Equity theory and fair inequality: A neuroeconomic study

Cappelen, Alexander W.; Eichele, Tom; Hugdahl, Kenneth; Specht, Karsten; Sørensen, Erik Ø.; Tungodden, Bertil

doi:10.1073/pnas.1414602111

Cited by 50 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 32 publications

(30 reference statements)

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“…First, it links our study to the extensive experimental literature on acknowledgment of earned entitlement by students (19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25). Second, it allows us to investigate whether transitioning from preparation for the labor market to unemployment has a similar moral effect to transitioning from participation in the labor market to unemployment.…”

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confidence: 95%

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Moral consequences of becoming unemployed

Barr

Moya

Úbeda

2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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We test the conjecture that becoming unemployed erodes the extent to which a person acknowledges earned entitlement. We use behavioral experiments to generate incentive-compatible measures of individuals' tendencies to acknowledge earned entitlement and incorporate these experiments in a two-stage study. In the first stage, participants' acknowledgment of earned entitlement was measured by engaging them in the behavioral experiments, and their individual employment status and other relevant socioeconomic characteristics were recorded. In the second stage, a year later, the process was repeated using the same instruments. The combination of the experimentally generated data and the longitudinal design allows us to investigate our conjecture using a difference-in-difference approach, while ruling out the pure selfinterest confound. We report evidence consistent with a large, negative effect of becoming unemployed on the acknowledgment of earned entitlement.U nderstanding how becoming unemployed affects people's reasoning is important. Unemployment and the poverty it engenders is associated with depression, anxiety, stress, low subjective well-being and self-esteem, heightened aversion to risk, and a greater tendency to discount the future within the individual (1-7), and higher rates of suicide, murder, and alcoholrelated death across countries (8, 9). We investigate a different kind of effect, a moral consequence of unemployment that, alongside unemployment's effects on mental health, could explain why people are disengaging from the labor market (10). We test the conjecture that becoming unemployed erodes the extent to which a person acknowledges earned entitlement, i.e., acknowledges an individual's right to keep, consume, or dispose of that which was gained through his or her own effort or endeavor. This right and its acknowledgment underpins labor market functioning and guides taxation and government-spending policy worldwide (11).Survey-based studies find a positive association between low economic status and stated preferences for redistributive taxation and spending (12-16). However, although these surveybased results are consistent with our conjecture, they are also consistent with pure self-interest; purely self-interested individuals would state a preference for minimal or no redistribution when they are relatively well-off as this would minimize their tax burden, but would shift to favoring redistribution on becoming relatively poor owing to job loss (17).We used behavioral experiments to generate incentivecompatible measures of individuals' tendencies to acknowledge earned entitlement that cannot be driven by pure self-interest (18). We incorporated these experiments into an unusual two-stage study. In the first stage, participants' acknowledgment of earned entitlement was measured by engaging them in the behavioral experiments, and their individual employment status and other relevant socioeconomic characteristics were recorded. In the second stage, a year later, the process was repeated using the sa...

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“…In previous studies involving similar tasks (18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25), students and employed individuals in developed countries acknowledged earned entitlement. In contrast, unemployed individuals tended not to acknowledge earned entitlement (18).…”

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confidence: 99%

Moral consequences of becoming unemployed

Barr

Moya

Úbeda

2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…In this respect, the nucleus accumbens, which is part of the dopaminergic system, is seen as part of the reward processing system which is mainly active during experiencing reward, and its activity may correlate with the reward value (Salimpoor et al, 2013, 2015; Ikemoto et al, 2015; Zatorre, 2015). This is true for any type of reward, in particular biologically relevant rewards such as food or sex, but also money (Daniel and Pollmann, 2014), and even fairness (Cappelen et al, 2014). By contrast, the dorsal striatum/caudate is generally more related to anticipation of reward but also to music-induced frisson (Koelsch et al, 2015; Zatorre, 2015).…”

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confidence: 99%

Listening to Rhythmic Music Reduces Connectivity within the Basal Ganglia and the Reward System

2017

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Music can trigger emotional responses in a more direct way than any other stimulus. In particular, music-evoked pleasure involves brain networks that are part of the reward system. Furthermore, rhythmic music stimulates the basal ganglia and may trigger involuntary movements to the beat. In the present study, we created a continuously playing rhythmic, dance floor-like composition where the ambient noise from the MR scanner was incorporated as an additional instrument of rhythm. By treating this continuous stimulation paradigm as a variant of resting-state, the data was analyzed with stochastic dynamic causal modeling (sDCM), which was used for exploring functional dependencies and interactions between core areas of auditory perception, rhythm processing, and reward processing. The sDCM model was a fully connected model with the following areas: auditory cortex, putamen/pallidum, and ventral striatum/nucleus accumbens of both hemispheres. The resulting estimated parameters were compared to ordinary resting-state data, without an additional continuous stimulation. Besides reduced connectivity within the basal ganglia, the results indicated a reduced functional connectivity of the reward system, namely the right ventral striatum/nucleus accumbens from and to the basal ganglia and auditory network while listening to rhythmic music. In addition, the right ventral striatum/nucleus accumbens demonstrated also a change in its hemodynamic parameter, reflecting an increased level of activation. These converging results may indicate that the dopaminergic reward system reduces its functional connectivity and relinquishing its constraints on other areas when we listen to rhythmic music.

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“…During the years of 2005 and 2014 members of the group were authors of five PNAS articles (Cappelen, Eichele, Hugdahl, Specht, Sørensen & Tungodden, ; Eichele, Debener, Calhoun et al . ; Eichele, Specht, Moosmann et al ., ; Falkenberg, Westerhausen, Specht & Hugdahl, ; Sorg, Riedl, Mühlau et al ., ).…”

Section: The Bergen Fmri Group 1993mentioning

confidence: 99%

A life in academia: My career in brief

Hugdahl

2018

Scandinavian J Psychology

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In this article I have summarized some of the main trends and topics of my research career, spanning a time period of 50 years, from its start as a master student at the Department of Psychology, University of Uppsala, Sweden to seeing the end of a long career, now at the University of Bergen, Norway. This journey has, apart from having been a journey across various disciplines and topics in experimental psychology, psychophysiology and neuropsychology, functional neuroimaging and cognitive neuroscience, also been a social class journey for me personally. I describe my academic career from my arrival as a young student at the University of Uppsala, Sweden in the late 1960s to my graduation as PhD in 1977 at the age of 29 years, brief postdoc period at the University of Pennsylvania, USA, and finally professor at the University of Bergen, Norway. The article focuses on my view of the research and research findings during these years, including studies of hemispheric asymmetry, dyslexia and language, dichotic listening, fMRI, and during the last years, studies of auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia. I have collaborated with numerous people, both nationally and internationally over the years, far too many to mention in a space-limited overview article. I apologize for this, and wish that I had time and space to mention all the fantastic colleagues and friends that I have met during my career. This article is what I recall of dates, places, encounters, etc., and any errors and misunderstandings are entirely due to my far from perfect memory, for which I also apologize.

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Equity theory and fair inequality: A neuroeconomic study

Cited by 50 publications

References 32 publications

Moral consequences of becoming unemployed

Moral consequences of becoming unemployed

Listening to Rhythmic Music Reduces Connectivity within the Basal Ganglia and the Reward System

A life in academia: My career in brief

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