Interpersonal conflicts in reward allocation and their resolution

Abstract

Subjects performed a task in pairs and received false feedback concerning their performance levels. The performance level of one subject (HS) was set twice as high as the other (LS). It was predicted that (1) when the total rewards to be distributed between the two are dependent upon the sum of their performance scores, HS’s and LS’s equity judgments would agree with each other, but (2) when the total rewards are predetermined and not dependent upon their performance scores, HS would think that he/she deserves more than half of the rewards while LS would think that he/she deserves about half of the rewards. It was further predicted that the compromise between the two concerning reward distribution would be easier when accepting the partner’s claim still yields referentially fair rewards to the subject than not. These predictions were supported in an experiment using 144 subjects in 72 same-sex pairs. © 1987, The Japanese Psychological Association. All rights reserved.