Advantageous and disadvantageous inequality aversion can be taught through learning of others’ preferences
- State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, China
- Department of Neurobiology, German Primate Center, Germany
- Cognitive, Linguistics and Psychological Sciences, Brown University, United States
- Carney Institute for Brain Sciences, Brown University, United States
- Department of Psychology, Université de Montréal, Canada
- Centre Interdisciplinaire de Recherche sur le Cerveau et l’Apprentissage (CIRCA), Canada
- Department of Psychology, McGill University, Canada
Figures
Figure 1
Experiment procedure and task design.
(a) Task Overview. Our main task consists of three phases. In the Baseline Phase, participants acted as a Receiver, responding to offers of different inequity levels and rated their perceived fairness of the offers on three out of every five trials. In the subsequent Learning Phase, participants acted as an Agent, deciding on behalf of the Receiver (Teacher) and Proposer. Again, they rated the fairness on three out of every five trials. Finally, participants made choices in a Transfer Phase which was identical to the Baseline Phase. (b) Preferences and Fairness Ratings governing the Teacher’s feedback in the Learning Phase (See Supplementary file 1A and Supplementary file 1B). (c) Baseline and Transfer phase, in which participants played the Ultimatum game as a Receiver, making choices on their own behalf. (d) In the Learning phase, participants acted as a third party (the agent), making decisions on behalf of the Proposer and the Receiver (Teacher), playing a Third-Party Ultimatum game. In a Third-Party Ultimatum game, the participant makes decisions on behalf of the Receiver: if they rejects the proposed split, both the Proposer and the Receiver receive nothing. If they accept, the Proposer and the Receiver are rewarded with the proposed split.
Figure 2
Behavioral contagion in Experiment 1.
(a) Rejection rates change significantly in Dis-I offers for both learning conditions, while changes in Adv-I offers were only evident in Adv-Dis-I-Averse condition. (b) Participants in the Adv-Dis-I-Averse condition exhibited significant changes in fairness ratings, and these fairness rating changes differered significantly between conditions. Dashed lines indicate punishment preferences (Panel a) and fairness ratings (Panel b) exhibited by the Teacher . Error bars indicate standard error (†indicates p<0.1, *indicates p<0.05, **indicates p<0.01, ***indicates p<0.001,×indicates interaction). Resutls from linear mixed models (LMM, n = 100 for both conditions).
Figure 3 with 1 supplement
Learning phase behavior in Experiment 1.
(a) Rejection rate changes in the Learning Phase. For Dis-I Offers, rejection rates increased for both learning conditions, while rejection rates only increased for Adv-I offers in the Adv-Dis-I-Averse condition. Furthermore, in Adv-I offers, the increasing trend was larger in the Adv-Dis-I-Averse condition than in the Dis-I-averse condition, indicating a learning effect. Solid thin lines denote participants’ rejection choices, dashed lines denote the Teacher’s preferences, and solid thick lines represent predictions of the (best-fitting) Preference Inference Model. (b) Model comparison demonstrating that the Preference Inference model provided the best fit to participants’ Learning Phase behavior (AIC: Akaike Information Criterion) (c and d). Parameter learning for the Preference Inference model, which captured a significant rejection rate increase in Adv-I offers by updating the guilt parameter in a trial-by-trial manner.
Figure 3—figure supplement 1
Model recovery results for the Preference Inference model.
All parameters are recoverable, Although the correlation between the true value and the recovered value of the inverse temperature is relatively low.
Figure 4
Baseline and transfer phase behavior in Experiment 2.
(a) Contagion in extremely unfair offers. Although no feedback was provided in the Learning phase for 90:10 or 10:90 splits, we observed generalization of punishment preferences to these offers. Dashed lines represent the Teacher’s preferences. (b) Fairness rating changes. We found significant changes from Baseline to Transfer phase in fairness rating for 90:10 in both Adv-Dis-I-Averse and Dis-I-Averse Condition, but only in Adv-Dis-I-Averse Condition for 10:90 offers. Dashed lines represent the Teacher’s observed preferences (Panel a) and fairness ratings (Panel b). Error bars represent standard errors (†indicates p<0.1, *indicates p<0.05, **indicates p<0.01, ***indicates p<0.001). Resutls from linear mixed models (LMM, n = 97 for both conditions).
Figure 5 with 1 supplement
Learning phase choice behavior in Experiment 2.
Learning effects were documented in extremely unfair offers. Rejection choices were summarized across subjects. Dashed lines indicate the Rejection choice of the Teacher. The learning effect was evident for 90:10 offers in Dis-I-Averse condition and 10:90 offers in Adv-Dis-I Averse condition. Thin solid lines represent participants’ rejection choice, thick solid lines show the predictions of the Preference Inference Model, and the dashed lines indicate the Teacher’s preferences (not observed by participants in 90:10 and 10:90 splits).
Figure 5—figure supplement 1
Model comparison results in Experiment 2.
(a) AICs of the models considered in experiment 2. (b, c). Updating of the ‘guilt’ and ‘envy’ parameters indicates the sanity of the Preference Inference model.
Author response image 1
Author response image 2
Author response image 3
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Advantageous and disadvantageous inequality aversion can be taught through learning of others’ preferences
eLife 14:RP102800.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.102800.3
