Fairness is what the powerful 'can get away with' study shows

Summary

Credit: Mikhail Nilov from Pexels The willingness of those in power to act fairly depends on how easily others can collectively push back against unfair treatment, psychologists have found. A newly published study by Dr. David Gordon at University of Staffordshire (UK) and Dr. Mikael Puurtinen at the University of Jyväskylä (Finland), investigated the impact of collective action against those in positions of power, using a multiplayer version of a classic psychological experiment called the Ultimatum Game. The findings are published in the journal Social Psychological Bulletin. Results suggest that the ease of collective action induces more egalitarian behavior by individuals in a position of power and makes those without power less willing to accept unfairness. Lead researcher Dr. David Gordon said, "From hunter-gatherers to modern large-scale societies, the threat of collective action by others has been a key tool in ensuring that powerful people don't keep everything for themselves. Despite this, it is a surprisingly understudied area within psychology. "We wanted to answer the question, is our individual idea of what is 'fair' just what we think we can get away with? So, we designed an experiment to test whether the behavior and beliefs of those with and without power changed depending on how easy or difficulty it is for those without power to act collectively. "Our study shows that 'fairness' is probably less impacted by internal values, but by external pressures. The ease with which people can challenge authority significantly shapes how those in power behave." The Ultimatum Game usually has two players: a Proposer and Responder. The Proposer is given an allocation of points (e.g., 100) and is asked whether they would like to send any amount the Responder. If the Responder accepts the offer, that is how the points are distributed. If they 'reject' the offer made, then neither player gets anything. In these games, points reflect real money that is paid to parti...