TY - JOUR
T1 - The impacts of racial group membership on people's distributive justice
T2 - An event-related potential study
AU - Wang, Yan
AU - Tang, Yi Yuan
AU - Deng, Yuqin
PY - 2014/4/16
Y1 - 2014/4/16
N2 - How individuals and societies distribute benefits has long been studied by psychologists and sociologists. Previous work has highlighted the importance of social identity on people's justice concerns. However, it is not entirely clear how racial in-group/out-group relationship affects the brain activity in distributive justice. In this study, event-related potentials were recorded while participants made their decisions about donation allocation. Behavioral results showed that racial in-group factor affected participants' decisions on justice consideration. Participants were more likely to make relatively equity decisions when racial in-group factor was congruent with equity compared with the corresponding incongruent condition. Moreover, this incongruent condition took longer response times than congruent condition. Meanwhile, less equity decisions were made when efficiency was larger in the opposite side to equity than it was equal between the two options. Scalp event-related potential analyses revealed that greater P300 and late positive potential amplitudes were elicited by the incongruent condition compared with the congruent condition. These findings suggest that the decision-making of distributive justice could be modulated by racial group membership, and greater attentional resources or cognitive efforts are required when racial in-group factor and equity conflict with each other.
AB - How individuals and societies distribute benefits has long been studied by psychologists and sociologists. Previous work has highlighted the importance of social identity on people's justice concerns. However, it is not entirely clear how racial in-group/out-group relationship affects the brain activity in distributive justice. In this study, event-related potentials were recorded while participants made their decisions about donation allocation. Behavioral results showed that racial in-group factor affected participants' decisions on justice consideration. Participants were more likely to make relatively equity decisions when racial in-group factor was congruent with equity compared with the corresponding incongruent condition. Moreover, this incongruent condition took longer response times than congruent condition. Meanwhile, less equity decisions were made when efficiency was larger in the opposite side to equity than it was equal between the two options. Scalp event-related potential analyses revealed that greater P300 and late positive potential amplitudes were elicited by the incongruent condition compared with the congruent condition. These findings suggest that the decision-making of distributive justice could be modulated by racial group membership, and greater attentional resources or cognitive efforts are required when racial in-group factor and equity conflict with each other.
KW - Distributive justice
KW - Efficiency
KW - Equity
KW - Event-related potentials
KW - Racial group membership
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84897578249&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1097/WNR.0000000000000097
DO - 10.1097/WNR.0000000000000097
M3 - Article
C2 - 24394904
AN - SCOPUS:84897578249
SN - 0959-4965
VL - 25
SP - 373
EP - 378
JO - NeuroReport
JF - NeuroReport
IS - 6
ER -