Tend to Compare and Tend to Be Fair: The Relationship between Social Comparison Sensitivity and Justice Sensitivity

PLoS One. 2016 May 23;11(5):e0155414. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0155414. eCollection 2016.

Abstract

Social comparison is a prerequisite for processing fairness, although the two types of cognition may be associated with different emotions. Whereas social comparison may induce envy, the perception of unfairness may elicit anger. Yet, it remains unclear whether people who tend to have a strong sense of fairness also tend to compare themselves more with others. Here, Study 1 used a modified ultimatum game (UG) and a social comparison game (SCG) to examine the relationship between justice sensitivity and social comparison sensitivity in 51 young adults. Study 2 examined self-reported social comparison and justice sensitivity in 142 young adults. Both studies showed a positive correlation between social comparison sensitivity and justice sensitivity. We reason that social comparison and justice sensitivity have an important positive correlation in human decision-making. The rejection of self-disadvantageous inequality offers may be due to the social comparison effect, which suggests that the tendency to compare oneself with others may contribute to having a strong sense of justice. Our findings suggest that the predictions of game theory may vary depending on the social culture context and incorporating notions of fairness and social comparison tendency may be essential to better predict the actual behavior of players in social interactive situations.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Cross-Cultural Comparison*
  • Decision Making / physiology*
  • Emotions*
  • Female
  • Games, Experimental
  • Humans
  • Interpersonal Relations
  • Male
  • Perception*
  • Social Behavior*
  • Social Class
  • Social Justice / psychology*
  • Young Adult

Grants and funding

The work was supported by the Foundation for High-level Talents in Higher Education of Guangdong (No.C10454), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31371128) and MOE Tier 1: R-581-000-191-112. RY received financial support from the National University of Singapore Grant WBS R-581-000-166-133. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.