| Fairness has long been an ideal and a pursuit of human society.Despite that,there are many factors that may cause an unfair distribution in resource distribution.Among these factors,power has received special attention from researchers.As for reasons,on one hand,power hierarchy is a fundamental structure for our society and exists almost anywhere in daily life.On the other hand,unfair distributions existing in social hierarchy have received more and more attention from the public.As an example,the so-called “high salaries for senior executives” in some companies has provoked public outcry,which may threaten social stability.Given that,we want to know whether possessing power causes unfair distribution? If so,how does power influence distributive fairness? In the current research,we explored the influences of power on the distributor and the recipient in resource distribution and the mechanisms underlying the effects.Next,we divided our major findings into four sections and reported such findings successively.In first section of the current research(Study 1,Study 2,and Study 3),we examined the effect of power on the distributor in distribution.More concretely,we mainly focused on whether high-power distributors would violate the fairness principle more than low-power distributors in distribution.By adopting a dictator game(DG),the results of Study 1 showed that high-power distributors distributed63% of the distributed money to themselves and low-power distributors distributed54% of the distributed money to themselves.Accord to the criteria that “equal distribution can be defined as fairness if the contribution of each member is ambiguous”,high-power and low-power distributors both violated the fairness principle more or less,but the former than the latter violated the fairness to a larger extent.By using a X probe task,Study 2 showed that when a fair proposal and an advantaged-unfair proposal were both presented on computer,high-power participants pay more attention to the advantaged-unfair proposal while low-power participants pay more attention to the fair proposal.Using a third-party rating paradigm,Study 3again revealed that participants rated that high-power distributors tended to violate thefairness principle more seriously in distribution compared with low-power distributors(the proportion distributed to themselves was 64%,53%,respectively).The results from the above three studies consistently indicate that high-and low-power distributors both exhibit the self-benefiting bias to some extent in distribution;however,compared to low-power distributors,high-power distributors tend to violate the fairness principle more seriously and display a moderate-unfair distribution in distribution.Do high-power distributors display unfair distrbituions inevitably? Are there some situational or individual factors that may alleviate the unfair distribution among high-power distributors.In second section of the research,we explored the moderated roles of distributors' function(special vs.non-special)and “self-other” focus on distributors in distribution.More concrete,we mainly focused on whether high-power distributors would violate the fairness principle more than low-power distributors.In Study 4,we explored the moderating role of the function of distributors on the effect of power on distribution.The results showed that the function of distributors influenced high-power distributors' distributive behaviors,but not low-power distributors' distributive behaviors.Specifically,for high-power distributors,when their function was special in task,they exhibited a moderate-unfair distribution in DG,whereas this unfair tendency was alleviated when their function was non-special((the proportion distributed to themselves was 63%,55%,respectively).Different from high-power distributors,low-power distributors complied with the fairness principle to some extent in DG regardless of whether their function was special or not((the proportion was 56%,54%,respectively).In Study 5,we explored the moderated role of “self-other” focus on the effect of power on distribution.The results suggested that“self-other” focus affected high-power distributors' distributive behaviors rather than low-power distributors' distributive behaviors.Concretely,high-power distributors exhibited a moderate-unfair distribution in the self-focus condition while this unfair distribution tendency was alleviated in the other-focus condition(the proportion was68%,58%,respectively).Unlike high-power distributors,low-power distributors showed relatively fair distributions in both conditions(the proportion was 56%,54%,respectively).In Study 6,we explored possible interactive effects of the function of distributors and “self-other” focus on high-power distributors' distributive behaviors.Simple effects analyses showed under the self-focus condition,high-power distributors with special function displayed a moderate-unfair distribution in DG while those high-power distributors without special function displayed a relative fair distribution in DG(66%,56%,respectively).Conversely,under the other-focus condition,high-power distributors with special function and high-power distributors without special function both complied with the fairness principle to some extent in DG(57%,55%,respectively).Overall,the above findings from Study 4 to Study 6indicate that high-power distributors do not necessarily exhibit unfair distribution,and high-power distributors' unfair distribution can be alleviated when their function in an organization is non-special,when they can pay more attention to others,or when they focused more on themselves but their function is non-special.The power of distributors not only had an impact on the distributors,but also had an impact on