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

[fromderinside]

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.

There's another way to look at the issue. Presume facts are facts until one can falsify them. If one doesn't try to falsify presented items as facts why is one even looking at them? One already knows in one's heart one is right.

 

[Playball40]

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).

Oh my heart was breaking for that poor monkey.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

"What Is Best for the 1% Is Best for All You Worthless Little People, Too"

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.

We are tamed, lamed, and trained to submit to the judgment of our worth by whoever has power over us. So it is hard to find out our natural feelings if they are artificially embedded.

Anthropologists and Sociologists are flunkies of the Establishment, so they are not a reliable source to back up our embedded opinions. Links make us members of a chain gang.

 

[Speakpigeon]

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?

I'm not paid enough to answer this question.
EB

 

[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?

Well, humans are known to have physiological structures tied to both maximizing and optimizing. That should put a blade in its heart don't you think.

 

[bilby]

Humans don't naturally expect to be rewarded proportional to 'contribution' or 'performance' (whatever those might be). They expect to be rewarded proportional to effort.

The labour theory of value is wrong; but it is also instinctive. It is one of the many false beliefs about the world that we must unlearn, if we are to avoid erroneous decisions.

'Contribution' is probably closer than effort to being what really should be rewarded, but the word has so many meanings that it is difficult to say if the OP actually means 'contribution to added value'. That's what we should reward to get optimum outcomes, but due to the natural tendency of humans to consider effort worthy of reward, and their natural tendency to rate their own efforts above the efforts of others; coupled with the difficulty of untangling exactly who added what fraction of the value in a joint effort, we are a long way from seeing that in reality.

'Performance' is generally an attempt to do that untangling, and determine who added more than an equal share of value.

There is nothing natural about this. You might as well suggest that people naturally want to travel across the country at .82 of the speed of sound. People do have that expectation; but only if they are taught to. It's not only not natural, but is directly opposed to the natural way of humanity. And that is a good thing.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Humans don't naturally expect to be rewarded proportional to 'contribution' or 'performance' (whatever those might be). They expect to be rewarded proportional to effort.

The labour theory of value is wrong; but it is also instinctive. It is one of the many false beliefs about the world that we must unlearn, if we are to avoid erroneous decisions.

A very good point. We see it all the time, people feeling that putting in a lot of effort merits reward even if that effort was unproductive.

 

[bilby]

Humans don't naturally expect to be rewarded proportional to 'contribution' or 'performance' (whatever those might be). They expect to be rewarded proportional to effort.

The labour theory of value is wrong; but it is also instinctive. It is one of the many false beliefs about the world that we must unlearn, if we are to avoid erroneous decisions.

A very good point. We see it all the time, people feeling that putting in a lot of effort merits reward even if that effort was unproductive.

And the reverse; Managers rewarding those who stay late and come to work on weekends, rather than those who achieve more without the need for such conspicuous displays of effort and self sacrifice.

 

[fast]

Edited out

 

[fromderinside]

Is it really appropriate to use terms devised by others as metrics of performance. Tactical pilots, for instance, perform IAC their golden arm, generally a squadron leader, who is most proficient in flying combat missions. This dude, now dudette perhaps, accomplish tasks primarily due to special abilities usually not possessed by others in his flight group. Still the group hews to his methods.

All are trained in best methods devised by those who have studied both tactical performance and human capabilities and proclivities. Those generally count for squat since the golden one has balance, spatial, reactive, and other capacities, far outside the norm of those capabilities held by his squadron. So there is a baseline and there is the golden arm. Ratings are given by the golden arm. hmmmnnn.

Commercial and military A/C companies are generally engineering and sales concerns that operate on this squadron model. Sales and engineering are both similar to combat (competitive) piloting in that there are a select few who violate all the norms and outperform everybody else which set the standard of performance for this or that group.

We become fanatic over outsize skilled athletes trying to take on or embrace them as ideals.

So there are capabilities and there are monsters. Monsters define goals for the incapable including reward and expectation/

Most workers are mentally ill because of this clash of what I have compared to what I should have.

Now put this stuff into a cauldron and place outside expectations on what is performance and we get the mix in which we perform.

Internally each of us has knowledge of how hard it is to do things and how we actually stack up against those around us. At the same time we carry with us the expectation that we must perform to some monster criteria or we are considered failures.

So we rationalize. We expect what we deserve if we are monsters and begrudge those around us any slack in their obvious deficiencies.

Yes I have two lovers is the real world.

Then there is how much we can give for how long, but, that's another story.

Maybe I'll have to redo this some time.