If asked to choose between these two options, which would you pick?
(A) You will receive a $500 salary increase, and your colleague will also receive a $500 salary increase; or (B) You will receive a $600 salary increase but your colleague will receive an $800 salary increase.
Of course, the dilemma here is whether to choose more money for one's self (option B) that ultimately though yields more money to one's peer, or less money for one's self (option A) but an equal salary increase for one's peer. From a strict income maximization perspective (as has been traditionally postulated by classical economists), option B is the "rational" choice. Of course though, people have a disutility for perceived unfairness, and as such they often choose option A.
Several years ago, my former doctoral student Tripat Gill and I published a paper in Applied Economics Letters wherein we explored whether there would be any sex differences in terms of one's preference for options A or B. That said, we added a twist in that we manipulated the sex of the colleague. Accordingly, there were four possible dyads, namely male participant with male colleague, male participant with female colleague, female participant with male colleague, and female participant with female colleague. Here are the findings, as broken down for each of the four dyads (as reported in Table 1, page 532 of our paper):
MM MF FM FF
Option ($500, $500) 37.70 34.48 63.83 65.00
(23) (20) (30) (39)
Option ($600, $800) 62.30 65.52 36.17 35.00
(38) (38) (17) (21)
The main numbers represent the percentage of individuals who chose either option 1 or option 2. For example, in the MM dyad, 37.70% chose option 1 whereas 62.30% chose option 2. The numbers in parentheses correspond to the actual number of individuals who made the particular choices.
We had predicted that women would be more likely to prefer option 1 given their greater proclivity for a communal rather than agentic orientation. However, we had also thought that the sex of the colleague would have an effect on participants' choices. For example, it is plausible that same-sex dyads are more likely to trigger concerns of fairness than their mixed-sex counterparts. Recall my earlier post wherein I discussed two of our studies wherein we explored how the sex make-up within dyads affects behaviors in the ultimatum and dictator games.
As predicted, there was a statistically significant main effect for the participants' sex. Specifically, women were much more likely than men to choose the equal option (64.49% to 36.13%). Surprisingly, the sex of the colleague did not have an effect on the choices made by men and women. In other words, women consistently preferred the ($500, $500) option irrespective of whether they were pitted against a male or female colleague. Similarly, men consistently preferred the ($600, $800) irrespective of the colleague's sex.
One possible conclusion: Women place a greater premium on fairness whereas men care more about the bottom line that goes into their pocket!
Ciao for now.
Source for Image:
http://www.salary.com/graphics/sl_gtryw_1.jpg
