Equity with the World: The Trans-Relational Effects of Equity and Inequity

Abstract

Traditional equity theory assumes that individuals attempt to maintain Person-specific Equity. Austin (1974) proposes that individuals are also concerned about the amount of net equity they receive across relationships, and that people try to maintain both Person-specific and Equity with the World (i.e., equity across several relationships). On this basis, we hypothesized that individuals sometimes will sacrifice Person-specific in order to achieve Equity with the World. Situation 1, subjects were overrewarded, equitably rewarded, or underrewarded, relative to their partner. Both underand overrewarded subjects thought their reward was more unfair and felt more distressed than did equitably rewarded Ss. In Situation 2, Ss were given a chance to distribute rewards between themselves and a second partner. As predicted, underrewarded subjects showed a strong tendency to sacrifice person-specific equity in order to maintain equity with both partners; overrewarded subjects showed a weaker tendency to sacrifice personspecific equity by giving their partner more than she deserved; and subjects were likely to sacrifice person-specific equity in order to maintain trans-relational equity only when their second partner could not hold them accountable.