Self-serving bias in fairness perception: Allowing allocators to allocate unfairly

In resource-allocation situations, the allocators often make advantageous unfair allocations intentionally, which may threaten their moral self. We propose that allocators self-servingly interpret these allocations as less unfair, which potentially lessens threat to their moral self, allowing them allocate unfairly. In a hypothetical dictator game (Experiment 1, 3 and 4), a real dictator game (Experiment 2 and 5) and a hypothetical ultimatum game (Experiment 3), we compared the fairness perceptions of allocators with those of recipients (Experiment 1 and 2) and a control group (Experiment 3 and 4), both before (Experiment 1–4) and after (Experiment 5) the allocations. The studies consistently found that the allocators perceived the possible advantageous unfair allocations as less unfair, and these fairness perceptions further predicted their allocations. We highlight the psychological mechanism, specifically the self-serving bias in fairness perception that may lessen the anticipated threat to the allocators’ moral self, allowing them to allocate unfairly.