The rewarding compensatory mechanism of music enhances the sense of fairness

Zhengxian Liu; Lan Yang; Siyu Long; Junce Wang; Yajing Si; Lihui Huang; Binxin Huang; Rui Ding; Jing Lu; Dezhong Yao

doi:10.3389/fnbeh.2022.890739

The rewarding compensatory mechanism of music enhances the sense of fairness

Front Behav Neurosci. 2022 Aug 1:16:890739. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2022.890739. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Zhengxian Liu^{1

2

3}, Lan Yang⁴, Siyu Long^{1

2}, Junce Wang^{1

2}, Yajing Si^{1

5}, Lihui Huang⁶, Binxin Huang^{1

2}, Rui Ding^{1

2}, Jing Lu^{1

2}, Dezhong Yao^{1

2

7

8}

Affiliations

¹ The Clinical Hospital of Chengdu Brain Science Institute, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China.
² Center for Information in Medicine, School of Life Sciences and Technology, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China.
³ Faculty of Education, Southwest University, Chongqing, China.
⁴ College of International Education, Sichuan International Studies University, Chongqing, China.
⁵ School of Psychology, Xinxiang Medical University, Xinxiang, China.
⁶ Institute of Brain and Psychological Sciences, Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu, China.
⁷ Research Unit of NeuroInformation, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Chengdu, China.
⁸ School of Electrical Engineering, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China.

Abstract

Whether music can influence moral judgment is controversial in the aesthetics and philosophy of music. Aesthetic Autonomy pointed out that music had a morally educational function because of its lyrics or a particular context. The key to resolving the divergence is to select absolute music without lyrics or specific context as the eliciting material. In this study, 84 participants were recruited and randomly divided into three groups to complete the Ultimatum Game (UG) after listening to different stimuli: absolute music, white noise, and no sound. Behavioral results indicated that the participants' acceptance of unfair offers was significantly lower in the music group. Also, participants in the music group have a shorter reaction time for rejecting an unfair offer than other unfair conditions. However, ERP comparison showed no significant difference in medial frontal negativity (MFN) amplitude, which reflects fairness levels, between the music group and the no sound group for either accepting or rejecting the moderately unfair offer. Brain network analyses revealed that participants in the music group showed stronger activation of rewarding circuits, including the ventral striatum, during the decision-making process of rejecting unfair offers, before the decision especially, compared to the no sound group. These results suggest that absolute music can influence fair decision-making. The reward activated by music compensates participants vicariously for the reward they receive for choosing self-interest in an unfair offer, participants no longer have to choose between self-interest and fairness norms, so the participants reject the unfair offer due to the negative emotions induced by the unfair offer.

Keywords: brain network; fair; moral judgment; music; ultimatum game.