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The Neurocomputational Mechanism Underlying Decision-Making on Unfairness to Self and Others

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Abstract

Fairness is a fundamental value in human societies, with individuals concerned about unfairness both to themselves and to others. Nevertheless, an enduring debate focuses on whether self-unfairness and other-unfairness elicit shared or distinct neuropsychological processes. To address this, we combined a three-person ultimatum game with computational modeling and advanced neuroimaging analysis techniques to unravel the behavioral, cognitive, and neural patterns underlying unfairness to self and others. Our behavioral and computational results reveal a heightened concern among participants for self-unfairness over other-unfairness. Moreover, self-unfairness consistently activates brain regions such as the anterior insula, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, spanning various spatial scales that encompass univariate activation, local multivariate patterns, and whole-brain multivariate patterns. These regions are well-established in their association with emotional and cognitive processes relevant to fairness-based decision-making. Conversely, other-unfairness primarily engages the middle occipital gyrus. Collectively, our findings robustly support distinct neurocomputational signatures between self-unfairness and other-unfairness.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32271126 and 31920103009), the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (2021A1515010746), the Major Project of National Social Science Foundation (20&ZD153), and Shenzhen-Hong Kong Institute of Brain Science—Shenzhen Fundamental Research Institutions (2023SHIBS0003).

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  1. Lanxin Luo and Han Xu contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences (South China Normal University), Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, 510631, China

    Lanxin Luo, Han Xu, Xia Tian, Yue Zhao, Ruoling Xiong, Huafeng Dong, Xiaoqing Li, Yuhe Wang & Chunliang Feng

  2. School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, China

    Lanxin Luo, Han Xu, Xia Tian, Yue Zhao, Ruoling Xiong, Huafeng Dong, Xiaoqing Li, Yuhe Wang & Chunliang Feng

  3. Center for Studies of Psychological Application, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, China

    Lanxin Luo, Han Xu, Xia Tian, Yue Zhao, Ruoling Xiong, Huafeng Dong, Xiaoqing Li, Yuhe Wang & Chunliang Feng

  4. Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, China

    Lanxin Luo, Han Xu, Xia Tian, Yue Zhao, Ruoling Xiong, Huafeng Dong, Xiaoqing Li, Yuhe Wang & Chunliang Feng

  5. Institute for Neuropsychological Rehabilitation, University of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, Qingdao, 266113, China

    Yue‑Jia Luo

  6. School of Psychology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518061, China

    Yue‑Jia Luo

  7. State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Yue‑Jia Luo

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  1. Lanxin Luo
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Luo, L., Xu, H., Tian, X. et al. The Neurocomputational Mechanism Underlying Decision-Making on Unfairness to Self and Others. Neurosci. Bull. 40, 1471–1488 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12264-024-01245-8

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