{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,13]],"date-time":"2026-07-13T09:06:21Z","timestamp":1783933581513,"version":"3.55.0"},"reference-count":39,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"7","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,13]],"date-time":"2026-07-13T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1783900800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Behavioral Sciences"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Fair decision-making is a critical topic in social psychology, yet the conditions under which visual social-presence cues influence fairness remain unclear. Using two online Ultimatum Game studies, the present research examined whether eye cues affect proposers\u2019 allocation behavior and responders\u2019 rejection behavior, and whether dispositional or state public self-awareness serves as a boundary condition. Study 1 adopted a three-factor design covering cue type, dispositional public self-awareness and repeated decision rounds. No consistent cue-related tendency appeared for proposers\u2019 average resource offers, exact equal split choices or responders\u2019 unequal offer rejection. Trait public self-awareness, decision round, and the interaction between each pair of variables showed no meaningful influence on all measured fairness indicators. Study 2 adopted a two-factor design with cue type and experimentally induced state public self-awareness. Among all fairness indicators, only a weak tendency for equal allocation choices differed between cue groups, and this trend went against mainstream predictions of prosocial observation effects. No consistent cue-related tendency existed for average allocation or responders\u2019 rejection choices, and state public self-awareness did not interact with cue type to shape participants\u2019 decisions. Taken together, the whole set of observations shows little consistent support for the watching-eyes effect in online Ultimatum Game contexts.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/bs16071177","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,13]],"date-time":"2026-07-13T08:05:31Z","timestamp":1783929931000},"page":"1177","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Revisiting the Watching-Eyes Effect in the Ultimatum Game: The Role of Public Self-Awareness"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"16","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9590-8422","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jieyu","family":"Lv","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology, School of Sociology and Psychology, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing 100081, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jinghan","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology, School of Sociology and Psychology, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing 100081, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Chujian","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Psychology, School of Sociology and Psychology, Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing 100081, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yingjun","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Mental Health Education and Counseling Center, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,13]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"146","DOI":"10.1016\/j.evolhumbehav.2012.12.001","article-title":"On the social nature of eyes: The effect of social cues in interaction and individual choice tasks","volume":"34","author":"Baillon","year":"2013","journal-title":"Evolution and Human Behavior"},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Bateson, M., Callow, L., Holmes, J. 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