Effect Of Differential Of Interpersonal Relationships On Moral Evaluation Of Favoritism Behavior

Although favoritism is a prevalent practice in daily life,few studies have investigated how people make third-party moral judgments on favoritism and its influencing factors.The current research aimed to examine the effect of differential of interpersonal relationships(different interpersonal relationships of the individual who practices favoritism and the person being favored)on the harshness of third-party judgments in both resource-acquisition and resource-loss situations,and explore its possible underlying mechanisms.Five studies have been conducted.Including three studies,Study 1 has investigated the effect of differential of interpersonal relationships on the harshness of third-party moral judgment.A pilot study was designed to test the existence of the differential among five kinds of interpersonal relationships(i.e,an individual's relationship with his mother,a sibling,a friend,a neighbor and a stranger)by measuring perceived level of the overlap between the individual and the other person(using the Inclusion of the Other in the Self Scale)and how they evaluated the level on 10 dimensions of interpersonal characters of the five relationships.Results showed that,both the level of the overlap and 8 dimensions of interpersonal characters increased as the relation between the individual and the other person got closer,in an order as:mother>sibling>friend>neighbor>stranger.But the order of scores on the dimension of utilitarian was reversed.The results verified the prediction on differential of five interpersonal relationships,which also supported the design of research materials in the following studies.Study la and study lb examined whether differential of interpersonal relationships had an impact on the third-party moral judgment on favoritism in the situation of resource acquisition and resource loss.The results indicated that,in the situation of resource acquisition,as the interpersonal relationships between the distributor and the favored one getting closer,the third-party moral judgment on favoritism first decreased and then increased,while in the situation of resource loss,the third-party judgment increased with relational closeness of the distributor and the favored one.Study 2 explored whether the individual traditionality and individual modernity moderated the relationship between differential of interpersonal relationships and third-party moral judgments on favoritism in both resource-acquisition and resource-loss situations.Participants were asked to make moral judgment on the hypothetical situations in which a distributor showed favoritism in the dictator game toward his friend or sister.Results showed that favoritism was rated as less moral compared to fair distributions,but more moral if the distributor showed favoritism toward his sister rather than his friend in the resource-loss situations,not the resource-acquisition situations.Moreover,participants of lower traditional ity tended to make harsher judgments when the relation between the distributor and the beneficiary got closer in the resource-acquisition situations whereas participants of lower modernity made less harsh judgment when the relation between the distributor and the beneficiary got closer in the resource-loss situations.Study 3 examined the mediating role of perceived responsibility in the relation between differential of interpersonal relationships and third-party moral judgments on favoritism in the resource-loss situations.The results supported the hypothesis that,as the relationship between the actor and the favored person got closer,the actor would be perceived as more responsible for the favored one,and thus the favoritism was judged as more moral if the actor showed favoritism toward his mother or friends,attributed to trying to protect them from harm or loss.Overall,these studies have provided the preliminary evidence that people make different moral judgments on favoritism in the resource-acquisition and resource-loss situations,such that in the resource-acquisition situations,third-party judgment become harsher as the relationship between the actor and the favored person got closer(except in the case when the actor showed favoritism toward his mother),while in the resource-loss situations,favoritism was rated as more acceptable as the relationship between the actor and the favored person got closer.Additionally,individual traditionality and individual modernity moderated those associations,and increased perceived responsibility of the actor for his mother or friends explained better third-party judgment on favoritism toward closer relationships of the individual who practiced favoritism and the person being favored in the resource-loss situations.Significance,limitations and future directions were also discussed.