ISSN 0439-755X
CN 11-1911/B
主办:中国心理学会
   中国科学院心理研究所
出版:科学出版社

心理学报 ›› 2024, Vol. 56 ›› Issue (11): 1541-1555.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2024.01541

• 研究报告 • 上一篇    下一篇

友善重要, 还是公平重要?亲社会性与公平性调节复杂道德判断

吴珺, 李晚晨, 姚晓欢, 刘洁, 崔芳   

  1. 深圳大学心理学院, 深圳 518060
  • 收稿日期:2023-12-26 发布日期:2024-09-05 出版日期:2024-11-25
  • 通讯作者: 崔芳, E-mail: cuifang0826@gmail.com; 18682471722@163.com
  • 基金资助:

    国家自然科学基金面上项目(32171013)和深圳市自然科学面上项目(JCYJ20210324100411032)。

Kindness or fairness: Prosociality and fairness jointly modulate moral judgments

WU Jun, LI Wanchen, YAO Xiaohuan, LIU Jie, CUI Fang   

  1. School of Psychology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China
  • Received:2023-12-26 Online:2024-09-05 Published:2024-11-25

摘要: 本研究通过两个实验探讨了第三方判断者对既包含亲社会性又涉及公平性的复杂道德决策进行判断时, 如何权衡二者的重要性以及在此过程中, 判断者与决策者之间社会距离的作用。实验中, 被试作为第三方观看决策者在复杂道德任务中做出的决策并对其道德水平进行判断。决策者完成的任务包含如何在自我和他人之间分配代币(亲社会性)以及如何将分给他人的代币在两名接受者之间分配(公平性)。结果发现:1) 决策的亲社会性和公平性对道德判断的影响并不是相对独立的, 而是存在交互作用。高亲社会条件下, 公平与不公平决策的道德评分之差显著大于低亲社会条件下二者之差; 在神经层面上, 发现脑电成分FRN和P3的波幅呈现与行为一致的模式; 2) 对高亲社会而不公平的决策进行判断时, 当决策者与被试社会距离更近时, 被试对其道德评分降低但合作意愿反而升高, 表现出道德评分与合作意愿的分离。本研究表明, 在对包含多种成分的复杂道德决策进行判断时, 亲社会性和公平性并不是相对独立, 而是交互地共同影响判断。本研究揭示了道德判断的灵活性以及各道德因素之间的相互影响, 为探讨不同社会情境下的复杂道德判断的心理机制提供了新思路。

关键词: 亲社会, 公平, 复杂道德判断, 事件相关电位, 反馈相关负波

Abstract: Moral judgment involves assessing actions that carry moral weight against established ethical standards. Recent research has revealed the separate effects of fairness and prosociality--through personal actions intended to benefit others--on moral judgment. However, the ingroup bias in prosocial behaviors may sometimes conflict with the principle of fairness. Little is known about the mechanism underlying the moral judgment of such complex moral decisions, i.e., when both prosociality and fairness are embedded in the decisions. To explore this, we utilized a modified dictator game task to examine how prosociality and fairness jointly modulate moral judgments and the role of social distance in these judgments.
In our first experiment (Experiment 1), 90 participants (37 females, 22.73 ± 3.08 years) participated as third-party judges. They evaluated decisions made by others who varied in social distance on a resource allocation task. In the resource allocation task, the decision makers were given 100 money units by the system while two strangers were facing the threat of a highly unpleasant noise. They need to decide 1) how many money units they would like to donate to reduce the duration of the two strangers’ noise (i.e., prosociality) and 2) how to allocate the donated money units between the two strangers (i.e., fairness). The results showed that under conditions of high prosociality, the discrepancy in moral ratings between “fair” and “unfair” decisions was significantly larger compared to conditions of low prosociality. Notably, participants rated decisions made by their friends higher and those by strangers lower, establishing a clear “interpersonal hierarchy”.
A total of 41 participants (21 females, 21.15 ± 2.36 years) participated in Experiment 2, where event-related potential (ERP) technology was employed further explore the cognitive neurobiological mechanisms of prosociality and fairness affecting moral judgments. This experiment expanded the scope of social distance to include broader group dynamics, including ingroup and outgroup distinctions, and evaluated willingness to cooperate as a potential influencing factor in future decisions. The findings mirrored those of Experiment 1: high prosociality heightened sensitivity to fairness. Behaviorally, under high prosocial conditions, participants issued lower moral judgments but expressed a higher willingness to cooperate when ingroup members made unfair decisions compared to outgroup members. At the neural level, when ingroup members demonstrated high prosociality, the ERP components (Feedback related negativity and P3) showed significantly greater amplitudes in response to fair versus unfair decisions.
Overall, these results suggest that prosociality and fairness dynamically interact to shape third-party moral judgments while high prosociality enhances the influence of fairness. This study also highlights how moral judgment adapts based on social proximity to decision-makers, revealing intricate temporal dynamics in how prosociality and fairness are processed while creating moral judgments. This research offers a new methodological approach to understanding the complex cognitive neurobiological mechanisms underlying moral judgment in varying social contexts.

Key words: prosociality, fairness, moral judgment, event-related potentials, feedback related negativity

中图分类号: