Fairness: An Emotional Response Or Rational Thought?

Fairness is a complex concept that involves both emotional and cognitive processes. While traditional theories emphasise the role of inequity aversion and reciprocity, recent research suggests that emotions play a critical role in fairness-related decision-making. This is supported by studies showing that people tend to reject unfair offers, even if it means sacrificing their own payoffs.

The Wounded Pride/Spite Model proposes that negative emotions, such as anger and wounded pride, aroused by unfair offers can lead to rejection. On the other hand, the Affect Infusion Model suggests that incidental emotions, aroused by task-unrelated sources, can influence fairness-related decisions by priming mood-congruent concepts. The Dual-Process System claims that the rational and emotional systems work together, with the rational system regulating the emotional system to prompt an adaptive response.

Neuroimaging studies have shown that different brain regions are activated when making decisions involving fairness, with the insular cortex being particularly associated with emotions and fairness judgments. Furthermore, individual differences in emotional dispositions and sensitivity can also impact fairness perceptions.

In conclusion, fairness-related decision-making is influenced by both emotions and cognition, with emotions playing a critical role in shaping our responses to unfairness.

The role of emotions in fairness-related decision-making

Emotions play a critical role in fairness-related decision-making. This is a shift from the traditional view of decision-making, which regarded emotion as impulsive and irrational, instead idealising "rational machines" as the ideal decision-makers. However, emotions are now considered one of the most important factors in the decision-making process.

The role of emotions

Emotions play a key role in fairness-related decision-making, with negative emotions such as anger, contempt, irritation, envy and sadness often leading to the rejection of unfair offers. Positive emotions, on the other hand, can increase the acceptance of unfair offers.

The Wounded Pride/Spite Model proposes that negative emotions provoked by unfair offers can lead to rejections. However, this model only focuses on the influence of emotional responses to the decision-making task, neglecting the impact of the decision-maker's emotional state and other contextual factors.

The Affect Infusion Model, on the other hand, suggests that incidental emotions aroused by dispositional or situational sources unrelated to the task can also influence fairness-related decisions. For instance, sadness may increase the processing of threatening information, making the decision-maker more concerned about the negative consequences of unfairness.

The Dual-Process System claims that there are two subsystems in fairness-related decision-making: an automatic emotional system and a controlled rational system. The latter can regulate the former, prompting an adaptive response to different situations.

The role of cognition

Cognition can also play a role in fairness-related decision-making by regulating emotions. For example, reappraisal, a common strategy to regulate emotional responses, can lead to the acceptance of more unfair offers.

The role of social emotions

Social emotions, such as empathy and gratitude, can also influence fairness-related decisions. For instance, empathy plays a crucial role when judging whether another person has been fair.

Future research

Future research on fairness-related decision-making should focus on inducing incidental social emotions, exploring individual differences in emotional dispositions, and strengthening the ecological validity of the paradigm.

The influence of integral emotions on fairness-related decision-making

Emotions play a critical role in fairness-related decision-making. This type of decision-making is an important issue in the field of decision-making, and traditional theories emphasise the roles of inequity aversion and reciprocity. However, recent research shows that emotions are one of the most important factors in the irrational decision-making process.

The role of integral emotions

Integral emotions are those experienced at the time of decision-making. The Wounded Pride/Spite Model suggests that integral emotions, such as negative emotions, can be provoked by unfair offers, prompting rejections. This model claims that if responders perceive that offers are unfair, feelings of wounded pride and anger may be aroused. When direct channels for expressing emotions are impossible or undesirable, individuals are willing to incur the costs of rejection to retaliate against perceived unfairness.

The role of incidental emotions

Incidental emotions are those aroused by a task-unrelated dispositional or situational source. The Affect Infusion Model investigated how incidental emotion influences fairness-related decision-making. This model proposes that incidental emotion aroused by task-unrelated sources can significantly influence fairness-related decision-making by priming mood-congruent concepts and dispositions. For instance, in fairness-related decision-making, people must integrate negative (unfair social signals) and positive (financial benefits) information. Positive incidental emotion makes responders more concerned about their own benefits, thus increasing acceptance rates. By contrast, negative incidental emotion makes responders more concerned about unfair offers, thus decreasing acceptance rates.

The role of the interaction of emotion and cognition

The Dual-Process System claims that the rational system and the emotional system are dual subsystems in fairness-related decision-making, with the former prompting an adaptive response to different situations by regulating the latter. This model suggests that all types of emotional regulation strategies can change fairness-related decision-making through the interaction of cognition and emotion.

In conclusion, the influence of integral emotions on fairness-related decision-making is clear. Both integral and incidental emotions play a role in this process, and the interaction of emotion and cognition is also important.

The influence of incidental emotions on fairness-related decision-making

Emotions play a critical role in fairness-related decision-making. This type of decision-making is an important issue in the field of decision-making, and traditional theories emphasise the roles of inequity aversion and reciprocity. However, recent research shows that emotions are one of the most important factors in the irrational decision-making process.

