title: Tend to Compare and Tend to Be Fair: The Relationship between Social Comparison Sensitivity and Justice Sensitivity.
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.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, Center for Studies of Psychological Application and Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science of Guangdong Province, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Shanshan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zhen
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, Center for Studies of Psychological Application and Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science of Guangdong Province, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China.|Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.|Singapore Institute for Neurotechnology (SINAPSE), Center for Life Sciences, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.|Neurobiology/Aging programme, Center for Life Sciences, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.
authors.forename: Rongjun
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Yu
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D005717:Games, Experimental; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D010465:Perception; D012919:Social Behavior; D012923:Social Class; D012935:Social Justice / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult