Does One Good Deserve Another? A Study Of Third-Party Compensation And Its Neural Mechanism

Since the"Peng Yu Case"in 2006,new vesion of"the Farmer and the Viper"story had been reported widely,sparking a wave of discussion,and has attracted the attention of multidisciplinary scholars such as sociology,ethics,and psychology.But at both the legal and moral levels,people tend to condemn or punish the?viper?–the offender,but rarely praise or compensate the?farmer?,who is good but betrayed.The results of searching research are similar.There is very little research on third-party compensation,and in the previous research of the third-party compensation,the object of compensation is mostly the palyer B who has no right in the dictator game?DG?.However,there is little research about compensating victim who chooses to cooperate but is betrayed.Study 1 focuses on this issue,and the target of compensation is the player A who chooses trust but does not get a return in the trust game?TG?.The aim of study is to explore whether the third party will compensate the victim who is good but betrayed.We combined trust game and dictator game.First,participants as the third party watched a trust game between player A and player B.Then,participants played the dictator game with player A and player B respectively.In the dictator game,the participant proposes an allocation of?10 between him/her and player A or player B.We manipulated the decisions and results in the trust game which player A/B participated before?no information,disturst,trust but no return,trust and return?and used the allocation that participants gave play A/B in the dictator game as a dependent variable.In order to distinguish between third-party compensation and third-party rewards,that is,to exclude the interference of the participants reward good deed of player A,the third-party compensation is defined as the allocation that participants gave palyer A in the trust but no return condition is significantly higher than that in the trust and return condition.The results showed that the amount that participants gave palyer A in the trust but no return condition is significantly more than that in the trust and return condition.Therefore,people are willing to compensate victim when seeing the victim who has good deeds was betrayed.Study 2 further explores the neural mechanisms behind third-party compensation.We measured empathy and the sense of justice by scales and tasks:using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index?IRI?and the imaginary task to measure empathy;using the Justice Sensitivity Scales?JSS?and third-party punishment to measure the sense of justice.The results of behavioral research show that:1)the allocation that participants gave palyer A in the trust but no return condition was significantly higher than that in the trust and return condition;2)the difference of allocation that participants gave palyer A in the trust but no return condition minus that in the trust and return condition was positively correlated with the fantasy of IRI and perpetrator sensitivity of JSS;3)the punishment for dictator was was positively correlated with perpetrator sensitivity of JSS;4)participants who cost more to punish dictator will compensate victim in the third-party compensation task,but there was no the same results when participants who cost less to punish dictator allocated money.The brain imaging results showed that:1)third-party compensation?when giving money to player A,trust but no return>trust and return?significantly activated the activation of dlPFC,vmPFC,precuneus and fusiform;2)the higher score of the perpetrator sensitivity,the activation of the caudate is more significant when player A lost money due to the violation of the player B?trust but no return>trust and return?;3)the third-party compensation?when giving money to player A,trust but no return>trust and return?and the imaginary?the imaginary phase>the phrase presentation phase?activated the region related to the motion representation and mirroring system.This means that participants were able to feel the same as the victim when they saw someone who had good deed but was betrayed.However,no more direct evidence has been found that third-party compensation is driven by empathy.4)the precuneus and supplyment motor area?SMA?were activated when watching the interaction between player A and player B in third-party compensation task?trust but no return>trust and return?or wathcing player A's decision in the third-party punishment task?takeall+unfair>fair?;5)the third-party compensation?when giving money to player A,trust but no return>trust and return?and the punish phase in in the third-party punishment task(punishment_{?takeall+unfair?}>punishment_?fair?)activate the temporoparietal junction?TPJ?and precuneus;6)the third-party compensation?when giving money to player A,trust but no return>trust and return?and the punishing?punishing>not punishing?activated the temporoparietal junction?TPJ?,the inferior frontal gyrus and precuneus.Combined with research on social utility which found that people who are more concerned about unfair differences are more likely to be activated TPJ and precuneus when they face with unfair distribution,third-party compensation and third-party punishment stem from the hope of maintaining fairness.To sum up,the study concludes that when seeing a good person is betrayed,people are willing to compensate him/her.People more worried they would be unfair to others,more willing to compensate the victim when they are third party.People who are willing to pay a high cost to punish dictator are also more likely to compensate persons who had good deed but were betrayed.The brain regions associated with the motion representation and mirroring system are activated during third-party compensation.Third-party compensation and third-party penalties both activated the brain regions related to theory of mind.Combined with the results of relevant research on social utility,third-party compensation is driven by a sense of justice to maintain fairness.