Evidence map›Paper›PMID 31034055›Full record

ArticleSocial cognitive and affective neuroscience2019

Born for fairness: evidence of genetic contribution to a neural basis of fairness intuition.

Yun Wang, Dang Zheng, Jie Chen, Li-Lin Rao, Shu Li, Yuan Zhou

Open access · goldAbstract readTwin Study
In one paragraph

Article in Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
0.4field-weighted citation impact, top 32% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed, 9 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
  2. Substantial Heritability Underlies Fairness Norm Adaptation Capability and its Neural Basis.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.

Yun WangCAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Beijing, China.
Dang ZhengCAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Beijing, China.
Jie ChenDepartment of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Li-Lin RaoCAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Beijing, China.
Shu LiCAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Beijing, China.
Yuan ZhouCAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Beijing, China.
Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences · CNUniversity of Chinese Academy of Sciences · CNBeijing Anding Hospital · CN

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Human beings often curb self-interest to develop and enforce social norms, such as fairness, as exemplified in the ultimatum game (UG). Inspired by the dual-system account for the responder's choice during the UG, we investigated whether the neural basis of psychological process induced by fairness is under genetic control using a twin fMRI study (62 monozygotic, 48 dizygotic; mean age: 19.32 ± 1.38 years). We found a moderate genetic contribution to the rejection rate of unfair proposals (24%-35%), independent of stake size or proposer type, during the UG. Using a voxel-level analysis, we found that genetic factors moderately contributed to unfairness-evoked activation in the bilateral anterior insula (AI), regions representing the intuition of fairness norm violations (mean heritability: left 37%, right 40%). No genetic contributions were found in regions related to deliberate, controlled processes in the UG. This study provides the first evidence that evoked brain activity by unfairness in the bilateral AI is influenced by genes and sheds light on the genetic basis of brain processes underlying costly punishment.

Indexed as

Social NormsAdolescentBrain MappingFemaleGames, ExperimentalHumansIntuitionMagnetic Resonance ImagingMaleModels, GeneticYoung AdultfMRIheritabilitysocial normtwin studyultimatum game

Identifiers

PMID31034055
PMCPMC6545531
OpenAlexW2943755641

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY-NC-ND
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.