Negative incidental emotions augment fairness sensitivity
Cuizhen Liu, Jing Wen Chai and Rongjun Yu tested in three ultimatum game experiments whether emotions unrelated to a decision change how people respond to unfair offers. They induced seven emotions, among them disgust, sadness, anger, fear, happiness, surprise and a neutral state, and measured rejection of unfair offers. Disgust, sadness, anger and fear all increased rejection, while happiness and surprise did not. The authors suggest that negative emotions in general make people focus on the negative aspects of a situation, which heightens their sensitivity to fairness.
Cuizhen Liu, Jing Wen Chai and Rongjun Yu tested in three ultimatum game experiments whether emotions unrelated to a decision change how people respond to unfair offers. They induced seven emotions, among them disgust, sadness, anger, fear, happiness, surprise and a neutral state, and measured rejection of unfair offers. Disgust, sadness, anger and fear all increased rejection, while happiness and surprise did not. The authors suggest that negative emotions in general make people focus on the negative aspects of a situation, which heightens their sensitivity to fairness.
Written from the abstract read 2026-10-22 via a university research portal record.
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6, 24892. doi:10.1038/srep24892. Read at the level of the abstract.