The neural basis of perceived unfairness in economic exchanges

Human decision making in situations of inequity has long been regarded as a competition between the sense of fairness and self-interest, primarily based on behavioral and neuroimaging studies of inequity that disfavor the actor while favoring others. Here, we use functional magnetic resonance imaging experiments to study refusals and protests using both favoring and disfavoring inequity in three economic exchange games with undercompensating, nearly equal, and overcompensating offers. Refusals of undercompensating offers recruited a heightened activity in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). Accepting of overcompensating offers recruited significantly higher node activity in, and network activity among, the caudate, the cingulate cortex, and the thalamus. Protesting of undercompensating fixed offers activated the network consisting of the right dlPFC and the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and midbrain in the substantia nigra. These findings suggest that perceived fairness and social decisions are the results of coordination between evaluated fairness norms, self-interest, and reward.