The Embodied Relationship Between Balance-fairness

Embodied cognition has gained more and more attention, Social psychologists have come to realize embodied cognition is not only appropriate for individual-level cognitions but also extend to social relations. The most directly relevant framework for addressing this topic is the relational models theory developed by Fiske (Smith,2008). Fiske holds that there are four fundamental types of social relationships:Communal Sharing (CS); Authority Ranking (AR); Equality Matching (EM) and Market Pricing (MP); CS, AR and EM relations are embodied in a distinctive modality. Based on the previous research and theory, we proposed a core assumptions:fair is embodied on balance. Four studies were designed to investigate this hypothesis.Study1, We used questionnaires to investigate whether there is a balance-fairness schema. The result shows that:(1)For the word " fairness", individuals tended to choose balanced pattern;(2)For the word " unfairness", individuals tended to choose unbalanced patterns. This Research confirms that there is a balance-fairness schema.Study2, using the scenario approach to prove the balance-fairness schema. In Study2, we also introduces varying degrees of balance and fairness and it proves the result of study1.Study3, we use the priming task to study whether the manipulation of balance will affect the process of fairness judgment. The results showed that:(1) Under the condition of consistency, individual responsed fasterand had higher accuracy;(2)Under the condition of inconsistency, the individual responsed slower and had lower accuracy. It means that the he manipulation of balance will affect the process of fairness judgments.Study4, we use scenario story to investigate whether the manipulation of balance will affact the result of fairness judgment. The results showed that:the Balance group and the control group was significantly higher than the imbalance in the results of fair judgment. The study confirmed that the manipulation of balance will affect the results of fair judgments.