Dual Processes Of Fair Decision-making : The Moderating Effect Of Self-construal

People have a preference for fairness,and when there is a conflict between fairness and self-interest,individuals will sacrifice their own interests to maintain fairness norms,rather than pursuing the maximization of interests as the hypothesis of economic man holds.Previous studies have tried to study the cognitive process of fairness from the perspective of dual-process theory,but there is no final conclusion as to whether fairness is a reaction under intuition or a choice after reflection.The fairness preference automatic hypothesis holds that fairness is the response of individual intuition,while the fairness preference control hypothesis holds that fairness is the result of individual deliberation rather than intuition.The social heuristic hypothesis explains the contradiction between the two from the perspective of individual differences.This hypothesis holds that individuals who pay attention to social communication and the relationship between themselves and others are more likely to develop intuitive fairness.self-construal is an important concept that distinguishes individuals from paying more attention to the self(independent type)or the relationship between the self and others(interdependent type).Based on this,this study explores how self-construal adjusts intuition and reflects on the role of the system in fairness,and solves the debate on whether fairness is intuitive from the perspective of individual cultural values.In this study,the circle pronoun method was used to initiate different types of selfconstrual.The binomial forced dictator game is used to measure the fairness preference of the individual.In this task,the proposer needs to choose between the fair and unfair scheme and distribute it to himself and the receiver,while the receiver can only accept the proposer’s distribution scheme.however,they need to evaluate the satisfaction of the proposer’s distribution.The subjects are used as proposer to make allocation decisions when they are facing advantages(more themselves and fewer others)and disadvantages(less themselves and more others),as well as satisfaction scores as recipients as indicators of fairness preference.For the process of intuition and reflection,experiment 1 uses the way of questionnaire to measure the subjects’ idiosyncratic way of thinking and distinguish the individuals who are accustomed to intuitive thinking and those who reflect.In experiment 2,n-back tasks were used to set different levels of cognitive load to manipulate individual intuitive thinking(2-back)or reflective thinking(0-back).The two experiments found that,as proposer of active distribution,individuals in the intuitive thinking group chose more fair distribution under interdependence than under independent initiation,and this trend was more consistent in the face of advantageous unfairness and disadvantageous unfairness.However,as an unfair passive receiver,the individual’s satisfaction with the proposer’s distribution plan is not affected by intuitive / reflective thinking and self-construal,and his satisfaction with the distribution plan of others is only related to the fairness of his own distribution.that is,the fairer one’s own distribution is,the more satisfied he is with the fair distribution of others,and the less satisfied with the unfair distribution of others.This result suggests that whether the maintenance of fairness is the intuitive response of the individual is related to the individual’s self-construal,compared with the independent self-construal which emphasizes self-uniqueness,individuals who pay attention to the interdependent self-construal of the relationship between themselves and others are more likely to show intuitive fairness.This study introduces the role of self-construal for the first time and explains whether fairness preference is intuitive from a new perspective of cultural values.