Rank reversal aversión, inequality aversión, or fairness concerns?: Distributive preferences in an economic experiment

Autores
Belaus, Anabel; Reyna, Cecilia; Freidin, Esteban
Año de publicación
2022
Idioma
inglés
Tipo de recurso
documento de conferencia
Estado
versión publicada
Descripción
Introduction. For the first time, Xie et al. (Nature Human Behaviour, 1(8), 0142. DOI:10.1038/s41562-017-0142, 2017) found that the probability that disinterested third parties choose to reduce inequality was lower when it also involved inverting recipients’ relative payoff positions, a phenomenon which they called Rank Reversal Aversion (hereafter RRA). This phenomenon posits questions in terms of how the preference for a stable hierarchy might be traded off against conflicting values, such as equality and fairness. Goal. The goal of the present experiment was to assess participants´ distributive preferences when RRA, Inequality Aversion, and fairness considerations were in conflict. Methods. We present a pre-registered experiment (https://osf.io/8kdx6) with university students in which we propose a methodologically cleaner alternative to explore whether people may have RRA. Some participants played a Third-Party Dictator Game with real consequences in which they had to decide on monetary allocations destined to two participants in roles A and B. The experiment had a within-subject design in which each dictator faced 40 allocation choices. To asses RRA, some choice trials involved an unequal initial endowment for A and B, while the Dictator could make monetary transfers that changed A and B´s initial payoff rank without changing the inequality between them. To assess the importance participants attributed to inequality over rank, there were choices in which preserving the initial rank led to slight increases of inequality. In turn, to test for fairness, in some trials the dictator was also provided with information about A and B´s relative performance in an effortful task. Results. When dictators´ transfers could not alter the inequality between A and B and fairness was not at stake (there was no information about performance), results confirmed a RRA: participants were reluctant to change A and B´s initial payoff rank in 65% of these choices. However, when RRA was pitted against eliminating inequality, participants preferred to tackle inequality instead of preserving the initial rank in 72% of the choices, and when preserving the initial rank involved slight increases in inequality between A and B, participants preferred to revert the initial rank 78% of times rather than increase inequality. In turn, the preference to allocate money to the participant with the higher performance in the effortful task was stronger than both the RRA (80% chose to revert the initial rank when relative performance mismatched the initial hierarchy) and the preference for reducing inequality (71% chose fairness even if it involved increasing inequality, and 67% chose fairness when pitted against eliminating inequality). Conclusions. The present experiment presents a conceptual replication of the RRA first reported by Xie et al. (2017). Our original contribution is twofold: first, we managed to replicate the RRA with a methodologically cleaner protocol; and, second, we tested the relative strength of the RRA when pitted against conflicting values, in particular equality and fairness.
Fil: Belaus, Anabel. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas; Argentina
Fil: Reyna, Cecilia. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas; Argentina
Fil: Freidin, Esteban. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales del Sur. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Economía. Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales del Sur; Argentina
XVIII Reunión Nacional; VI Encuentro Internacional de la Asociación Argentina de Ciencias del Comportamiento
Mar del Plata
Argentina
Asociación Argentina de Ciencias del Comportamiento
Materia
Hierarchy
Inequality
Deservingness
Distributive preferences
Nivel de accesibilidad
acceso abierto
Condiciones de uso
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/ar/
Repositorio
CONICET Digital (CONICET)
Institución
Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
OAI Identificador
oai:ri.conicet.gov.ar:11336/212727

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network_name_str CONICET Digital (CONICET)
spelling Rank reversal aversión, inequality aversión, or fairness concerns?: Distributive preferences in an economic experimentBelaus, AnabelReyna, CeciliaFreidin, EstebanHierarchyInequalityDeservingnessDistributive preferenceshttps://purl.org/becyt/ford/5.1https://purl.org/becyt/ford/5Introduction. For the first time, Xie et al. (Nature Human Behaviour, 1(8), 0142. DOI:10.1038/s41562-017-0142, 2017) found that the probability that disinterested third parties choose to reduce inequality was lower when it also involved inverting recipients’ relative payoff positions, a phenomenon which they called Rank Reversal Aversion (hereafter RRA). This phenomenon posits questions in terms of how the preference for a stable hierarchy might be traded off against conflicting values, such as equality and fairness. Goal. The goal of the present experiment was to assess participants´ distributive preferences when RRA, Inequality Aversion, and fairness considerations were in conflict. Methods. We present a pre-registered experiment (https://osf.io/8kdx6) with university students in which we propose a methodologically cleaner alternative to explore whether people may have RRA. Some participants played a Third-Party Dictator Game with real consequences in which they had to decide on monetary allocations destined to two participants in roles A and B. The experiment had a within-subject design in which each dictator faced 40 allocation choices. To asses RRA, some choice trials involved an unequal initial endowment for A and B, while the Dictator could make monetary transfers that changed A and B´s initial payoff rank without changing the inequality between them. To assess the importance participants attributed to inequality over rank, there were choices in which preserving the initial rank led to slight increases of inequality. In turn, to test for fairness, in some trials the dictator was also provided with information about A and B´s relative