Generalized Negative Reciprocity in the Dictator Game--How to Interrupt the Chain of Unfairness.

ABSTRACT: Humans are tremendously sensitive to unfairness. Unfairness provokes strong negative emotional reactions and influences our subsequent decision making. These decisions might not only have consequences for ourselves and the person who treated us unfairly but can even transmit to innocent third persons--a phenomenon that has been referred to as generalized negative reciprocity. In this study we aimed to investigate whether regulation of emotions can interrupt this chain of unfairness. Real allocations in a dictator game were used to create unfair situations. Three different regulation strategies, namely writing a message to the dictator who made an unfair offer, either forwarded or not forwarded, describing a neutral picture and a control condition in which subjects just had to wait for thre

SUBMITTER: Strang S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4770415 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature