Mind & behavior · 2014
Can learning which way of sharing money benefits you change what you think is fair?
Yes—in three money-sharing experiments, participants judged the rule that benefited them as fairer and more moral, and their views changed within minutes as they learned what served their interests. The choice was between equal shares and shares proportional to effort. But when the justification for effort-based sharing was removed, participants no longer strategically supported an unequal split.
Details
The experiments explored whether moral disagreement can reflect personal interests, rather than only differences in people's dispositions. Participants played a simple economic game in which a player divided money with a partner, either equally or in proportion to the effort each had made.
Participants' roles in the game mattered: they did not merely prefer the rule that benefited them, but also judged it to be fairer and more moral. Their views about the sharing rules changed within minutes as they learned where their interests lay. However, self-interest had limits. When the justification for dividing money in proportion to effort was removed, participants no longer showed strategic support for an unequal division.
These findings concern judgments in a simple money-sharing game, not every kind of moral disagreement. The abstract does not report participant demographics or the size of the changes, so it does not establish how large or widespread this pattern is outside the experiments.
What do you think?
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