Do altruists like equity?

Altruism and inequity aversion are often conceptually interrelated, which implies that altruistic and selfish humans may respond differently to disadvantageous inequity conditions. However, a correlation between altruism and inequity responses has thus far not been directly tested experimentally. We have addressed this question using an experimental paradigm inspired by animal experiments in which adult humans work for real food rewards. We have studied whether subjects' responses to different reward distributions were altered by being exposed to equitable or non-equitable situations. In the control conditions, subjects expressed either a strong altruistic attitude, choosing to work for their partner's welfare in the majority of trials, or mostly rejected this course of action. These purely altruistic and selfish behaviors were also expressed after being exposed to disadvantageous inequity, but priming with equitable conditions significantly reduced their occurrence. This implies an important role of inequity pressure, which is presumably present in modern society, in shaping human-helping attitudes. peerReviewed publishedVersion

利他主义（Altruism）与不公平厌恶（inequity aversion）在概念层面往往相互关联，这意味着利他型与自私型人类个体在面对不利不公平情境时的反应可能存在显著差异。然而，截至目前，利他主义与不公平厌恶反应之间的相关性尚未通过实验得到直接验证。本研究借鉴动物实验的思路，采用成人受试者参与真实食物奖励任务的实验范式（experimental paradigm），探究受试者对不同奖励分配的反应是否会因接触公平或不公平情境而发生改变。在对照组情境中，受试者要么表现出强烈的利他主义倾向——在绝大多数试次中选择为搭档的福利付出努力，要么大多拒绝采取此类行为。此类纯粹利他与自私的行为在受试者经历不利不公平情境后仍会显现，但经过公平情境启动（priming）处理后，此类行为的出现频率显著降低。这表明，现代社会中普遍存在的不公平压力，在塑造人类助人态度方面发挥着关键作用。同行评议已发表版本