On the sense of fairness
Some time ago I was witness to this interaction between a boy of maybe 6 years old and his mother, involving his even smaller sister of maybe 3 years old. He was very upset with his mother because she had just bought his sister a nice woollen cap and a sweater to keep her warm, while she had bought him nothing (he was already wearing warm clothes). He was protesting to her and throwing tantrums about having been left out.
"He becomes jealous very quickly," his mother told me, looking somewhat apologetic and embarrassed about his public tantrums. "Now, now dear.. Don't be jealous of your sister. Don't you love your little sister?" She asked him. In response to this, he suddenly became defensive and started looking ashamed. He did after all, love his little sister, and yes he had been taught that to be jealous of her would be a flaw in his character.
This episode took me back to my own childhood experiences, where similar episodes elicited similar responses, the end result of which was a kind of battering of my self image and feeling ashamed. Somehow, I could not help feeling the initial emotion which was interpreted as "jealousy" and invariably I was brought to a state where I had to end up feeling ashamed and small, because of my "jealous" emotions.
But was that really "jealousy"? I spoke to the little kid after this episode and made him play the "ultimatum game" (which I'll explain in a while), and my suspicions were right. He was not feeling jealous-- his strong emotions were because, his sense of "fairness" had been violated. And by making him feel guilty, and by calling him "jealous" the mother had actually made the problem worse. Now he is feeling unfair at two levels-- one for what he perceived as his unfair treatment, and second, for the unfair interpretation of his emotional outburst.
One of the least understood psychological traits is our sense of fairness. Our sense of fairness transcends self interest. People with a strong sense of fairness, fight for fairness even when it does not personally affect them. In fact, if we were to fight for fairness only to the extent that it applies to us, then it is nothing but self interest. A sense of fairness transcends self interest.
The Ultimatum game is a well known game from game theory that models our sense of fairness. In this game, a given sum of money, say Rs. 100, is to be split between two people A and B. One of them, say A, acts as a proposer and proposes a split like say: "60 for me 40 for you." If the other person called the decider, accepts this proposal, the money is split and shared accordingly. If the decider rejects the proposal, then both have to leave the game with no money.
When this game was played across the world, it showed vast variations in the way the decider functions when offered an unequal split, like say 80-20.
A lot of people accepted any proposal that gave them some amount greater than 0, because obviously their payoff if they rejected they proposal was 0. This is plain vanilla rationality-- choose an option that gives a better payoff than one that gives a lesser payoff.
But people with a strong sense of fairness usually had a tolerance limit (like say 60-40 or 70-30 or even 50-50). If the proposal violated this limit, they rejected the proposal. Hence for a person whose tolerance limit was 50-50, if the other person offered even 51-49, the proposal would be rejected. Their logic-- although convoluted-- does make sense. When the person rejects a 51-49 proposal, he would end up losing Rs 49; but it it is still considered rational because, "I may have lost Rs. 49, but you have lost Rs 51. That should teach you a lesson about treating others unfairly!"
In fact, I have received the same explanation about the underlying rationality behind this choice, when I have played the ultimatum game with some students and others who had displayed a strong sense of fairness.
If the proposer does not have a strong sense of fairness, this logic would be lost on them. It would appear to them that the decider is "cutting his nose to spite his face"-- that is, hurting himself just to spite the other. It would be very hard for them to see why would someone give up a lucrative offer, just to spite the other.
So what exactly is fairness? Our sense of fairness strives to preserve some kind of "parity" in social interactions. This sense of parity can very well be crudely modelled and implemented.
For instance in the example from above, for the little boy, fairness or parity probably meant equality in the received gifts. If he doesn't get what his sister got and vice versa (that is, if his sister didn't get what he got), he would consider it unfair.
It also reminds me of one episode when I was myself about 6 years old. My grandparents had come to visit, and had bought us a pumpkin as a gift, from their backyard garden. Our backyard garden had a bitter gourd plant, and we had harvested several bitter gourds. When my parents gave them a few bitter gourds in return, I had apparently protested and thrown a similar tantrum saying, when they have given us one pumpkin, they should get only one bitter gourd in return.
While the tantrums of a 6-year old and their crude sense of fairness, may appear cute; a crude sense of fairness when implemented as a state policy is not cute at all. Imagine a sense of fairness where everybody gets paid the same amount of money regardless of the work they do. There is such a sense of fairness that have been really implemented in societies-- it is called egalitarianism. Similarly, consider another example of a "fair" society where everybody is compulsorily made to take up agriculture and work in the fields-- by arguing that feeding oneself is all what we need as a society.
Fanaticism, bigotry, and religious fundamentalism are all ironically, a result of someone's crude sense of fairness getting violated. It is only when our sense of fairness is violated, do we act in an "irrational" manner, doing things that can adversely impact us along with others. If we do not develop our sense of fairness and allow it to mature, or worse, keep reinforcing a latent crude sense of fairness, it can lead to much bigger social problems in the future.
To help develop our sense of fairness into a mature model, we need to challenge our beliefs, practice prudence, and make stringent efforts to see an issue through the lens of others. We will also need to understand the difference between "sameness" and "oneness." A crude sense of fairness, strives for "sameness"-- in that it wants everyone to be treated the same, and receive the same benefits and payoffs for anything. In contrast, a developed sense of fairness strives to uphold a sense of "oneness." It understands that despite our differences, we are but one world and are deeply connected to form the one creation. An evolved sense of fairness understands that the suffering of one is in fact, the suffering of everyone. We cannot have a healthy body even if one part of our body is diseased. A pain in any part of our body is a pain for our entire self. An evolved sense of fairness understands this oneness.
