Fairness, not Emotion, Drives Socioeconomic Decision Making

TL;DR

This study investigates how fairness influences socioeconomic decisions more than emotion, revealing neural and behavioral mechanisms through ERP analysis and modeling in an ultimatum game setting.

Contribution

It uncovers that economic fairness outweighs emotion in decision-making and identifies distinct cognitive strategies and neural markers involved.

Findings

Fairness significantly affects acceptance rates.

Offer size is the main predictor of decisions.

Facial expression recognition has minimal impact on choices.

Abstract

Emotion and fairness play a key role in mediating socioeconomic decisions in humans; however, the underlying neurocognitive mechanism remains largely unknown. This exploratory study unraveled the interplay between agents' emotions and the fairness of their monetary proposal in rational decision-making, backed by ERP analyses at a group as well as a strategic level. In a time-bound ultimatum-game paradigm, 40 participants were exposed to three distinct proposers' emotions (Happy, Neutral, Disgusted) followed by one of the three offer ranges (Low, Intermediate, High). Our findings show a robust influence of economic fairness on acceptance rates. A multilevel generalized linear model showed offer as the dominant predictor of trial-specific responses. Subsequent clustering grouped participants into five clusters, which the Drift Diffusion Model corroborates. Pertinent neural markers demonstrated the recognition of facial expressions; however, they had minimal effect during socioeconomic decision-making. Our study explores individualistic decision-making processes revealing different cognitive strategies.