When do unfair victims become more prosocial? Benefiting from growth beliefs

Does unfair experience make people feel more entitled to behave selfishly? If so, can a sense of growth effectively weaken the effect of unfairness on selfishness? Drawing upon the Equity with the World (EwW) theory, three lab-based experiments (total N = 408) were conducted to answer these questions. We consistently found that people who had just been treated unfairly or reminded of a time when their lives were unfair felt entitled to behave selfishly. Consistent with a trans-relational effect, unfair victims behave selfishly toward the unfair doer as well as innocent individuals, and there was no significant difference in strength. Reconstructing a sense of growth could effectively buffer the 'unfairness-to-selfishness' effect. The findings added a new perspective into interventions, and extended the EwW theory by demonstrating a strong reciprocative tendency from the fair-treated individuals.
Author(s): Rong Shi [sup.1] , Yongqiang Chen [sup.2] , Wei Qi [sup.3] , Wangbing Shen [sup.4] , Shuwei Liu [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.27255.37, 0000 0004 1761 1174, Department of [...]