title: It Depends Who Is Watching You: 3-D Agent Cues Increase Fairness.
abstract: Laboratory and field studies have demonstrated that exposure to cues of intentional agents in the form of eyes can increase prosocial behavior. However, previous research mostly used 2-dimensional depictions as experimental stimuli. Thus far no study has examined the influence of the spatial properties of agency cues on this prosocial effect. To investigate the role of dimensionality of agency cues on fairness, 345 participants engaged in a decision-making task in a naturalistic setting. The experimental treatment included a 3-dimensional pseudo-realistic model of a human head and a 2-dimensional picture of the same object. The control stimuli consisted of a real plant and its 2-D image. Our results partly support the findings of previous studies that cues of intentional agents increase prosocial behavior. However, this effect was only found for the 3-D cues, suggesting that dimensionality is a critical variable in triggering these effects in a real-world settings. Our research sheds light on a hitherto unexplored aspect of the effects of environmental cues and their morphological properties on decision-making.
authors: Laboratory for the Experimental Research of Religion, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic.
authors: Jan
authors: J
authors: Krátký
authors: Interacting Minds Centre, Department of Culture and Society, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.|Departments of Religious Studies and Central American Studies, California State University Northridge, Northridge, California, United States of America.
authors: John J
authors: JJ
authors: McGraw
authors: Laboratory for the Experimental Research of Religion, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic.|Interacting Minds Centre, Department of Culture and Society, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.|Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, United States of America.
authors: Dimitris
authors: D
authors: Xygalatas
authors: Interacting Minds Centre, Department of Culture and Society, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.|Center for Advanced Hindsight, Social Science Research Institute, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America.|Interdisciplinary Center for Organizational Architecture, Department of Management, School of Business and Social Sciences, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
authors: Panagiotis
authors: P
authors: Mitkidis
authors: Laboratory for the Experimental Research of Religion, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic.
authors: Paul
authors: P
authors: Reddish
mesh_terms: D003463:Cues; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D012919:Social Behavior; D012935:Social Justice / Q000523:psychology*