performance in an effortful task. Results. When dictators´ transfers could not alter the inequality between A and B and fairness was not at stake (there was no information about performance), results confirmed a RRA: participants were reluctant to change A and B´s initial payoff rank in 65% of these choices. However, when RRA was pitted against eliminating inequality, participants preferred to tackle inequality instead of preserving the initial rank in 72% of the choices, and when preserving the initial rank involved slight increases in inequality between A and B, participants preferred to revert the initial rank 78% of times rather than increase inequality. In turn, the preference to allocate money to the participant with the higher performance in the effortful task was stronger than both the RRA (80% chose to revert the initial rank when relative performance mismatched the initial hierarchy) and the preference for reducing inequality (71% chose fairness even if it involved increasing inequality, and 67% chose fairness when pitted against eliminating inequality). Conclusions. The present experiment presents a conceptual replication of the RRA first reported by Xie et al. (2017). Our original contribution is twofold: first, we managed to replicate the RRA with a methodologically cleaner protocol; and, second, we tested the relative strength of the RRA when pitted against conflicting values, in particular equality and fairness.Fil: Belaus, Anabel. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas; ArgentinaFil: Reyna, Cecilia. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas; ArgentinaFil: Freidin, Esteban. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales del Sur. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Economía. Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales del Sur; ArgentinaXVIII Reunión Nacional; VI Encuentro Internacional de la Asociación Argentina de Ciencias del ComportamientoMar del PlataArgentinaAsociación Argentina de Ciencias del ComportamientoConsejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas; Asoiación Argentina de Ciencias del Comportamiento2022info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersioninfo:eu-repo/semantics/conferenceObjectReuniónJournalhttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_5794info:ar-repo/semantics/documentoDeConferenciaapplication/pdfapplication/pdfapplication/pdfapplication/pdfhttp://hdl.handle.net/11336/212727Rank reversal aversión, inequality aversión, or fairness concerns?: Distributive preferences in an economic experiment; XVIII Reunión Nacional; VI Encuentro Internacional de la Asociación Argentina de Ciencias del Comportamiento; Mar del Plata; Argentina; 2021; 156-1571852-4206CONICET DigitalCONICETenginfo:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/url/https://revistas.unc.edu.ar/index.php/racc/issue/view/2494info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/url/https://revistas.unc.edu.ar/index.php/racc/article/view/37355/41684Nacionalinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccesshttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/ar/reponame:CONICET Digital (CONICET)instname:Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas2025-09-29T10:42:26Zoai:ri.conicet.gov.ar:11336/212727instacron:CONICETInstitucionalhttp://ri.conicet.gov.ar/Organismo científico-tecnológicoNo correspondehttp://ri.conicet.gov.ar/oai/requestdasensio@conicet.gov.ar; lcarlino@conicet.gov.arArgentinaNo correspondeNo correspondeNo correspondeopendoar:34982025-09-29 10:42:26.307CONICET Digital (CONICET) - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicasfalse
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Rank reversal aversión, inequality aversión, or fairness concerns?: Distributive preferences in an economic experiment
title Rank reversal aversión, inequality aversión, or fairness concerns?: Distributive preferences in an economic experiment
spellingShingle Rank reversal aversión, inequality aversión, or fairness concerns?: Distributive preferences in an economic experiment
Belaus, Anabel
Hierarchy
Inequality
Deservingness
Distributive preferences
title_short Rank reversal aversión, inequality aversión, or fairness concerns?: Distributive preferences in an economic experiment
title_full Rank reversal aversión, inequality aversión, or fairness concerns?: Distributive preferences in an economic experiment
title_fullStr Rank reversal aversión, inequality aversión, or fairness concerns?: Distributive preferences in an economic experiment
title_full_unstemmed Rank reversal aversión, inequality aversión, or fairness concerns?: Distributive preferences in an economic experiment
title_sort Rank reversal aversión, inequality aversión, or fairness concerns?: Distributive preferences in an economic experiment
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Belaus, Anabel
Reyna, Cecilia
Freidin, Esteban
author Belaus, Anabel
author_facet Belaus, Anabel
Reyna, Cecilia
Freidin, Esteban
author_role author
author2 Reyna, Cecilia
Freidin, Esteban
author2_role author
author
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv Hierarchy
Inequality
Deservingness
Distributive preferences
topic Hierarchy
Inequality
Deservingness
Distributive preferences
purl_subject.fl_str_mv https://purl.org/becyt/ford/5.1
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/5
dc.description.none.fl_txt_mv Introduction. For the first time, Xie et al. (Nature Human Behaviour, 1(8), 0142. DOI:10.1038/s41562-017-0142, 2017) found that the probability that disinterested third parties choose to reduce inequality was lower when it also involved inverting recipients’ relative payoff positions, a phenomenon which they called Rank Reversal Aversion (hereafter RRA). This phenomenon posits questions in terms of how the preference for a stable hierarchy might be traded off against conflicting values, such as equality and fairness. Goal. The goal of the present experiment was to assess participants´ distributive preferences when RRA, Inequality Aversion, and fairness considerations were in conflict. Methods. We present a pre-registered experiment (https://osf.io/8kdx6) with university students in which we propose a methodologically cleaner alternative to explore whether people may have RRA. Some participants played a Third-Party Dictator Game with real consequences in