Abstract
Previous behavioral studies have shown that initial ownership influences individuals’ fairness consideration and other-regarding behavior. However, it is not entirely clear whether initial ownership influences the brain activity when a recipient evaluates the fairness of asset distribution. In this study, we randomly assigned the bargaining property (monetary reward) to either the allocator or the recipient in the ultimatum game and let participants of the study, acting as recipients, receive either disadvantageous unequal, equal, or advantageous unequal offers from allocators while the event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. Behavioral results showed that participants were more likely to reject disadvantageous unequal and equal offers when they initially owned the property as compared to when they did not. The two types of unequal offers evoked more negative going ERPs (the MFN) than the equal offers in an early time window and the differences were not modulated by the initial ownership. In a late time window, however, the P300 responses to division schemes were affected not only by the type of unequal offers but also by whom the property was initially assigned to. These findings suggest that while the MFN may function as a general mechanism that evaluates whether the offer is consistent or inconsistent with the equity rule, the P300 is sensitive to top-down controlled processes, into which factors related to the allocation of attentional resources, including initial ownership and personal interests, come to play.
Highlights
Individuals tend to value their own possessions more favorably than those they do not own, a bias that has been termed as mere ownership effect [1,2]
Simple-effect tests showed that the acceptance rate to disadvantageous unequal offers was significantly higher in the ‘‘other’’ condition (0.3660.07) than in the ‘‘self’’ condition (0.1160.04), t(20) = 3.81, p,0.01
This study demonstrated that initial ownership influenced recipients’ brain responses to unfair asset allocation schemes and their behavioral decisions to accept offers
Summary
Individuals tend to value their own possessions more favorably than those they do not own, a bias that has been termed as mere ownership effect [1,2]. Leliveld et al [4] investigated how the perception of ownership affects the allocator’s other-regarding behavior in an ultimatum game (UG). This game, originally developed by Guth et al [9], is similar to the DG but has one major difference: the recipient can either accept or reject the allocator’s offer. Results showed that allocations to the recipient were higher in the latter case than in the former case; this modulation of other-regarding behavior by the perceptions of ownership reflected a true concern for other’s welfare rather than fear of rejection
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