You use the word fair constantly, and your brain does not treat it as one thing. It treats it as four, and each one runs on different circuitry. Phil opens in a room in Prague where the standard human response to an unfair offer simply failed to show up, and that anomaly opens the whole episode.
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Inside this episode:
- The ultimatum game, designed by Werner Güth in 1982, and why people reject real money rather than accept an insult
- Alan Sanfey's 2003 fMRI study, the anterior insula, and why unfairness registers as disgust rather than disappointment
- Joseph Henrich's cross-cultural work across fifteen small-scale societies, from the Machiguenga to the Aché to the Lamalera
- Brosnan and de Waal's capuchin monkey experiment and the ancient origins of inequity aversion
- The four dimensions of organizational justice: distributive, procedural, interactional, and informational
- The fair process effect, and why a fair process buffers an unfavourable outcome
- Dulebohn's neuroimaging evidence that procedural and distributive injustice activate separate brain networks
- How each fairness dimension maps onto your protection, participation, and prediction drivers
Fair outcomes are impossible to guarantee in any organization. Fair process, respectful treatment, and honest explanation are not.
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00:00 The Prague Ultimatum Game Surprise
02:02 Welcome to Neuroscience Digest
03:16 How the Ultimatum Game Works
04:19 Unfair Offers Inside the Scanner
05:25 Why Unfairness Registers As Disgust
06:08 Cross-Cultural Fairness Across Fifteen Societies
08:09 The Capuchin Monkey Cucumber Experiment
09:29 Inequity Aversion In Chimpanzees
10:26 Four Types Of Organizational Justice
11:01 Distributive Justice And The Outcome
11:55 Procedural Justice And Fair Process
12:51 Different Brain Networks For Process
14:02 Interactional Justice And Respect
15:04 Informational Justice And Silence
15:38 Why Fair Process Buffers Bad Outcomes
16:53 Applying Fairness Inside Organizations
18:04 Mapping Fairness To Threat Drivers
19:28 The Single Most Important Takeaway
20:56 Close And Show Notes
