Interpersonal interaction affects people's decision-making progress. Being accepted by others is one of the most basic social needs. Nevertheless, social exclusion undermines the basic need of belonging to a social group and dampens positive and sustainable social connections. The two opposite interpersonal relationships further impact social behavior in distinct patterns observed through fairness preference demonstration.
The current study is designed to investigate how different types of social interaction (social exclusion/social inclusion) contribute to fairness preferences for people of different interactive opportunities (former partner/future partner). Specifically, how interactive targets in an economic game influence fairness-related decisions from the perspective of a third party, as targets are who shared unique previous experiences with us or a new partner to communicate with. A visual ball-tossing game was used to manipulate social exclusion and social inclusion conditions. In a bid to eliminate the confounding effect of self-utility and fairness orientation, a novel revised TPUG (Third Party Ultimatum Game) was exploited to investigate the behavioral patterns of fairness preferences. Our results were consistent with previous findings that fairness significantly affected the rejection rate that more unfair proposals induced higher rejection. In addition, different types of group interaction, to a certain extent, improved individuals’ susceptibility to their principle of fairness. However, different interaction types demonstrated selective concerns in TPUG, as indicated by the higher rejection rate of unfair offers for receivers of different interactive histories. Nevertheless, the same behavioral pattern of high rejection rate could reflect completely different assumptions. Excluders were more concerned about the interests of those who previously excluded them, which was aligned with the social reconnection hypothesis. However, those who were previously accepted in the cyber-ball game showed more concern for potential partners. Therefore, previous interaction and potential interactive opportunities influence human fairness preferences.
Social Exclusion, Social Inclusion, fairness principle, TPUG, social decision making