The Impact Of Intentional Fairness On Fair Decision-making: The Moderating Role Of Ego Depletio

Fairness is a universal goal of individuals in human societies,and fair decision-making behavior has been the focus of research in the field of social decision making.The ultimatum game paradigm is a classic experimental paradigm for studying individual fair decision-making behaviors.In recent years,researchers have mostly explored how the level of ego depletion affects fair decision-making behavior in the ultimatum game based on the two cognitive system theory of decision making and cognitive processing.However,they still concentrate on whether the rejection behavior of unfair allocation options is the result of automation or cognitive control.What’s more,the role of ego depletion and outcome fairness of individual fair decision making has enhanced the study of social decision making,but few studies have examined the role of ego depletion in the effect of proposer’s intention fairness on individual fair decision making.Therefore,this study explores the different effects of ego depletion on fairness of intention and fairness of outcome in the ultimatum game by manipulating the proposer’s identity and adopting the intention UG paradigm,and then reveals the possible moderating role of ego-depletion in the proposer’s intention on fair decision making.This study consists of two experiments,each with two phases of the ego depletion manipulation and the ultimatum game task.The e-cross task was used in both experiments to manipulate participant’s ego-depletion states.Experiment 1 uses a control-based intention UG paradigm in which subjects with different ego-depletion states act as responders and completes two ultimatum game tasks with the proposer as human and the proposer as computer in different orders: participants are asked to report their anger levels after seeing the allocation option chosen by the proposer,and then to make the decision to accept or reject,and then examine the effect of ego-depletion and proposer identity on The effects of ego-depletion and proposer identity on anger emotions and decision-making behavior in the ultimatum game were then examined.Experiment 2 takes the intention UG paradigm,in which participants in different states of ego depletion act as responders and complete the intention UG task: participants are asked to report their own levels of anger after seeing the proposer make a choice between two allocation options,and to make a decision to accept or reject,thus examining how ego depletion and the proposer’s good or bad intention affect anger and decision-making behaviors in the ultimatum game.In addition,the dependent variables for both experiments are anger emotion rating scores and responders’ rejection rates.The following results are obtained through this study.(1)In the control-based intention UG task,for rejection rates,the difference in rejection rates across proposer identities is not significant when subjects were in the high ego-depletion state;when subjects are in the low ego-depletion state,the difference in rejection rates across proposer identities was significant: subjects had higher rejection rates in the proposer-as-human condition compared to the proposer-as-computer condition.For anger levels,the difference in anger levels is significant for both high and low ego depletion states: subjects experience more intense anger in the proposer-human condition than they are in the proposer-computer condition.(2)In the context-based intention UG task,for the rejection rate,the difference between the rejection rate in the good intention condition and the rejection rate in the bad intention condition is not significant when subjects are in the high and low ego depletion conditions;for the anger level,the difference between the anger level of subjects in the high and low ego depletion conditions is significant,i.e.,the anger level of subjects in the bad intention condition is significantly higher than that in the good intention condition.The above results indicate that in the control-based approach,anger levels are significantly higher than they are in the good intention condition.The above results suggest that in the control-based intention UG task,self-loss moderate the control-based intention fairness effect in the ultimatum game,indicating that control-based intention fairness processing in the ultimatum game is a relatively slow,non-automated and cognitive resource-dependent activity process of System 2.In the context-based intent UG task,ego-depletion moderate the context-based intent fairness effect in the ultimatum game,indicating that context-based intent fairness processing in the ultimatum game belongs to the relatively slow,non-automated,and cognitive resource-dependent System 2 activity process.Moreover,there is no moderating effect of ego-depletion on the outcome fairness effect in the ultimatum game in the above two tasks,indicating that the outcome fairness processing in the ultimatum game belongs to the activity process of System 1,which is fast,automated,and does not require cognitive resources.This study not only extends the theory of social preferences in fair decision making,but also deepens the understanding of the sum-intention reasoning process in ultimatum games,and has important practical implications for promoting rational decision making of individuals.