Study Reveals How People Can Learn to Reject Unfair Advantages

A recent study co-authored by researchers from McGill University has demonstrated that individuals can learn to reject unfair advantages, even when it may come at a personal cost. Published in the journal eLife, the research reveals insights into how people can develop a preference for fairness, particularly in situations where they might otherwise benefit from unequal distributions of resources.

Senior author Ross Otto, a psychology professor, explained that the concept of advantageous inequity occurs when individuals receive benefits that are not equally distributed. For instance, one might receive a higher salary than a colleague in an identical role. The study sought to determine whether individuals could learn to reject such unfair advantages by observing the behaviour of others who demonstrate inequity-averse preferences.

The findings indicate that participants became increasingly willing to turn down offers deemed unfair after witnessing another person consistently reject such offers. “People can learn to punish advantageous inequity even when it might come at a cost to themselves,” Otto noted. This outcome is significant for two primary reasons. First, while it has been established that people typically reject unfair offers that disadvantage them, they often accept situations that are to their benefit. Prior to this study, it was uncertain whether individuals could learn to prefer fairness in both disadvantageous and advantageous scenarios.

The researchers employed a modified version of the Ultimatum Game, a common economic experiment where one player proposes a split of money, and the other player must decide whether to accept or reject the offer. If the offer is rejected, neither participant receives anything. Initially, participants played the game independently, then transitioned into a learning phase where they made accept-or-reject decisions for another player, termed the “Teacher.” After each decision, they were informed whether the Teacher would have preferred to decline the offer.

In one scenario, the Teacher rejected both disadvantageous and advantageous unfair offers, while in another, the Teacher only rejected disadvantageous ones. Following this learning phase, participants played for their own benefit again.

In their findings, the researchers stated, “In a first experiment, we demonstrate that people can acquire aversion to advantageous inequity vicariously through observation of the Teacher’s preferences.” In a subsequent experiment, they confirmed this finding and showed that individuals could generalize this vicarious learning across different contexts.

The implications of these findings extend beyond academic interest. Otto emphasized the potential for fostering egalitarian norms within society. “If we want to understand how to foster egalitarian norms in society, these experiments suggest one possible way to do this is by a process of conformity – that is, modelling the observed preferences of another with strong moral preferences,” he said.

This study, titled “Advantageous and disadvantageous inequality aversion can be taught through learning of others’ preferences,” was conducted by researchers Shen Zhang, Oriel FeldmanHall, Sébastian Hétu, and Ross Otto. It received funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Fonds de Recherche du Québec – Nature et Technologies, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, and the European Research Council.

As society grapples with issues of fairness and inequality, this research highlights the potential for individuals to change their preferences and behaviours through observation, signalling a pathway toward greater social equity.