Theories of incidental emotions in fairness-related decision-making

The Wounded Pride/Spite Model suggests that integral emotions, such as negative emotions provoked by unfair offers, prompt rejections. However, this model only focuses on the influence of emotional response aroused by fairness-related decision-making and does not consider the influence of emotion aroused by dispositional or situational sources objectively unrelated to the task.

The Affect Infusion Model investigated how incidental emotion (emotion aroused by emotional videos or images) influences fairness-related decision-making. This model proposes that incidental emotion aroused by task-unrelated sources can significantly influence fairness-related decision-making by priming mood-congruent concepts and dispositions. For instance, in fairness-related decision-making, people must integrate negative (unfair social signals) and positive (financial benefits) information. Positive incidental emotion makes responders more concerned about their own benefits, thus increasing acceptance rates. By contrast, negative incidental emotion makes responders more concerned about unfair offers, thus decreasing acceptance rates.

The Dual-Process System claims that the rational system and the emotional system are dual subsystems in fairness-related decision-making, with the former prompting an adaptive response to different situations by regulating the latter. This model suggests that all types of emotional regulation strategies can change fairness-related decision-making through the interaction of cognition and emotion.

Evidence of incidental emotions in fairness-related decision-making

Behavioural studies have shown that participants in a negative emotional state will reject a greater number of unfair offers, whereas a positive emotional state may reduce or have no influence on acceptance rates.

Neuroimaging studies indicate that incidental sad emotions are regulated by the three main brain regions for emotions: the insula, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and striatum. Compared with participant responses under neutral conditions, the acceptance rates of unfair offers were associated with higher bilateral insula activations in participants who were sad. Insula is typically associated with negative emotions, suggesting that this region may indicate an aversive response, which may reduce acceptance rates.

In conclusion, the influence of incidental emotions on fairness-related decision-making is a complex process that involves the interaction of emotion and cognition. The Wounded Pride/Spite Model, the Affect Infusion Model and the Dual-Process System all provide valuable insights into the role of incidental emotions in fairness-related decision-making. However, further research is needed to explore the impact of social emotions and the interaction of personality traits, emotion and unfair offers on fairness-related decision-making.

The role of the wounded pride/spite model in fairness-related decision-making

The Wounded Pride/Spite Model proposes that the integral emotion aroused by a task itself may change fairness-related decision-making. The model claims that if responders perceive that offers are unfair, feelings of wounded pride and anger may be aroused. When direct channels for expressing emotions are either impossible or undesirable, individuals are willing to incur the costs of rejection to retaliate against perceived unfairness. Even when the responder has no way to punish the proposer, the responder still wants to reject the unfair offer, suggesting that rejection may be not only a strategy to enlarge future potential payoffs but also an effective means of emotional release.

The Wounded Pride/Spite Model is supported by a large number of recent studies that have found the integral negative emotions aroused by unfair offers can increase the punishment for violating fairness norms. For example, researchers found that when responders received an unfair offer, their negative affective responses, such as anger, contempt, irritation, envy and sadness, increased, whereas positive affective responses, such as pleasure and happiness, decreased.

However, the Wounded Pride/Spite Model only focuses on the influence of emotional response aroused by fairness-related decision-making and does not consider the influence of emotion aroused by dispositional or situational sources objectively unrelated to the task. It also ignores the impact of the responders' emotional state and other contextual factors.

To address these gaps, the Affect Infusion Model investigated how incidental emotion (emotion aroused by emotional videos or images) influences fairness-related decision-making. This model proposes that incidental emotion aroused by task-unrelated sources can significantly influence fairness-related decision-making by priming mood-congruent concepts and dispositions. For instance, in fairness-related decision-making, people must integrate negative (unfair social signals) and positive (financial benefits) information. Positive incidental emotion makes responders more concerned about their own benefits, thus increasing acceptance rates. By contrast, negative incidental emotion makes responders more concerned about unfair offers, thus decreasing acceptance rates.

The Wounded Pride/Spite Model and the Affect Infusion Model describe the influence of integral emotion aroused by a task and incidental emotion aroused by task-unrelated resources, respectively.

The role of the dual-process model in fairness-related decision-making

The Dual-Process Model in Fairness-Related Decision-Making

The dual-process model is one of three dominant theories that describe how emotion influences fairness-related decision-making. The model claims that there are dual subsystems in fairness-related decision-making: one is automatic, with an immediate response and an emotional system with no cognitive effort, whereas the other is controlled and comparatively slow, with a rational system of cognitive effort. The emotional system represents the intuitive response; however, after learning and calculation, the rational system requires an adaptive response to different situations by regulating the emotional system.

The dual-process model has been supported by many behavioural and neuroimaging studies. This model also proposes strategies for regulating emotion that provide a new way of changing fairness-related decision-making. However, current evidence is limited to the regulation of negative emotion induced by an offer. Little is known about the regulation of incidental emotion in fairness-related decision-making.

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