Politeness and Compassion Differentially Predict Adherence to Fairness Norms and Interventions to Norm Violations in Economic Games

Kun Zhao,Eamonn Ferguson,Luke D Smillie

doi:10.1038/s41598-017-02952-1

Kun Zhao, Eamonn Ferguson + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-02952-1

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Abstract

Adherence to norms and interventions to norm violations are two important forms of social behaviour modelled in economic games. While both appear to serve a prosocial function, they may represent separate mechanisms corresponding with distinct emotional and psychological antecedents, and thus may be predicted by different personality traits. In this study, we compared adherence to fairness norms in the dictator game with responses to violations of the same norms in third-party punishment and recompensation games with respect to prosocial traits from the Big Five and HEXACO models of personality. The results revealed a pattern of differential relations between prosocial traits and game behaviours. While norm adherence in the dictator game was driven by traits reflecting good manners and non-aggression (the politeness aspect of Big Five agreeableness and HEXACO honesty-humility), third-party recompensation of victims—and to a lesser extent, punishment of offenders—was uniquely driven by traits reflecting emotional concern for others (the compassion aspect of Big Five agreeableness). These findings demonstrate the discriminant validity between similar prosocial constructs and highlight the different prosocial motivations underlying economic game behaviours.

Highlights

A potential source of these apparent behavioural phenotypes are broad personality traits capturing consistent and enduring patterns in thoughts, feelings, and behaviours
Interventions to redress norm violations are a second type of social behaviour that features prominently in economic games[28, 29], even when interactions are anonymous and there is little to gain from direct reciprocity or reputation[30]
In this study we examined how individual differences in adherence to fairness norms in the dictator game and third-party interventions to violations of the same norms were related to prosocial personality traits from the Big Five and HEXACO models

Summary

Introduction

A potential source of these apparent behavioural phenotypes are broad personality traits capturing consistent and enduring patterns in thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. Recent research has focused on the role of prosocial traits from the Big Five and HEXACO models in various forms of active cooperation in economic games These studies have consistently linked the politeness aspect of Big Five agreeableness and HEXACO honesty-humility to the fair division of resources in the dictator game[6, 22,23,24] (a simple task in which one player divides an endowment with a recipient), and the latter with greater cooperation in the prisoner’s dilemma[25], contributions in public goods games[26], and returns in the trust game[27]. Negative moral emotions play a key part in this process, with anger and judgments of unfairness associated with punishment[28, 30,31,32]

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