We often have to make judgments about what is fair. Parents try to treat their children
fairly. Employers keep their employees
happy by making everyone feel like the work setting is fair. Educators have to create a system of grading
that is seen as fair.
What qualifies as fair in each of these situations may be
different, of course. Children often see
fairness as equal treatment. If one
child gets a larger slice of cake than another, then you can almost guarantee cries
of “That’s not fair!” In a work setting,
though, we don’t expect everyone to be paid the same amount. Instead, it seems fair if each person is paid
in proportion to their effort or their value to the company.
A fascinating paper in the December, 2011 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
by Shoham Choshen-Hillel and Ilan Yaniv explores another factor that influences
judgments of fairness—who is in charge.
When psychologists talk about whether someone is in control
of their situation, they talk about agency. A person with high agency controls their
destiny. A person with low agency is at
the mercy of others for their situation.
The research in this paper demonstrates that when people
have a low degree of control over their situation, they tend to favor equal
divisions of resources. When they have a
high degree of control, they tend to favor options that give the best possible
outcome for everyone concerned, even if they don’t benefit as much as others
do.
In one study, they had participants perform a task in which
they had to estimate the prices of a variety of products. It took about 10 minutes to complete the
task, at which point the participants were paid about $3 for their time. (The study was done in Israel, so participants actually
received 10 Israeli shekels.)
Participants were then told that another person was also
going to do the same task. Those in the
low agency version of the study were then asked whether they would be more
satisfied if the other participant received the same amount of money for
completing the task (10 shekels) or more money for completing the task (20
shekels). People were about evenly split
between the two options. That is, about
half the people wanted the other person to get the same amount of money as they
did, while the other half would be happiest if the other person actually got
paid more than they did.
Participants in the high agency version of the study were
told that they could decide whether the other person doing the task would get
the same amount of money (10 shekels) or more (20 shekels). In this case, over 80% of the people in the
study said that the other person should get more. That is, when people had control, they wanted
the outcome that would give the most combined benefit.
In another version of the study, the researchers found that
high agency even led people to pick options that gave the greatest combined
benefit when it would leave them with a lower payment overall. In this study, one option was that the
participant would get 11 shekels, while the other person would get 10. The second option was that the participant
would get 10 shekels (less money), but the other person would get 20.
Participants who had no control over this situation
generally preferred the option where they got slightly more money than the
other person. Those who could control
the payment, though, generally preferred the option where they got less money,
but the pair got more money overall.
This is a fascinating finding. It suggests that when a group wants to
maximize its overall gain, it is important to give everyone some control over
how resources are allocated. In this
case, people will be most likely to accept an outcome that benefits the group
most, even if they themselves don’t get as much of the pie as others do.
Of course, it will be important to see how well these
findings extend to more real-world situations with higher stakes. After all, in these studies people were being
paid between $3 and $6. People might
feel differently if the sums of money were larger.
