Equity and Reciprocity Motivations as a Function of the Intentionality of Underpayment

Summary

Previous tests of a two-process model positing additive equity and reciprocity motivations were only partially supportive. Specifically, although intentionally overrewarded subjects more frequently returned portions of the reward than unintentionally overrewarded subjects, intentionally and unintentionally underrewarded subjects demanded a larger share of reward with equal frequency. In contrast to previous studies, the present study tested the previously unsupported portion of the model in a situation in which the most obvious mode of inequity reduction was the subjects' (N = 20) manipulation of performance inputs. As expected, the task performance of intentionally underrewarded subjects was lower than that of unintentionally underrewarded subjects, although self report data failed to corroborate the two-process explanation. An alternative model is proposed which requires a modification of the equity formula, but avoids positing an additive reciprocity motivation.