Children are notoriously inequity averse: they tend to respond negatively when someone else receives more than them for the same work. Here we suggest that children's inequity aversion is more nuanced than it might appear at first glance. Specifically, we argue that children's negative reaction to inequity is powerfully shaped by a simple factor: whether or not they have a sense of agency in creating the outcomes in question. We hypothesize that a sense of agency, or control over the resource allocation, reduces children's inequity aversion and increases their satisfaction with another child receiving more than them. In two experiments (N = 417) utilizing a within-subject design, children aged 4 to 10 years old were asked to rate their satisfaction with an allocation in which another child received more than them. In one condition they were the ones choosing the allocation (“agency condition”), whereas in another condition they could not affect the allocation (“no-agency condition”). In line with our hypothesis, children reported being more satisfied with disadvantageous inequity when they had agency than when they did not (Experiment 1). They were also more satisfied with a disadvantageous allocation when they had agency than when the same allocation was created using an impartial lottery (Experiment 2). The agency effect did not depend on age. Taken together, our findings suggest a degree of sophistication in children's reactions to inequity and provide a practical allocation tool that can be used by parents and educators.

Can deliberation increase charitable giving when giving is impulsive (i.e., a onetime small gift in response to an immediate appeal)? We conduct two studies in Israel
and Sweden to compare two forms of deliberation, unguided and guided, in their ability to decrease the singularity effect (i.e., giving more to one than many victims), often
evident in impulsive giving. Under unguided deliberation, participants were instructed to simply think hard before making a donation decision whereas participants in the
guided deliberation condition were asked to think how much different prespecified decision attributes should influence their decision. We find that both types of deliberation
reduce the singularity effect, as people no longer value the single victim higher than the group of victims.

Importantly, this is driven by donations being decreased under deliberation only to the single victim, but not the group of victims. Thus, deliberation affects donations negatively by overshadowing the affective response, especially in situations in which affect is greatest (i.e., to a single victim). Last, the results show that neither type of deliberation significantly reversed the singularity effect, as people did not help the group significantly more than the single victim. This means that deliberate thinking decreased the overall willingness to help, leading to a lower overall valuation of people in need.

Keywords: charity, singularity effect, deliberation, affect, identified victim

When allocating resources, people often have to resolve a conflict between equity and efficiency concerns. That is, sometimes for everyone to receive the same amount of resources, some resources must be used suboptimally. However, it is unclear whether and how people account for the impact their allocation decisions would have on the recipients' outcome. In three experiments, we examine how the amount of resources allocated to the recipients influences allocators' decisions and use mouse tracking techniques to assess their conflict during the decision process. The results reveal that when an equitable allocation of resources led to neither recipients receiving anything nor imposed losses, people tended to prefer efficient allocations. Such allocations between recipients who may end up with no resources also evoke a greater conflict compared with allocations in which both recipients have some secured gains, suggesting that, in general, people want to be equitable but not when equity means that nobody gets anything. When maintaining equity can only be done by leaving recipients with no resources at all, equitable allocations evoke a greater conflict, and people are more likely to refrain from them.

Promotion deals and price reductions are common strategies retailers use to attract consumers. We investigate which of two common types of deals better captures consumers' attention. By tracing eye movements, we examine participants' attention allocation when deciding between “buy-one-get-one free” (BOGO) deals versus deals that offer an equivalent price reduction. Results show that people prefer BOGO deals, and they tend to choose them over price reductions even when the deals are equal in terms of net value. The preference is amplified when the discount is relatively high: In these cases, BOGO deals attract more attention than percentage deals. Overall, our findings can help retailers develop promotional strategies to capture potential consumers' attention in online commerce. At the same time, our results warn consumers to better evaluate their options and not be lured by the first BOGO deal that captures their attention, as it might not be the best deal available.

In ambiguous settings, people are tempted to make self-serving mistakes. Here, we assess whether people make more self-serving mistakes to minimize losses compared with maximize gains. Results reveal that participants are twice as likely to make self-serving mistakes to reduce losses compared to increase gains. We further trace participants' eye movements to gain insight into the process underlying self-serving mistakes in losses and gains. We find that tempting, self-serving information does not capture more attention in loss, compared to gain framing. Rather, in loss framing, people are more likely to report the tempting, self-serving information they observed. The results imply that rather than diverting attention away from tempting information, reducing people's motivation to make self-serving mistakes, and framing goals as gains rather than losses are promising ways to decrease the occurrence of self-serving mistakes. In turn, this fosters environments with more accuracy and fewer motivated mistakes.

Equity, or the idea that one should be compensated according to one’s respective contribution, is a fundamental principle for resource allocation. People tend to endorse equity in a wide range of contexts, from interpersonal relationships to public policy. However, at times, equity might come at the expense of efficiency. What do people do when they must waste resources to maintain equity? In this chapter, we adopt a behavioral perspective on such equity–efficiency trade-offs, reviewing the relevant findings from the social psychology, judgment and decision-making and behavioral economics literature. We show that whereas allocators will often choose to waste in the name of equity, this is not necessarily the case. We review various psychological aspects that affect the allocators’ decision.

When allocating resources, equity and efficiency may conflict. When resources are scarce and cannot be distributed equally, one may choose to destroy resources and reduce societal welfare to maintain equity among its members. We examined whether people are averse to inequitable outcomes per se or to being responsible for deciding how inequity should be implemented. Three scenario-based experiments and one incentivized experiment revealed that participants are inequity responsibility averse: when asked to decide which of the 2 equally deserving individuals should receive a reward, they rather discarded the reward than choosing who will get it. This tendency diminished significantly when participants had the possibility to use a random device to allocate the reward. The finding suggests that it is more difficult to be responsible for the way inequity is implemented than to create inequity per se.

To some extent, unethical behavior results from people’s limited attention to ethical considerations, which results in an ethical blind spot. Here, we focus on the role of ambiguity in shaping people’s ethical blind spots, which in turn lead to their ethical failures. We suggest that in ambiguous settings, individuals’ attention shifts toward tempting information, which determines the magnitude of their lies. Employing a novel ambiguous-dice paradigm, we asked participants to report the outcome of the die roll appearing closest to the location of a previously presented fixation cross on a computer screen; this outcome would determine their pay. We varied the value of the die second closest to the fixation cross to be either higher (i.e., tempting) or lower (i.e., not tempting) than the die closest to the fixation cross. Results of two experiments revealed that in ambiguous settings, people’s incorrect responses were self-serving. Tracking participants’ eye movements demonstrated that people’s ethical blind spots are shaped by increased attention toward tempting information.