Daemullim: Empirical Evidence for Negative Pay-It-Forward Reciprocity in Hierarchical Situations

Abstract Fairness is one of fundamental norms in human society, where people expect others to be reciprocally fair. When people are treated unfairly, they tend to reciprocate unfairness directly. Moreover, unfairness may spread beyond the person directly involved, and affect innocent individuals, which is known as pay-it-forward (PIF) reciprocity. In this study, we examined the impact of unfair treatment on subsequent interactions with new partners whose rankings were superior, equivalent, or inferior compared to the participant. Participants (N = 47) were randomly assigned to receive either fair or unfair treatment in the first round of dictator game. They were then given the opportunity to distribute money to partners occupying different hierarchies. We investigated whether the degree of unfairness passed on to the new partners depended on their ranking. The results demonstrated that the participants’ decision was strongly influenced by the distribution made by the prior partner and the posterior partner’s hierarchy. The findings revealed that participants were more generous toward partners with higher social status, even if they had been treated unfairly, while they were more ruthless toward partners with lower social status in the same situation. These findings provide evidence for negative PIF reciprocity in hierarchical situations.