The illusions of the brain. Why justice is incompatible with logic

Take what they give. Humble yourself. You have no other choice. Or you get nothing. Have you ever heard these words in life?

What is justice? What role does it play in human behavior, how does it regulate social relations, is it an evolutionary advantage? Why, in some cases, do people show irrational behavior by refusing direct benefits?

This human quality - a sense of justice - has repeatedly been tried by scholars. Historically, in such experiments , an ultimatum game , a kind of “bargain game” (or bargaining games) is used. The ultimatum game assumes that one of the players is limited in the set of possible offers. He is given only one choice. And he is free to agree with this choice or reject it. As a result, the game has only two outcomes.

In the study of human behavior, including justice, traditionally use the game ultimatum for money. In this case, one player receives a certain amount as a gift (for example, $ 100) and must share this money with the second player (for example, keep $ 70 and give $ 30). The second player can accept the offer (the money will be divided in the proposed proportion) or reject it (both will not receive anything).
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Experiments have shown that in gambling games, most players reject too low “unfair” amount offers. This happens even to the detriment of its own benefit. That is, people often refuse money in general - if only the second player does not receive an unfairly large share of the total money. See the comment on GT from the participant in the experiment Zigfrid_n , which perfectly explains the motivation of the players.


Rejection of a smaller amount - this behavior is completely irrational. The player will have no chance of re-dividing the money. He will not be able to return the amount he refused. Suppose that a certain number X is greater than zero. In this case, the zero will always be less than X, no matter how small X. What can be incomprehensible here? This is completely logical. The most amazing thing is that such a simple basic logic $$$0 <X$it is understandable even for great apes like chimpanzees. They always agree to a deal when they are offered to get a portion of the food while dividing the total heap. See the article on the absolute rationality of chimpanzee behavior .

Any part of the meal is better than nothing. Chimpanzees understand this, but people do not.


A chimpanzee named Ayumu undergoes a memory test at the Institute of Primate Studies of Kyoto University (Japan)

The striking irrationality of human behavior, which is commonly associated with higher abstract thinking and such a concept as "honesty", attracts the attention of scientists.

So, the fact of having a sense of justice is scientifically established. But what does it mean in practice? Is this a purely abstract concept, a certain “defect” of human logic - or a socially significant phenomenon?

Scientists went further, and in 2012 another series of experiments was conducted, the continuation of the classic game of ultimatum with the section of the amount of money. Only here, instead of money, people were offered water. As scientists have recently found out, water makes a person have a natural desire to receive it, just as the physical presence of a product increases the desire to pay for it (see the article “ Pavlov 's processes in consumer behavior of a person ”).

This experiment was supplemented by another, in which the test subjects were artificially thirsty. This usually requires deprivation of fluid for 24 hours under the supervision of experimenters or prolonged physical exercises in the heat, which is usually done in military experiments when studying the change in mental abilities during dehydration and other effects.

In this case, the subjects injected intravenously with a hypertonic solution of NaCl (saline was injected in the control group) to induce strong thirst.

Scientists wanted to test how the objective physiological needs of a person influence the supposed motivation for justice. It has long been known that physiological needs, such as severe hunger, greatly enhance egoistic behavior (by the way, this partly explains the behavior of chimpanzees in the ultimatum game).

Experience has shown that in the presence of strong thirst, the choice of a person really changes greatly, and the sense of justice is dulled. The graph shows the subjective feeling of thirst in experimental subjects who were injected with saline (left) and those who were injected with hypertonic NaCl solution (right).



After entering the saline, people showed a standard sense of justice, as was the case with the game for money. Most refuse to accept a glass with a small amount of water that another player has cast from the total share. With induced thirst, behavior changes dramatically. Most people now even agree to take a sip of water. Thus, their behavior becomes more logical and predictable.

But the most interesting thing is that even in a state of strong thirst, a significant proportion of people (even if a minority) still refuse to accept the unfair sharing of water! This is similar to some kind of sacrifice when a person is willing to suffer, but will not tolerate injustice.

Scientists can not yet find an explanation for this unique property of (some) people as an irrational, illogical sense of justice. According to one version, this may be some imperative from childhood, nested or acquired quality. The sense of justice can be part of some kind of social strategy of altruism - a person acts in the way that benefits the whole community, not him.

Scientists note that people are not inclined to reject the wrongful section, if it does not affect the share that went to another player. In other words, a person refuses a small share only on condition that another player takes a large share.

But even in the absence of feedback, there remains a small percentage of those who refuse an unfair share - even if it doesn’t affect anything. Probably in such life can be called "incorrigible idealists." It is quite possible that the existence of such people - the victims voluntarily deprived of material benefits for the sake of idealistic principles - is somehow important for the whole of society.

In any case, the phenomenon of "irrational" sense of justice needs additional study, scientists believe.