Research on justice in social exchange distinguishes between fairness as a goal and
fairness as an interpersonal influence strategy. Strategic fairness is considered to be
epiphenomenal and explainable by more basic motives, most notably, self-interest; fairness
as a goal is based only on Lerner’s (1982) model. Recent findings contribute to a new
model which specifies that allocators of resources use fairness strategically while recipients
treat justice as a goal by reacting to perceived injustice. This dissertation presents the model
along with an experimental test of its predictions, which also addresses an ongoing debate
in experimental economics on the role of fairness in ultimatum and dictator games.
The experiment was designed to distinguish between fairness as an interpersonal
strategy and fairness as a goal. Participants moved from allocator to recipient roles in
various experimental conditions that varied their information and interdependence.
Results show that ultimatum offerers made smaller offers when respondents knew
how much they were dividing and larger offers when fairness was salient. Dictators made
smaller offers than ultimatum offerers, but did not reduce their offers as much as ultimatum
offerers when the respondent did not know how much was being divided. They appeared
unaffected by the salience of fairness. Respondents rejected more small offers than large
ones and more offers when they knew the amount being divided. The rejection rates of
ultimatum and dictator offers did not vary. The results show substantive support for the idea
that justice motives are role specific. Unexpected findings led to modifications of the model
with respect to the interdependence of the actors.
The results are discussed in terms of their implications for the study of justice in
general and for the specific case of fairness concerns in bargaining games. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/7582 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Pillutla, Madan Mohan |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Format | 4452150 bytes, application/pdf |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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