the recipients.In third section of the research(Study 7,Study 8,and Study 9),we explored the influence of power on the responses of recipients to unfair distributions.Our major interest was to explore whether recipients were more likely to accept unfair proposals from high-power distributors than from low-power distributors.In Study 7,by employing an ultimate game(UG),we explored how power influenced the acceptance of recipients to moderate-unfair proposals.Results showed that recipients exhibited higher acceptance rates to unfair proposals when proposers were high-power individuals than when proposers were low-power individuals(acceptance rates were 79%,57%,respectively).In Study 8,we employed a multi-round UG to examine the influence of power on the acceptance rates of recipients to moderate-and extreme-unfair distributions on both behavioral and ERPs indices.Results showed that recipients showed higher acceptance rates to unfair proposals when proposers were high-power individuals than when proposers were low-power individuals.And,recipients exhibited a larger MFN amplitude to moderate-and extreme-unfair proposals than to fair proposals when proposers were low-power individuals;however,recipients only exhibited a larger MFN amplitude toextreme-unfair proposals than to fair proposals when proposers were high-power individuals,and the MFN amplitude did not show significant differences between moderate-unfair proposals and fair proposals.By administrating an imaginary scenario task,we examined the influence of power on recipients' fairness judgment about the given moderate-unfair distribution,acceptance to the unfair distribution,negative emotion,and destructive behaviors.Results revealed that recipients were more likely to a)judge the given moderate-unfair distribution as fair distribution,b)and showed higher acceptance rates,c)less negative emotion,d)and less destructive behaviors when the distributor of the unfair distribution was a high-power distributor(compared to a low-power distributor).The results from three studies(Study 7,Study 8,and Study 9)consistently suggest that recipients are more likely to accept unfair distributions from high-power distributors rather than from low-power distributors.In fourth section of the research,we further explored the mediated role of social approach motive of recipients between distributors' power and recipients' acceptance to unfair distribution,and the moderating role of the legitimacy of power on this mediation.In Study 10,we used a third-party rating paradigm to examine the mediated role of social approach motive of the recipient between distributor's power and recipient's acceptance to the given unfair distribution.The results showed that social approach motive of the recipient partially mediated the relationship between distributor's power and recipient's acceptance to the unfair distribution.In concrete terms,the power of the distributor positively predicted the social approach motive of the recipient significantly,and the social approach motive of the recipient in return,positively predicted recipient's acceptance to the unfair distribution significantly.In Study 11,we found that this mediation was moderated by the legitimacy of distributor's power.Specifically,when the power of the distributor was legitimate,the power of the distributor positively predicted the social approach motive of the recipient significantly,and the social approach motive further positively predicted recipient's acceptance to the unfair distribution significantly.However,upon the power of the distributor was illegitimate,the social approach motive did not predictedrecipient's acceptance to the unfair distribution significantly though distributor's power still positively predicted the social approach motive of the recipient significantly.Overall,in the current research,choosing undergraduates and jobholders as subjects,we used several behavioral experiments and questionnaire surveys,and an ERPs experiment to examine the effects of distributors' power on the distribution fairness and mechanisms underlying them.Three conclusions were drawn in the following:(1)The power of distributors simultaneously had an impact on the distributor and the recipient in distribution: High-power distributors tended to exhibit moderate-unfair distributive behaviors in distribution,and recipients were more likely to accept unfair distributions from high-power distributors than from low-power distributors.(2)High-power distributors did not necessarily exhibit unfair distributive behaviors in distribution: High-powers' unfair distribution can be alleviated when their function for a task was not special,when they can pay more attention to others in distribution,or when they focused more on themselves but their function for a task was not special.(3)Recipients did not necessarily accept unfair distributions from high-power distributors: When the power of distributors was legitimate,recipients were prone to accept unfair distributions from high-power distributors in order to keep relatively harmony relationships with them;however,when the power of distributors was illegitimate,although recipients still tended to keep harmony relationships with distributors,they may reject unfair distributions from high-power distributors.The current research firstly explores the effects of distributors' power on the distributor and the recipient in distribution in Chinese cultures.The research not only sheds light on the conditions and the path about how power affects the distribution fairness,but also provides new evidence from Chinese cultures for the generalizability and specificity about the effect of power on distribution fairness across cultures. |
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