Income Inequality and Self-Serving Belief in Burden-Sharing: An Experimental Study

Public goods games under asymmetric endowments have been widely discussed in the literature; however, few studies have addressed how inequality influences normative beliefs and the subsequent burden-sharing behaviors. To address this gap, we conducted two online survey experiments in both hypothetical and real-income scenarios, focusing on the mediation effects of self-serving bias and other-regarding preferences. The findings showed that while unequal endowment status induced self-serving personal beliefs and burden-sharing behaviors, it also enhanced reciprocity and offset self-serving bias in a real-income scenario. Only high-endowment status significantly influenced beliefs and behaviors. This study reveals a trade-off between self-serving bias and reciprocity in social cooperation, offering new insights for fairness beliefs.