Abstract
Achieving justice could be considered a complex social decision-making scenario. Despite the relevance of social decisions for legal contexts, these processes have still not been explored for individuals who work as criminal judges dispensing justice. To bridge the gap, we used a complex social decision-making task (Ultimatum game) and tracked a heart rate variability measurement: the square root of the mean squared differences of successive NN intervals (RMSSD) at their baseline (as an implicit measurement that tracks emotion regulation behavior) for criminal judges (n = 24) and a control group (n = 27). Our results revealed that, compared to controls, judges were slower and rejected a bigger proportion of unfair offers. Moreover, the rate of rejections and the reaction times were predicted by higher RMSSD scores for the judges. This study provides evidence about the impact of legal background and expertise in complex social decision-making. Our results contribute to understanding how expertise can shape criminal judges’ social behaviors and pave the way for promising new research into the cognitive and physiological factors associated with social decision-making.
Highlights
decisions[9,20]
Previous studies have found that resting HRV in criminal judges could predict moral decision m aking[2], no studies have assessed to what extent the resting HRV could track behavior in social decision-making paradigms which require strategic behavior to maintain fairness and reciprocity[5]
A repeated ANOVA measurement showed a main effect of group [F(1, 46) = 2.11, p < 0.05, η2 = 0.03] as judges had a larger rate of rejection of unfair offerings than the control group (p < 0.05)
Summary
decisions[9,20]. Higher resting HRV scores before facing decision-making tasks demonstrates primary cognitive control mechanisms and indicates the offering and rejection rates in bargaining p aradigms[21]. In the criminal judges’ group, we expected that social decisions are mediated by more diverse factors than controls, including biological traits such as HRV, expertise, and cognitive control skills. In comparative rounds the participants would be more severe in rejecting unfair offers, as in this scenario the proposer’ behavior is more explicit This type of difference should be more pronounced in the criminal judges group. Considering the criminal judges’ experience in dealing with complex decisions, we expected significant associations between the resting HRV, an index related to cognitive and emotional control mechanisms, and decisions in U G26,29,30. We expected significant associations between resting HRV and rejections and acceptance offerings in the criminal judges’ group This effect would be supported by exposition to difficult decisions with legal and social consequences in this group. This behavior would be supported by significant rejections of unfair offers and slower reaction times than the control group
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