Commentary: Fairness is intuitive

Kristian Ove Myrseth; Conny  Wollbrant

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00654

Commentary: Fairness is intuitive

Kristian Ove Myrseth, Conny Wollbrant

Centre for Responsible Banking and Finance

Research output: Contribution to journal › Comment/debate › peer-review

Abstract

Cappelen et al. (2015) show that ‘fair’ decisions are quicker than are ‘selfish’ decisions. On this basis, they infer that fairness is ‘intuitive’. We argue that they commit a reverse inference fallacy. One might argue reasonably that, ceteris paribus,intuitive response is faster than deliberative decision—but one may not infer that the faster decision is the more intuitive. We note that fair decisions in their study took on average 38.4 seconds, whereas selfish decisions took 48.5. The decisions were mostly slow, and they do not allow us to discriminate a reflexive response from a consciously controlled decision.

Original language	English
Article number	00654
Number of pages	2
Journal	Frontiers in Psychology
Volume	7
Early online date	19 Apr 2016
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00654
Publication status	Published - 9 May 2016

Keywords

Fairness
Self-control
Intuition

Access to Document

10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00654Licence: CC BY

Myrseth_2016_Comment_FrontiersinPsych_CCBY-FinalPublishedVersion
© 2016 Myrseth and Wollbrant. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Final published version, 77.3 KBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

@article{6cad014a747547c2b707b20a8c15f64c,

title = "Commentary: Fairness is intuitive",

abstract = "Cappelen et al. (2015) show that {\textquoteleft}fair{\textquoteright} decisions are quicker than are {\textquoteleft}selfish{\textquoteright} decisions. On this basis, they infer that fairness is {\textquoteleft}intuitive{\textquoteright}. We argue that they commit a reverse inference fallacy. One might argue reasonably that, ceteris paribus,intuitive response is faster than deliberative decision—but one may not infer that the faster decision is the more intuitive. We note that fair decisions in their study took on average 38.4 seconds, whereas selfish decisions took 48.5. The decisions were mostly slow, and they do not allow us to discriminate a reflexive response from a consciously controlled decision.",

keywords = "Fairness, Self-control, Intuition",

author = "Myrseth, {Kristian Ove} and Conny Wollbrant",

year = "2016",

month = may,

day = "9",

doi = "10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00654",

language = "English",

volume = "7",

journal = "Frontiers in Psychology",

issn = "1664-1078",

publisher = "Frontiers Media S. A.",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Commentary: Fairness is intuitive

AU - Myrseth, Kristian Ove

AU - Wollbrant, Conny

PY - 2016/5/9

Y1 - 2016/5/9

N2 - Cappelen et al. (2015) show that ‘fair’ decisions are quicker than are ‘selfish’ decisions. On this basis, they infer that fairness is ‘intuitive’. We argue that they commit a reverse inference fallacy. One might argue reasonably that, ceteris paribus,intuitive response is faster than deliberative decision—but one may not infer that the faster decision is the more intuitive. We note that fair decisions in their study took on average 38.4 seconds, whereas selfish decisions took 48.5. The decisions were mostly slow, and they do not allow us to discriminate a reflexive response from a consciously controlled decision.

AB - Cappelen et al. (2015) show that ‘fair’ decisions are quicker than are ‘selfish’ decisions. On this basis, they infer that fairness is ‘intuitive’. We argue that they commit a reverse inference fallacy. One might argue reasonably that, ceteris paribus,intuitive response is faster than deliberative decision—but one may not infer that the faster decision is the more intuitive. We note that fair decisions in their study took on average 38.4 seconds, whereas selfish decisions took 48.5. The decisions were mostly slow, and they do not allow us to discriminate a reflexive response from a consciously controlled decision.

KW - Fairness

KW - Self-control

KW - Intuition

U2 - 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00654

DO - 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00654

M3 - Comment/debate

SN - 1664-1078

VL - 7

JO - Frontiers in Psychology

JF - Frontiers in Psychology

M1 - 00654

ER -

Commentary: Fairness is intuitive

Abstract

Keywords

Access to Document

Fingerprint

Cite this