Work

Not taking responsibility: Equity trumps efficiency in allocation decisions.

Year: 2017

Type: article

Abstract: When allocating resources, equity and efficiency may conflict. When resources are scarce and cannot be distributed equally, one may choose to destroy resources and reduce societal welfare to maintain equity among its members. We examined whether people are averse to inequitable outcomes per se or to being responsible for deciding how inequity should be implemented. Three scenario-based experiments and one incentivized experiment revealed that participants are inequity responsibility averse: when asked to decide which of the 2 equally deserving individuals should receive a reward, they rather discarded the reward than choosing who will get it. This tendency diminished significantly when participants had the possibility to use a random device to allocate the reward. The finding suggests that it is more difficult to be responsible for the way inequity is implemented than to create inequity per se. (PsycINFO Database Record

Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology General

DOI: 10.1037/xge0000273

Authors: Tom Gordon-Hecker, Daniela Rosensaft-Eshel, Andrea Pittarello, Shaul Shalvi, Yoella Bereby-Meyer

Institutions: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, University of Groningen, University of Amsterdam

Language: English

Topic: Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies

Subfield: Safety Research

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: green

Funder: Israel Science Foundation