Scientific Definition
People sacrifice payoff to punish unfair distributions — even unfairness that benefits them produces guilt-style discomfort.
Plain-English Definition
People sacrifice payoff to punish unfair distributions — even unfairness that benefits them produces guilt-style discomfort.
Feynman Explanation
Humans will pay real money to make sure a jerk gets nothing.
Core Principle
People sacrifice payoff to punish unfair distributions — even unfairness that benefits them produces guilt-style discomfort.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
People sacrifice payoff to punish unfair distributions — even unfairness that benefits them produces guilt-style discomfort.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Comp design, customer pricing fairness, partner revenue splits.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
Humans will pay real money to make sure a jerk gets nothing.
Examples
- Ultimatum game rejections of substantial 'unfair' offers across cultures.
- Comp design, customer pricing fairness, partner revenue splits.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Audit visible ratios, not just absolute amounts. People compare.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Audit visible ratios, not just absolute amounts. People compare.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
Click any neighbor to re-center the graph and follow the threads of connection.
Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
Distaste for unequal payoffs — including when we'd benefit.
A group decides on a course of action that nobody actually wants, because everyone assumes others prefer it.
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
We attribute our own actions to situations but others' actions to their character.
We favor people who are similar to us or who like us.
Sacrificing for others without expecting a personal reward.
Masking the sponsors of a message to make it appear grassroots.
Disagreement grows more extreme as the parties think more about the issue.
Systematic errors in explaining the causes of behavior — yours or others'.
We accept vague, general statements as personally meaningful.
Adding the word 'because' (with any reason) increases compliance dramatically.
Behaviors spread through groups via observation and imitation.