Self-behavior can be reduced with the help of information

If participants in a competitive situation, such as an employment process, are informed that the process was fair, they find it easier to accept the result and be less selfish. Without that information, they tend to be more selfish. According to psychological research, we humans often believe that success depends on on ourselves, while failures are blamed on external circumstances, such as that a process has been unfair. Studies have also shown that unfair processes increase selfish and immoral behavior. A recent study from Linköping University now shows that the same tendencies can occur in competitive situations where none of the participants had any advantage or disadvantage, for example in application processes. – When we fail, we overestimate how unfair the situation has been. It increases the risk that we become more selfish and immoral. For example, it can lead to employees starting to talk badly about colleagues in the workplace in an employment process, says Kajsa Hansson, PhD student in economics at Linköping University. Egoism and altruism were measured The researchers at Linköping University wanted to investigate whether a selfish behavior can be changed with the help of information that a process, or competition situation, actually went right and right to. The researchers recruited 444 participants for the study who were allowed to compete against each other by solving mathematical problems of varying difficulty. After the competition was over, the participants were told if they had won or lost against the other participant. Then both winners and losers had to decide how much of the winner’s prize money they themselves thought was worth. By looking at how much of the money the winners wanted to give to the losers and how much money the losers wanted to take from the winners, the researchers measured altruistic and selfish behavior, respectively. They also investigated whether information about the competition going correctly affected how winners and losers distributed money to each other. Information Reduced Selfishness The result showed that the winners ‘behavior was not affected at all, but the losers took less of the winners’ prize money if they received information that the competition was conducted on equal terms. The information thus made them less selfish. Without information, however, the losers overestimated how unfair the competition was. – We see that uncertainty about justice in a competitive situation makes you more selfish. But information and transparency can dampen this. In order to create a more ethical and fair society, it is therefore not only important to create and implement fair processes – informing about this can be at least as important, says Kajsa Hansson.

Scientific article:

Losing sense of Fairness: How information about a level playing field reduces selfish behavior . Contact:

Kajsa Hansson, PhD student in economics at the Department of Industrial and Economic Development (IEI) and JEDI Lab, Linköping University, kajsa.hansson@liu.se

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