fairness-based decisions? |
title_sort | can monetary incentives overturn fairness-based decisions? |
topic | Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10282581/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37351499 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.211983 |
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