Abstract
The objective of the present study was to investigate distributive judgments in hypothetical situations involving productive activities. The participants should divide produced cupcakes between two story characters. One of the characters was the participant him/herself. Three factors were analyzed: (1) mode of production: cooperative with the help of one person or alone using someone else’s means of production; (2) purpose of production: sale or picnic; and (3) participants’ perspective: give the cupcakes to or take from the other character. Their confidence on each judgment and how easily they made their judgments were other aspects analyzed. The sample consisted of 156 university students. The results showed that the three factors influenced the participants’ distributive judgment, and mode of production had the most significant influence. These results were discussed based on recent research on cooperative behavior and cognitive mechanisms that affect the decision-making process in situations involving distributive justice.
Keywords
Cooperation; Decision making; Distributive justice; Ownership
