Key Laboratory of Child Development and Learning Science, Ministry of Education, Southeast University, Nanjing, China.
PLoS One. 2012;7(6):e39627. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0039627. Epub 2012 Jun 26.
Previous behavioral studies have shown that initial ownership influences individuals' fairness consideration and other-regarding behavior. However, it is not entirely clear whether initial ownership influences the brain activity when a recipient evaluates the fairness of asset distribution. In this study, we randomly assigned the bargaining property (monetary reward) to either the allocator or the recipient in the ultimatum game and let participants of the study, acting as recipients, receive either disadvantageous unequal, equal, or advantageous unequal offers from allocators while the event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. Behavioral results showed that participants were more likely to reject disadvantageous unequal and equal offers when they initially owned the property as compared to when they did not. The two types of unequal offers evoked more negative going ERPs (the MFN) than the equal offers in an early time window and the differences were not modulated by the initial ownership. In a late time window, however, the P300 responses to division schemes were affected not only by the type of unequal offers but also by whom the property was initially assigned to. These findings suggest that while the MFN may function as a general mechanism that evaluates whether the offer is consistent or inconsistent with the equity rule, the P300 is sensitive to top-down controlled processes, into which factors related to the allocation of attentional resources, including initial ownership and personal interests, come to play.
先前的行为研究表明，初始所有权会影响个体的公平考虑和他人关注行为。然而，初始所有权是否会影响接受者评估资产分配公平性时的大脑活动，目前还不完全清楚。在这项研究中，我们在最后通牒博弈中随机将谈判财产（货币奖励）分配给分配者或接受者，让作为接受者的研究参与者从分配者那里收到不利的不平等、平等或有利的不平等的提议，同时记录事件相关电位（ERP）。行为结果表明，与他们没有初始所有权时相比，当他们最初拥有财产时，他们更有可能拒绝不利的不平等和平等的提议。与平等提议相比，两种不平等提议在早期时间窗口中引起了更负向的 ERP（MFN），而初始所有权并不能调节这种差异。然而，在晚期时间窗口中，对分配方案的 P300 反应不仅受到不平等提议类型的影响，还受到最初分配财产的人影响。这些发现表明，虽然 MFN 可能作为评估提议是否符合公平规则的一般机制起作用，但 P300 对自上而下的控制过程敏感，包括初始所有权和个人利益在内的与注意力资源分配相关的因素开始发挥作用。
