Change the People or Change the Rules? Preferences for Punishment Following Unfairness

Psychological research often frames causal attributions as mutually exclusive. In four studies using modified Dictator Games, we find that people prefer blended explanations and use these explanations in their sanctioning decisions. In Studies 1 (N = 500) and 2, (N = 470, census-matched in the U.S), we found that people were willing to change the rules for an unfair game (vs. punished individuals), when they were randomly assigned a bad system (vs. bad actor) explanation for identical unfair offers. However, people preferred to explain unfairness as the result of both a bad actor and bad system, and preferred to enact system-level change, even after they had already punished the Allocator (Study 3, N = 404), or when the outcome was uncertain (Study 4, N = 401). This research challenges the assumption that sanctioning decisions reflect single attributional preferences and that addressing one source of unfairness satiates punishment motives.