Do humans naturally expect job rewards to be proportionaly to contribution and performance?

[laughing dog]

In another thread, someone postulated that

"It's pretty natural for humans to expect to get rewarded from a job in proportion to their contribution and performance."

I wonder if that is culture or economy specific or generally true. Is anyone familiar with any anthropological or sociological research on this?

 

[Bronzeage]

In another thread, someone postulated that

"It's pretty natural for humans to expect to get rewarded from a job in proportion to their contribution and performance."

I wonder if that is culture or economy specific or generally true. Is anyone familiar with any anthropological or sociological research on this?

This is observed mostly when comparing people who have the same job. The plumber who fixes more pipes, expects to make more money than the one who fixes less.

We haven't yet developed a system of thought which compares the contribution and performance of plumbers and bank vice presidents.

 

[Axulus]

Some related research on the topic, although it doesn't address the culture or economy specific aspects you were asking about:

One of the key determinants of satisfaction — or dissatisfaction — with compensation is how employees feel their pay package compares to others, according to Wharton management professor Matthew Bidwell. “No doubt if somebody thinks he or she is doing the same work as another who is paid a lot more, this leads to resentment and ultimately to disengagement.”

Wharton management professor John Paul MacDuffie cites research which suggests that employees arrive at perceptions of fairness regarding their compensation by comparing the ratio of their inputs — including, for example, their credentials, level of experience and amount of effort put into the job — to their outcomes, including such things as salary and benefits. Under this theory, employees also compare themselves to someone else, such as another person in the organization or even to themselves at an earlier stage of their career. In any case, “if the ratio is not equal, it causes a psychological strain that the employee wants to resolve,” MacDuffie says.

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/balancing-the-pay-scale-fair-vs-unfair/

Would be interesting to know if these feelings are universal or culture specific. I was unable to find anything more comprehensive.

 

[Axulus]

Found another paper that is of interest:

At this level, there are some indications of support for the hypothesis that pay fairness
judgments are less sensitive to individual performance in the more collectivistic countries. The
individual performance coefficients for the three non-Latin collectivist nations (Thailand,
Nigeria, Philipines) are smaller than the coefficients for the other nations. The pattern is not
complete, however, as the two Latin nation as classified as highly collectivistic (Peru and
Uruguay) have sizable coefficients - at least as big as the highly individualistic United States.

Less sensitive, but not absent - at least some amount appears to be natural. See the full paper here:

http://webprofesores.iese.edu/curriculums/docs/Hundley.pdf

 

[thebeave]

Even monkeys have a sense of fairness, and react harshly when they feel they're not getting treated equally:

Both of the monkeys in the video below are tasked to give a rock to the researcher. One monkey gets a better reward than the other for the same task. The results are not surprising (but highly comical).

 

[laughing dog]

From what I can tell, all of these students look at people who work in a modern society that is generally capitalist to a medium to large degree. So, of course it would be "natural" in those settings to expect pay to be proportional to performance. But that does not make it universal nor "natural" in other settings - which is what I am wondering about.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

From what I can tell, all of these students look at people who work in a modern society that is generally capitalist to a medium to large degree. So, of course it would be "natural" in those settings to expect pay to be proportional to performance. But that does not make it universal nor "natural" in other settings - which is what I am wondering about.

Since you're determined to blame this on a capitalist outlook lets look at a non-capitalist society. Namely, China during the Cultural Revolution time. The wage difference between skilled and unskilled was small--but human nature poked through: Gifts were expected to those whose salary was below what their position should command.

 

[braces_for_impact]

I'm currently reading The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt, and one of the issues it gets into is precisely what you're asking. I've not finished it yet; here is the website, which features essays, a TED talk and Jonothan as a guest on The Colbert Report. His footnotes contain a lot of links to studies by himself and others, so that may be a good place to look. From what I've seen of the book so far, the answer is yes, people do expect proportional rewards for their contributions and dislike free riders of the system, but conservatives especially so.

 

[fromderinside]

In another thread, someone postulated that

"It's pretty natural for humans to expect to get rewarded from a job in proportion to their contribution and performance."

I wonder if that is culture or economy specific or generally true. Is anyone familiar with any anthropological or sociological research on this?

Here's one take on the issue it seems.