"He becomes jealous very quickly," his mother told me, looking somewhat apologetic and embarrassed about his public tantrums. "Now, now dear.. Don't be jealous of your sister. Don't you love your little sister?" She asked him. In response to this, he suddenly became defensive and started looking ashamed. He did after all, love his little sister, and yes he had been taught that to be jealous of her would be a flaw in his character.
This episode took me back to my own childhood experiences, where similar episodes elicited similar responses, the end result of which was a kind of battering of my self image and feeling ashamed. Somehow, I could not help feeling the initial emotion which was interpreted as "jealousy" and invariably I was brought to a state where I had to end up feeling ashamed and small, because of my "jealous" emotions.
But was that really "jealousy"? I spoke to the little kid after this episode and made him play the "ultimatum game" (which I'll explain in a while), and my suspicions were right. He was not feeling jealous-- his strong emotions were because, his sense of "fairness" had been violated. And by making him feel guilty, and by calling him "jealous" the mother had actually made the problem worse. Now he is feeling unfair at two levels-- one for what he perceived as his unfair treatment, and second, for the unfair interpretation of his emotional outburst.
One of the least understood psychological traits is our sense of fairness. Our sense of fairness transcends self interest. People with a strong sense of fairness, fight for fairness even when it does not personally affect them. In fact, if we were to fight for fairness only to the extent that it applies to us, then it is nothing but self interest. A sense of fairness transcends self interest.
The Ultimatum game is a well known game from game theory that models our sense of fairness. In this game, a given sum of money, say Rs. 100, is to be split between two people A and B. One of them, say A, acts as a proposer and proposes a split like say: "60 for me 40 for you." If the other person called the decider, accepts this proposal, the money is split and shared accordingly. If the decider rejects the proposal, then both have to leave the game with no money.
When this game was played across the world, it showed vast variations in the way the decider functions when offered an unequal split, like say 80-20.
A lot of people accepted any proposal that gave them some amount greater than 0, because obviously their payoff if they rejected they proposal was 0. This is plain vanilla rationality-- choose an option that gives a better payoff than one that gives a lesser payoff.
But people with a strong sense of fairness usually had a tolerance limit (like say 60-40 or 70-30 or even 50-50). If the proposal violated this limit, they rejected the proposal. Hence for a person whose tolerance limit was 50-50, if the other person offered even 51-49, the proposal would be rejected. Their logic-- although convoluted-- does make sense. When the person rejects a 51-49 proposal, he would end up losing Rs 49; but it it is still considered rational because, "I may have lost Rs. 49, but you have lost Rs 51. That should teach you a lesson about treating others unfairly!"
In fact, I have received the same explanation about the underlying rationality behind this choice, when I have played the ultimatum game with some students and others who had displayed a strong sense of fairness.
If the proposer does not have a strong sense of fairness, this logic would be lost on them. It would appear to them that the decider is "cutting his nose to spite his face"-- that is, hurting himself just to spite the other. It would be very hard for them to see why would someone give up a lucrative offer, just to spite the other.
*~*~*~*~*
So what exactly is fairness? Our sense of fairness strives to preserve some kind of "parity" in social interactions. This sense of parity can very well be crudely modelled and implemented.
For instance in the example from above, for the little boy, fairness or parity probably meant equality in the received gifts. If he doesn't get what his sister got and vice versa (that is, if his sister didn't get what he got), he would consider it unfair.
It also reminds me of one episode when I was myself about 6 years old. My grandparents had come to visit, and had bought us a pumpkin as a gift, from their backyard garden. Our backyard garden had a bitter gourd plant, and we had harvested several bitter gourds. When my parents gave them a few bitter gourds in return, I had apparently protested and thrown a similar tantrum saying, when they have given us one pumpkin, they should get only one bitter gourd in return.
While the tantrums of a 6-year old and their crude sense of fairness, may appear cute; a crude sense of fairness when implemented as a state policy is not cute at all. Imagine a sense of fairness where everybody gets paid the same amount of money regardless of the work they do. There is such a sense of fairness that have been really implemented in societies-- it is called egalitarianism. Similarly, consider another example of a "fair" society where everybody is compulsorily made to take up agriculture and work in the fields-- by arguing that feeding oneself is all what we need as a society.
Fanaticism, bigotry, and religious fundamentalism are all ironically, a result of someone's crude sense of fairness getting violated. It is only when our sense of fairness is violated, do we act in an "irrational" manner, doing things that can adversely impact us along with others. If we do not develop our sense of fairness and allow it to mature, or worse, keep reinforcing a latent crude sense of fairness, it can lead to much bigger social problems in the future.
To help develop our sense of fairness into a mature model, we need to challenge our beliefs, practice prudence, and make stringent efforts to see an issue through the lens of others. We will also need to understand the difference between "sameness" and "oneness." A crude sense of fairness, strives for "sameness"-- in that it wants everyone to be treated the same, and receive the same benefits and payoffs for anything. In contrast, a developed sense of fairness strives to uphold a sense of "oneness." It understands that despite our differences, we are but one world and are deeply connected to form the one creation. An evolved sense of fairness understands that the suffering of one is in fact, the suffering of everyone. We cannot have a healthy body even if one part of our body is diseased. A pain in any part of our body is a pain for our entire self. An evolved sense of fairness understands this oneness.
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