Effects Of Spicy Food On Fairness Perception

Among the different tastes,the preference of spiciness seems to be quite common around the world.One in every four people on the planet eat chilies on every daily basis,and China is the greatest chili producer and consumer at the same time.While widely liked by many people around the world,spicy taste has not received as much research interest as basic tastes(sweet,sour,salty,bitter,and umami).Can the preference and consumption of spicy food affect our social decision making,especially about fairness? There are a number of factors affect the liking of capsaicin-containing foods such as social influences,personality,repeated exposure to chilies and so on.A recent research show that the preference and consumption of spicy food relate to aggression.What's more,chili has also showed a beneficial role in disease immunity.So this paper carried out two experiments,using the process of ultimatum game,to investigate both effects of spicy food preference and spicy food consumption on fairness perception and explore whether the aggressive trait/intent and the activation of behavioral immune system mediate such effects.Study 1 examined the effect of spicy food preference on fairness perception.The results showed that in the unfair situation,the higher preference for spicy food,the higher rejection rate is,and the effect was mediated by aggressive trait.In the fair situation,people with higher preference for spicy food,the more fair offers they accepted,and the effect was mediated by behavioral immune system.Study 2 examined the impact of the instant spicy food consumption on the fairness perception.The results showed that there was a greater activation of aggression-related thoughts among those who consumed the spicy(vs.control)food.Also,spicy group had higher rejection rate of unfair offers.Spicy food consumption effect was mediated by aggressive intent.There was no significant difference in the unfair offer rejection rate between the spicy group and control groups,and the mediating role of behavioral immune activation and aggressive intent in this process was not significant.In this paper,we manipulated two studies to demonstrate that spicy taste have impact on people's fairness perception.Preliminary reveals the shaping effect of spicy taste on human psychology and behavior,enriching the psychological research about tastes.It also has great implications for our food industry and our policy makers.