"Evolution of responses to (un)fairness" http://www.aaron-zimmerman.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/BrosnandeWScience2014.pdf

abstract:

The human sense of fairness is an evolutionary puzzle. To study this, we can look toother species, in which this can be translated empirically into responses to rewarddistribution. Passive and active protest against receiving less than a partner for the sametask is widespread in species that cooperate outside kinship and mating bonds. There isless evidence that nonhuman species seek to equalize outcomes to their own detriment,yet the latter has been documented in our closest relatives, the apes. This reactionprobably reflects an attempt to forestall partner dissatisfaction with obtained outcomesand its negative impact on future cooperation. We hypothesize that it is the evolution ofthis response that allowed the development of a complete sense of fairness in humans,which aims not at equality for its own sake but for the sake of continued cooperation.

Change of frame?

 

[laughing dog]

From what I can tell, all of these students look at people who work in a modern society that is generally capitalist to a medium to large degree. So, of course it would be "natural" in those settings to expect pay to be proportional to performance. But that does not make it universal nor "natural" in other settings - which is what I am wondering about.

Since you're determined to blame this on a capitalist outlook lets look at a non-capitalist society.

I am not blaming anything. I am wondering about the alleged universality of some human behavior.

Namely, China during the Cultural Revolution time. The wage difference between skilled and unskilled was small--but human nature poked through: Gifts were expected to those whose salary was below what their position should command.

I am looking for disinterested research, not handwaved nebulous anecdotes.

 

[skepticalbip]

Even dogs have a sense of fairness. It ain't just a human thing.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97944783

Dogs have an intuitive understanding of fair play and become resentful if they feel that another dog is getting a better deal, a new study has found.

The study, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, looked at how dogs react when a buddy is rewarded for the same trick in an unequal way.

Friederike Range, a researcher at the University of Vienna in Austria, and her colleagues did a series of experiments with dogs who knew how to respond to the command "give the paw," or shake. The dogs were normally happy to repeatedly give the paw, whether they got a reward or not.

But that changed if they saw that another dog was being rewarded with a piece of food, while they received nothing.

"We found that the dogs hesitated significantly longer when obeying the command to give the paw," the researchers write. The unrewarded dogs eventually stopped cooperating.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Since you're determined to blame this on a capitalist outlook lets look at a non-capitalist society.

I am not blaming anything. I am wondering about the alleged universality of some human behavior.

Namely, China during the Cultural Revolution time. The wage difference between skilled and unskilled was small--but human nature poked through: Gifts were expected to those whose salary was below what their position should command.

I am looking for disinterested research, not handwaved nebulous anecdotes.

I picked China because my wife lived through the situation I'm talking about.

 

[laughing dog]

Even dogs have a sense of fairness. It ain't just a human thing.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97944783

Dogs have an intuitive understanding of fair play and become resentful if they feel that another dog is getting a better deal, a new study has found.

The study, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, looked at how dogs react when a buddy is rewarded for the same trick in an unequal way.

Friederike Range, a researcher at the University of Vienna in Austria, and her colleagues did a series of experiments with dogs who knew how to respond to the command "give the paw," or shake. The dogs were normally happy to repeatedly give the paw, whether they got a reward or not.

But that changed if they saw that another dog was being rewarded with a piece of food, while they received nothing.

"We found that the dogs hesitated significantly longer when obeying the command to give the paw," the researchers write. The unrewarded dogs eventually stopped cooperating.

This is interesting and on point. Thanks.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm currently reading The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt, and one of the issues it gets into is precisely what you're asking. I've not finished it yet; here is the website, which features essays, a TED talk and Jonothan as a guest on The Colbert Report. His footnotes contain a lot of links to studies by himself and others, so that may be a good place to look. From what I've seen of the book so far, the answer is yes, people do expect proportional rewards for their contributions and dislike free riders of the system, but conservatives especially so.

Thanks, I will look into it.

 

[bilby]

I am not blaming anything. I am wondering about the alleged universality of some human behavior.

Namely, China during the Cultural Revolution time. The wage difference between skilled and unskilled was small--but human nature poked through: Gifts were expected to those whose salary was below what their position should command.

I am looking for disinterested research, not handwaved nebulous anecdotes.

I picked China because my wife lived through the situation I'm talking about.

I am pretty sure that second-hand handwaved nebulous anecdotes are just as unacceptable, so I am not sure why you consider this an adequate response to LD's criticism.

 

[Underseer]

I am not blaming anything. I am wondering about the alleged universality of some human behavior.

Namely, China during the Cultural Revolution time. The wage difference between skilled and unskilled was small--but human nature poked through: Gifts were expected to those whose salary was below what their position should command.

I am looking for disinterested research, not handwaved nebulous anecdotes.

I picked China because my wife lived through the situation I'm talking about.

I am pretty sure that second-hand handwaved nebulous anecdotes are just as unacceptable, so I am not sure why you consider this an adequate response to LD's criticism.

