Xu L, Wang B, Guo W. The Effect of Task Difficulty and Self-Contribution on Fairness Consideration: An Event-Related Potential Study.
Front Psychol 2022;
13:709310. [PMID:
35310266 PMCID:
PMC8928160 DOI:
10.3389/fpsyg.2022.709310]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/13/2021] [Accepted: 01/27/2022] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Self-contribution may be an influential factor in fairness consideration and consequent behavioral decisions. Few studies have investigated simultaneous effects of task difficulty and self-contribution on fairness consideration outcomes and associated neurophysiological responses. To elucidate modulation effects of task difficulty and self-contribution on fairness consideration, 30 recruited participants played a modified ultimatum game (UG) while undergoing event-related potential measurements. A 2 (task difficulty: hard vs. easy) × 3 (contribution: other-contribution vs. both-contribution vs. self-contribution) × 2 (fairness type: fair vs. unfair) within-subject design was adopted. A significant interaction between fairness type and contribution was observed in the behavioral data, with unfair offers being more acceptable in the other-contribution condition than in the self-contribution or both-contribution conditions. In the early processing time window, feedback-related negative magnitudes were greater in the hard condition than in the easy condition. P300 responses were more pronounced when participants contributed equally to the proposer than in the self- and other-contribution conditions. These results demonstrated that individuals’ decisions are influenced by their own effort contributions relative to those of others in cooperative contexts.
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