Magnitude Of Inequalities Research Articles

Effects of Fixed and Alternated Payoff Inequity on Dyadic Competition

Two experiments investigated the effects of payoff inequity on dyadic competition when a noncompetitive alternative providing equitable payoffs was concurrently available, on the hypothesis that the maintenance of competition may be inherently no less problematic than that of cooperation. In Experiment 1, one person’s competitive payoffs were equal to (equity), twice (low inequity), or four times (high inequity) the other person’s during a 48-trial matching game. Frequency of competition by the underpaid subject was found to vary inversely with magnitude of inequity. Experiment 2 found a preannounced midpoint reversal of the beneficiary of inequity significantly weakened the inequity effect. Results are compared with those from similar studies of the maintenance of cooperation under inequity and are contrasted with those from studies using mixed-motive matrix game formats.

Educational Opportunity and Social Inequality in Western Europe

The existence of equality of educational opportunity is assessed according to four standards: (1) equality of educational access; (2) equality of educational participation; (3) equality of educational results; and (4) equality of educational effects on life chances. By all of these criteria it appears that the educational systems of Western Europe fail to provide a significant equalizing influence, and that to a large degree the educational treatments and results for western European youth tend to mirror their initial social class origins and sex differences in favoring students from more advantaged families and males. It is argued that the interpretation of this pattern can best be understood by considering the dual role of schooling in preparing wage-labor for the systems of monopoly-capitalist and state work enterprise as well as in representing a vehicle for social mobility and sustaining an ideology that such mobility is possible. The combination of prodigious educational expansion in conjunction with a reduction in the postwar rate of economic growth has created a crisis of an educated and underemployed proletariat. The magnitude of this crisis is engendering interventions by both the state and capitalist employers to mediate the contradiction by altering both educational and work patterns. The effectiveness or failure of these interventions to resolve the contradiction will have a profound impact on the nature and magnitude of inequality within both the schools and the larger society in Western Europe.

Situational Determinants of Equitable Behavior

Adams' dissonance-based equity theory is compared with a normative approach based on the value-expectancy-normative (VEN) model of social behaviour. This alternative view of equity phenomena avoids difficulties associated with consistency theory by attributing motivation to reduce inequity to conformity with an equity norm. It retains most of the behavioural predictions of Adams' model but emphasizes the effect of situational factors known to influence conformity. It is suggested that the VEN model is particularly useful for predicting behaviour in cases of profitable inequity where self-interest and equitable behaviour are in conflict. In the first experiment high and low profitable inequity were induced by two levels of overpayment, and reward re-allocation examined under two 'surveillance' conditions. Reward re-allocation occurred as predicted by Adams, but the effect of magnitude of inequity on outcome choice supported the VEN prediction rather than predictions derived from Adams' somewhat ambiguous statement. The effect of the surveillance variable did not reach the required level of significance. The VEN approach was further examined in the second experiment by inducing competitive and co-operative relations between P and 0 and exposing them to two levels of economic cost of conforming with the equity norm. As predicted, both the competitive relationship and high cost of conformity reduced equitable behaviour.

Reducing inequity by reallocating rewards

The equity model can predict the manner in which members of a dyad allocate among themselves the rewards earned by their group. Among members with equal work inputs, Ss given more than half the reward reduced inequity by decreasing their own share. Those given less than half the reward increased their share. Ss also reduced inequity by planning to compensate for current inequities in future interaction. As expected, level of tension covaried with the magnitude of inequity. Underrewarded Ss overestimated their inputs in order to justify increasing their share.