Loren is a rightist (of the libertarian variety).

Thus, if you present him with evidence from a peer-reviewed scientific study, he will simply dismiss it with the "lies, damn lies, and statistics" argument. The "lies, damn lies, and statistics" argument proves that to a rightist, anecdotal evidence is the only kind of evidence that is valid, but only if it supports a conclusion that he likes.

Don't blame Loren for this. He has simply spent too much time consuming right wing media.

 

[Achwienichtig]

Although not research per se, Alain de Botton has some very well thought out points on the topic.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I am not blaming anything. I am wondering about the alleged universality of some human behavior.

Namely, China during the Cultural Revolution time. The wage difference between skilled and unskilled was small--but human nature poked through: Gifts were expected to those whose salary was below what their position should command.

I am looking for disinterested research, not handwaved nebulous anecdotes.

I picked China because my wife lived through the situation I'm talking about.

I am pretty sure that second-hand handwaved nebulous anecdotes are just as unacceptable, so I am not sure why you consider this an adequate response to LD's criticism.

Loren is a rightist (of the libertarian variety).

Thus, if you present him with evidence from a peer-reviewed scientific study, he will simply dismiss it with the "lies, damn lies, and statistics" argument. The "lies, damn lies, and statistics" argument proves that to a rightist, anecdotal evidence is the only kind of evidence that is valid, but only if it supports a conclusion that he likes.

Don't blame Loren for this. He has simply spent too much time consuming right wing media.

I'm quite willing to accept scientific studies. However, there are plenty of things that purport to be scientific studies but really are just attempts to push a point of view.

We see this time and again from the right on environmental issues and from the left on discrimination issues. The discrimination ones even manage to make it through the peer review process. (Hint: If it doesn't address the hypothesis that the "discrimination" is really just socioeconomic status then it isn't worth the paper it's printed on.)

 

[fromderinside]

... from the left on discrimination issues. The discrimination ones even manage to make it through the peer review process. (Hint: If it doesn't address the hypothesis that the "discrimination" is really just socioeconomic status then it isn't worth the paper it's printed on.)

So where are all those right wing peer reviewed studies that show socioeconomic status explains discrimination. I'm sure that if there were such studies they would be blown out of the water for such as over-generalization, failure to explain legal basis and evidence for criminal acts, and cross cultural invalidation of such results.

 

[Trodon]

It is often difficult to precisely calibrate different levels of performance among co-workers. Also, supervisors often give subordinates they like better job reviews and raises than subordinates they are indifferent to. Subordinates they dislike are sometimes fired arbitrarily.

Most bosses are reasonably fair, but it is natural for them to like those with whom they have interests in common. Once a boss told me, "You are intelligent. You work hard. You are doing a good job. However, we have nothing in common. As far as I am concerned, that is a problem. When I come to work in the morning I want to talk about a recent fishing trip I went on or last night's ball game, but you are not interested."

He was right. I was not interested. When I came to work I wanted to talk about a book I was reading, or a documentary I had watched on television. He was not interested.

That was not a termination interview. However, that boss had already given me a bad job review for picayune reasons. When my boss needed to lay off some people I was one of them.

Some bosses have difficulty making friends. They expect their subordinates to provide social satisfactions they cannot otherwise get.

The single most important factor in a job is a good relationship with your immediate supervisor. If you and your boss genuinely like and respect each other you are way ahead of the game. If this is not true, that is a problem. It is probably your problem. The only time one can survive a hostile relationship with a boss is when the subordinate does something essential to what the boss is trying to achieve, and the boss knows that s/he will have a difficult time replacing that subordinate. Even then the subordinate is better off with a friendly relationship.

 

[Trodon]

Loren is a rightist (of the libertarian variety).

Thus, if you present him with evidence from a peer-reviewed scientific study, he will simply dismiss it with the "lies, damn lies, and statistics" argument. The "lies, damn lies, and statistics" argument proves that to a rightist, anecdotal evidence is the only kind of evidence that is valid, but only if it supports a conclusion that he likes.

Don't blame Loren for this. He has simply spent too much time consuming right wing media.

I have found that tendency among those on each side of the political spectrum. Many people simply refuse to accept facts that run counter to what they want to believe. It does not matter how well those facts are documented. It does not matter what they want to believe.

Those on the right often refuse to accept credible evidence that by important criteria the U.S. economy has tended to perform better under Democrat leadership. Those on the left often refuse to accept credible evidence that members of different races tend to perform and behave differently. If they do acknowledge different racial performance and behavior patterns they attribute the differences to environment, even though the differences are fairly consistent historically and geographically.