Unfair? It depends: neural correlates of fairness in social context.

Fairness is a key concept in social interactions and is influenced by intentionality considerations. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging study, we investigated the neural correlates of fairness by focusing on responder behavior to unfair offers in an Ultimatum Game paradigm with conditions that differed in their intentionality constraints. Brain activity underlying rejection vs acceptance of unfair offers appeared highly dependent on intentionality. Rejection of unfair offers when the proposer had no-alternative as well as acceptance of offers when the proposer had a fair- or hyperfair-alternative was associated with activation in a network of regions including the insula and the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex. These activations were interpreted as neural responses to norm violations because they were mostly involved when behavior was inconsistent with socially accepted behavior patterns. Rejection of unfair offers in the no-alternative condition further resulted in activity in the anterior medial prefrontal cortex and the temporoparietal junction, which was interpreted in terms of higher moral mentalizing demands required in social decision-making when rejection could not be readily justified. Together, results highlight the significance of intentionality considerations in fairness-related social decision-making processes.

[1]  F. Overwalle.  Social cognition and the brain: a meta-analysis. , 2009 .

[2]  C. Frith,et al.  Meeting of minds: the medial frontal cortex and social cognition , 2006, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[3]  Wouter van den Bos,et al.  Fairness considerations: increasing understanding of intentionality during adolescence. , 2009, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[4]  M. Rushworth,et al.  The contribution of distinct subregions of the ventromedial frontal cortex to emotion, social behavior, and decision making , 2008, Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience.

[5]  Mascha van 't Wout,et al.  COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE AND NEUROPSYCHOLOGY NEUROREPORT Repetitive , 2005 .

[6]  R. Saxe,et al.  Making sense of another mind: The role of the right temporo-parietal junction , 2005, Neuropsychologia.

[7]  P. Buckley,et al.  The Rupture and Repair of Cooperation in Borderline Personality Disorder , 2009 .

[8]  Luke J. Chang,et al.  Multiple Systems in Decision Making , 2008, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

[9]  M. Sutter,et al.  Outcomes versus intentions: On the nature of fair behavior and its development with age , 2007 .

[10]  R. Saxe,et al.  The neural basis of the interaction between theory of mind and moral judgment , 2007, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[11]  W. Güth,et al.  An experimental analysis of ultimatum bargaining , 1982 .

[12]  Colin Camerer.  Behavioral Game Theory: Experiments in Strategic Interaction , 2003 .

[13]  E. Fehr.  A Theory of Fairness, Competition and Cooperation , 1998 .

[14]  Jonathan D. Cohen,et al.  The Neural Basis of Economic Decision-Making in the Ultimatum Game , 2003, Science.

[15]  H. Critchley,et al.  A common role of insula in feelings, empathy and uncertainty , 2009, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[16]  M A Just,et al.  From the SelectedWorks of Marcel Adam Just 1990 What one intelligence test measures : A theoretical account of the processing in the Raven Progressive Matrices Test , 2016 .

[17]  U. Fischbacher,et al.  On the Nature of Fair Behavior , 1999 .

[18]  Matthew D. Lieberman,et al.  The Sunny Side of Fairness , 2008, Psychological science.

[19]  B. King-Casas,et al.  The neurobiology of social decision-making , 2008, Current Opinion in Neurobiology.

[20]  K. Luan Phan,et al.  Functional Neuroimaging Studies of Human Emotions , 2004, CNS Spectrums.

[21]  Luke J. Chang,et al.  CURRENT DIRECTIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE Multiple Systems in Decision Making , 2022 .

[22]  Á. Pascual-Leone,et al.  Diminishing Reciprocal Fairness by Disrupting the Right Prefrontal Cortex , 2006, Science.

[23]  Alan G. Sanfey,et al.  Affective state and decision-making in the Ultimatum Game , 2006, Experimental Brain Research.

[24]  Daeyeol Lee.  Game theory and neural basis of social decision making , 2008, Nature Neuroscience.

[25]  Terry Lohrenz,et al.  To Detect and Correct: Norm Violations and Their Enforcement , 2007, Neuron.

[26]  J. O'Doherty,et al.  Empathic neural responses are modulated by the perceived fairness of others , 2006, Nature.

[27]  Colin Camerer,et al.  A framework for studying the neurobiology of value-based decision making , 2008, Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

[28]  U. Fischbacher,et al.  The nature of human altruism , 2003, Nature.

[29]  J. Decety,et al.  The Role of the Right Temporoparietal Junction in Social Interaction: How Low-Level Computational Processes Contribute to Meta-Cognition , 2007, The Neuroscientist : a review journal bringing neurobiology, neurology and psychiatry.

[30]  U. Fischbacher,et al.  The Neural Signature of Social Norm Compliance , 2007, Neuron.