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Abstract The equitable allocation of resources has long been a central concern for humanity, prompting extensive research into various motivations that drive the pursuit of distributive justice. In contrast to one of the most fundamental motives, inequality aversion, a conflicting motive has been proposed: rank-reversal aversion. However, it remains unclear whether this rank-reversal aversion persists in the presence of self-rank. Here we provide evidence of rank-reversal aversion in the first-party context and explore diverse moral strategies for distribution. In a modified version of the redistribution game involving 55 online-recruited participants, we observed rank-reversal aversion only when one’s rank was maintained. When participants’ self-rank was altered, they tended to base their behavior on their new ranks. This behavioral tendency varied among individuals, revealing three distinct moral strategies, all incorporating considerations of rank-reversal. Our findings suggest that rank-reversal aversion can indeed influence one’s distribution behavior, although the extent of its impact may vary among individuals, especially when self-rank is a factor. These insights can be extended to political and economic domains, contributing to a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms of distributive justice.

Fairness constitutes a cornerstone of social norms, emphasizing equal treatment and equitable distribution in interpersonal relationships. Unfair treatment often leads to direct responses and can spread to others through a phenomenon known as pay-it-forward (PIF) reciprocity. This study examined how unfairness spreads in interactions with new partners who have higher, equal, or lower status than the participants. In the present study, participants (N = 47, all Korean) were given either fair or unfair treatment in the first round of a dictator game. They then allocated monetary resources among partners positioned at various hierarchical levels in the second round. Our main goal was to determine if the severity of inequity inflicted on new partners was influenced by their hierarchical status. The results revealed an inclination among participants to act more generously towards partners of higher ranking despite prior instances of unfair treatment, whereas a tendency for harsher treatment was directed towards those with lower ranking. The interaction between the fairness in the first round (DG1) and the hierarchical status of the partner in the second round (DG2) was significant, indicating that the effect of previous fairness on decision-making differed depending on the ranking of the new partners. This study, therefore, validates the presence of unfairness PIF reciprocity within hierarchical contexts.

With an increasing societal need for digital therapy solutions for poor mental health, we face a corresponding rise in demand for scientifically validated digital contents. In this study we aimed to lay a sound scientific foundation for the development of brain-based digital therapeutics to assess and monitor cognitive effects of social and emotional bias across diverse populations and age-ranges. First, we developed three computerized cognitive tasks using animated graphics: 1) an emotional flanker task designed to test attentional bias, 2) an emotional go-no-go task to measure bias in memory and executive function, and 3) an emotional social evaluation task to measure sensitivity to social judgments. Then, we confirmed the generalizability of our results in a wide range of samples (children (N = 50), young adults (N = 172), older adults (N = 39), online young adults (N=93), and depression patients (N = 41)) using touchscreen and online computer-based tasks, and devised a spontaneous thought generation task that was strongly associated with, and therefore could potentially serve as an alternative to, self-report scales. Using PCA, we extracted five components that represented different aspects of cognitive-affective function (emotional bias, emotional sensitivity, general accuracy, and general/social attention). Next, a gamified version of the above tasks was developed to test the feasibility of digital cognitive training over a 2-week period. A pilot training study utilizing this application showed decreases in emotional bias in the training group (that were not observed in the control group), which was correlated with a reduction in anxiety symptoms. Using a 2-channel wearable EEG system, we found that frontal alpha and gamma power were associated with both emotional bias and its reduction across the 2-week training period.

Abstract The evolutionary fitness payoffs of moral condemnation are greatest within an individual’s immediate social milieu. Accordingly, insofar as human moral intuitions have been shaped by adaptive design, we can expect transgressive harms to be perceived as more wrong when transpiring in the here and now than when occurring at a distance, or with the approval of local authority figures. This moral parochialism hypothesis has been supported by research conducted in diverse societies, but has yet to be tested in an East Asian society, despite prior research indicating that East Asians appraise transgressive acts as being caused by situational and contextual factors to a greater extent than do Westerners, who tend to emphasize dispositional factors (i.e., the transgressor’s personal nature). Here, in a quasi-experiment using field samples recruited in Seoul and Los Angeles, we tested (i) the moral parochialism hypothesis regarding the perceived wrongness of transgressions, as well as (ii) the extent to which these wrongness judgments might be influenced by cross-cultural differences in causal appraisals. Despite notably large differences across the two societies in situational versus dispositional appraisals of the causes of the transgressions, replicating previous findings elsewhere, in both societies we found that transgressions were deemed less wrong when occurring at spatial or temporal remove or with the consent of authorities. These findings add to the understanding of morality as universally focused on local affairs, notwithstanding cultural variation in perceptions of the situational versus dispositional causes of (im)moral acts.

