Observing others give & take: A computational account of bystanders’ feelings and actions
Fig 1
Participants observed what they were led to believe were other participants’ resource allocation decisions. On each trial, the Experimenter gave a financial endowment (£1 to £15, step size = £1) to Player B. Experiment 1 (A): Player A, the allocator, could then take a portion of this money for themselves (10% to 100%, step size = 10%). In blocks 2 and 4 participants rated how they felt about the allocator’s decision. In all blocks, participants decided if and by how much to punish the allocator. In blocks 2 and 4 participants subsequently rated how they felt about their punishment decision. Experiment 2 (B): Player B was the allocator and could share a portion of their money with Player A (0% to 90%, step size = 10%). In blocks 1 and 3 participants rated how they felt about the allocator’s decision. In blocks 2 and 4 participants decided if and by how much to punish the allocator and then rated how they felt about their punishment decision.