which they had to decide on monetary allocations destined to two participants in roles A and B. The experiment had a within-subject design in which each dictator faced 40 allocation choices. To asses RRA, some choice trials involved an unequal initial endowment for A and B, while the Dictator could make monetary transfers that changed A and B´s initial payoff rank without changing the inequality between them. To assess the importance participants attributed to inequality over rank, there were choices in which preserving the initial rank led to slight increases of inequality. In turn, to test for fairness, in some trials the dictator was also provided with information about A and B´s relative performance in an effortful task. Results. When dictators´ transfers could not alter the inequality between A and B and fairness was not at stake (there was no information about performance), results confirmed a RRA: participants were reluctant to change A and B´s initial payoff rank in 65% of these choices. However, when RRA was pitted against eliminating inequality, participants preferred to tackle inequality instead of preserving the initial rank in 72% of the choices, and when preserving the initial rank involved slight increases in inequality between A and B, participants preferred to revert the initial rank 78% of times rather than increase inequality. In turn, the preference to allocate money to the participant with the higher performance in the effortful task was stronger than both the RRA (80% chose to revert the initial rank when relative performance mismatched the initial hierarchy) and the preference for reducing inequality (71% chose fairness even if it involved increasing inequality, and 67% chose fairness when pitted against eliminating inequality). Conclusions. The present experiment presents a conceptual replication of the RRA first reported by Xie et al. (2017). Our original contribution is twofold: first, we managed to replicate the RRA with a methodologically cleaner protocol; and, second, we tested the relative strength of the RRA when pitted against conflicting values, in particular equality and fairness.
Fil: Belaus, Anabel. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas; Argentina
Fil: Reyna, Cecilia. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Córdoba. Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas; Argentina
Fil: Freidin, Esteban. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales del Sur. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Economía. Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales del Sur; Argentina
XVIII Reunión Nacional; VI Encuentro Internacional de la Asociación Argentina de Ciencias del Comportamiento
Mar del Plata
Argentina
Asociación Argentina de Ciencias del Comportamiento
description Introduction. For the first time, Xie et al. (Nature Human Behaviour, 1(8), 0142. DOI:10.1038/s41562-017-0142, 2017) found that the probability that disinterested third parties choose to reduce inequality was lower when it also involved inverting recipients’ relative payoff positions, a phenomenon which they called Rank Reversal Aversion (hereafter RRA). This phenomenon posits questions in terms of how the preference for a stable hierarchy might be traded off against conflicting values, such as equality and fairness. Goal. The goal of the present experiment was to assess participants´ distributive preferences when RRA, Inequality Aversion, and fairness considerations were in conflict. Methods. We present a pre-registered experiment (https://osf.io/8kdx6) with university students in which we propose a methodologically cleaner alternative to explore whether people may have RRA. Some participants played a Third-Party Dictator Game with real consequences in which they had to decide on monetary allocations destined to two participants in roles A and B. The experiment had a within-subject design in which each dictator faced 40 allocation choices. To asses RRA, some choice trials involved an unequal initial endowment for A and B, while the Dictator could make monetary transfers that changed A and B´s initial payoff rank without changing the inequality between them. To assess the importance participants attributed to inequality over rank, there were choices in which preserving the initial rank led to slight increases of inequality. In turn, to test for fairness, in some trials the dictator was also provided with information about A and B´s relative performance in an effortful task. Results. When dictators´ transfers could not alter the inequality between A and B and fairness was not at stake (there was no information about performance), results confirmed a RRA: participants were reluctant to change A and B´s initial payoff rank in 65% of these choices. However, when RRA was pitted against eliminating inequality, participants preferred to tackle inequality instead of preserving the initial rank in 72% of the choices, and when preserving the initial rank involved slight increases in inequality between A and B, participants preferred to revert the initial rank 78% of times rather than increase inequality. In turn, the preference to allocate money to the participant with the higher performance in the effortful task was stronger than both the RRA (80% chose to revert the initial rank when relative performance mismatched the initial hierarchy) and the preference for reducing inequality (71% chose fairness even if it involved increasing inequality, and 67% chose fairness when pitted against eliminating inequality). Conclusions. The present experiment presents a conceptual replication of the RRA first reported by Xie et al. (2017). Our original contribution is twofold: first, we managed to replicate the RRA with a methodologically cleaner protocol; and, second, we tested the relative strength of the RRA when pitted against conflicting values, in particular equality and fairness.
publishDate 2022
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Rank reversal aversión, inequality aversión, or fairness concerns?: Distributive preferences in an economic experiment; XVIII Reunión Nacional; VI Encuentro Internacional de la Asociación Argentina de Ciencias del Comportamiento; Mar del Plata; Argentina; 2021; 156-157
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1852-4206
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