Abstract Ingroup favoritism and fairness are two potentially competing motives guiding intergroup behaviors in human. Here, we investigate if and how limited resources can modulate the way these two motives affect individuals’ decisions in intergroup situation. In the present study, participants (N = 58) were asked to accept or reject three types of resource allocation proposals generated by a computer: the ingroup advantageous condition, outgroup advantageous condition, and neutral condition. In general, participants were more willing to accept the proposals in the ingroup advantageous condition than the outgroup advantageous or the neutral conditions, and also in the moderate inequality than the extreme inequality condition. This may indicate that people sought a careful balance between ingroup favoritism and fairness, although we also found marked individual differences in their preferences for ingroup favoritism or fairness. Importantly, as predicted, participants were more likely to show ingroup favoritism only when limited resources affect the well-being of ingroup members. The present study provides novel insights into the situational and personality factors affecting human intergroup behaviors, shedding light on motives underlying intergroup conflicts prevalent in human societies.

Reverse correlation (RC) method has been recently used to visualize mental representations of self. Previous studies have mainly examined the relationship between psychological aspects measured by self-reports and classification images of self (self-CIs), which are visual proxies of self-image generated through the RC method. In Experiment 1 (N = 118), to extend the validity of self-CIs, we employed social evaluation on top of self-reports as criterion variables and examined the relationship between self-CIs and social evaluation provided by clinical psychologists. Experiment 1 revealed that the valence ratings of self-CIs evaluated by independent raters predicted social evaluation after controlling for the effects of self-reported self-esteem and extraversion. Furthermore, in Experiment 2 (N = 127), we examined whether a computational scoring method – a method to assess self-CIs without employing independent raters – could be applied to evaluate the valence of participants’ self-CIs. Experiment 2 found that the computational scores of self-CIs were comparable to independent valence ratings of self-CIs. We provide evidence that self-CIs can add independent information to self-reports in predicting social evaluation. We also suggest that the computational scoring method can complement the independent rating process of self-CIs. Overall, our findings reveal that self-CIs are a valid and useful tool to examine self-image more profoundly.

How do we incorporate contextual information to infer others’ emotional state? Here we employed a naturalistic context-dependent facial expression estimation task where participants estimated pleasantness levels of others’ ambiguous expression faces when sniffing different contextual cues (e.g., urine, fish, water, and rose). Based on their pleasantness rating data, we placed participants on a context-dependency continuum and mapped the individual variability in the context-dependency onto the neural representation using a representational similarity analysis. We found that the individual variability in the context-dependency of facial expression estimation correlated with the activity level of the pregenual anterior cingulate cortex (pgACC) and the amygdala and was also decoded by the neural representation of the ventral anterior insula (vAI). A dynamic causal modeling revealed that those with higher context-dependency exhibited a greater degree of the modulation from vAI to the pgACC. These findings provide novel insights into the neural circuitry associated with the individual variability in context-dependent facial expression estimation and the first empirical evidence for individual variability in the predictive accounts of affective states.

People often align their behaviors and decisions with others' expectations, especially those of higher social positions, when they are being observed. However, little attention has been paid to the neural mechanisms underlying increased conformity to the social hierarchy under social observation. Using a preference rating task, we investigated whether and how individual preferences for novel stimuli were influenced by others' preferences by manipulating others' social hierarchy and observational context. The behavioral results showed that human participants of both sexes were more likely to change their preferences to match those of a superior partner in a public than in a private context. fMRI data revealed distinct contributions of the subregions of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) to increased conformity to social hierarchy under observation. Specifically, the ventral mPFC showed increased activity when participants' preferences aligned with those of superior partners, regardless of behavioral manifestation. The rostral mPFC showed increased activity when conforming to a superior partner and nonconforming to an inferior one, indicating goal-dependent valuation. The dorsal mPFC showed increased activity in private conditions with a superior partner but only in those with a higher tendency to conform. These findings support the hierarchical allostatic regulation model of the mPFC function for social valuation and suggest strategic conformity as a way to minimize metabolic costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]