University of Bonn
People who feel treated unfairly usually do not direct their anger only towards the perpetrator. They frequently unload their aggressions onto uninvolved outsiders who then in turn behave similarly.
How can this chain
of unfair behavior be disrupted?
A team of researchers under the direction of
the University of Bonn discovered that writing a message to the perpetrator is
one way to regulate emotions and thereby reassess the situation. The results of
the study are now published in the journalScientific Reports.
"Tit for tat!" -- If a boss acts unfairly in his professional life, he frequently loses the loyalty of his employee. Moreover, if a boss chews out a subordinate without any apparent reason, the subordinate will typically react with unfair behavior to his/her subordinate.
"In such cases of unfair
behavior, emotions are running high. Uninvolved outsiders are frequently drawn
into the chain of injustice," says Prof. Dr. Bernd Weber from the Center
for Economics and Neuroscience (CENs) of the University of Bonn.
Scientists
call this phenomenon "generalized negative reciprocity." Negative
reciprocity means that the parties involved pay back unfair behavior.
"Generalized" refers to the fact that the conflict is also
transferred to persons who are uninvolved in the original interaction.
A team
of researchers working with Prof. Weber from the CENs, the Department of
Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the University of Bonn Hospital and the
University of Lübeck have now been able to confirm this mechanism in an
experiment and could show a way to disrupt this unfortunate chain of
unfairness.
Subjects participated in a
"dictator game"
A
total of 237 subjects took part in what is referred to as a "dictator
game" in the BonnEconLab of the University of Bonn. Some of the
participants slipped into the role of the dictators: They determined whether
they would either share a certain amount of money for example, 25 euros fairly
with another participant or keep the lion's share for themselves and only give
away a small remainder.
Of
24 dictators, 83 percent chose the unfair distribution: They kept most of the
money for themselves. The counter players could not do anything about this and
had to accept the dictator's decisions.
This had an effect on the counter
player's mood, which decreased. "This emotionally charged situation causes
the person who is treated unfairly to behave unfairly towards others in
turn," reports Dr. Sabrina Strang, who recently transferred from the CENs
in Bonn to the Institute of Psychology of the University of Lübeck. This
behavior is an outlet for negative emotions.
Writing mails calms 'hot
feelings'
As
a next step, the scientists investigated how this chain of unfair actions can
be disrupted. Participants ran through one of three different scenarios.
First
group: A three-minute compulsory break that should ensure emotional detachment.
Second group: The participants were asked to describe a neutral picture in
order to distract themselves.
Third group: The affected persons were allowed to
complain about their unfair treatment in a mail to the "dictator."
"The
coping strategy in the form of a written complaint turned out to be the best
way to regulate negative emotions," says Prof. Dr. So Young Park of the
University of Lübeck. In this process, it was irrelevant whether the dictator
actually received the mail.
On the one hand, it could be shown that the
subjects' emotions were significantly calmed after writing a mail, and on the other
hand that they subsequently behaved more fairly towards others. The scientists
suggest that writing a messages is a suitable way to stop the chain of
unfairness by down-regulating negative emotions.
A way out of the chain of
negative feelings
When
one is unfairly treated and the anger is high, there needs to be a suitable
outlet for negative feelings.
"Once the emotions decreased, the affected
person generally starts to reassess the situation rationally," says Prof.
Weber.
This makes it possible to not transfer anger further to uninvolved
persons. Strategies of this type are also important for professional life.
Prof. Weber: "Economic decisions are almost always characterized by social
interactions." The study shows a way out of the chain of negative feelings.
"So far, there has not been much research on correlations of this
type," says Dr. Strang.
