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On the Malleability of Fairness Ideals: Order Effects in Partial and Impartial Allocation Tasks

Dengler-Roscher, Kathrin ; Montinari, Natalia LU ; Panganiban, Marian ; Ploner, Matteo and Werner, Benedikt (2015) In Working Paper / Department of Economics, School of Economics and Management, Lund University
Abstract
How malleable are people’s fairness ideals? Although fairness is an oft-invoked concept in allocation situations, it is still unclear whether and to what extent people’s allocations reflect their fairness ideals. We investigate in a laboratory experiment whether people’s fairness ideals vary with respect to changes in the order in which they undertake two allocation tasks. Participants first generate resources in a real- effort task and then distribute them. In the partial allocation task, the participant determines the earnings for himself and another participant. In the impartial allocation task, the participant determines the earnings for two other participants. We also manipulate the participants’ experience, i.e., whether they took... (More)
How malleable are people’s fairness ideals? Although fairness is an oft-invoked concept in allocation situations, it is still unclear whether and to what extent people’s allocations reflect their fairness ideals. We investigate in a laboratory experiment whether people’s fairness ideals vary with respect to changes in the order in which they undertake two allocation tasks. Participants first generate resources in a real- effort task and then distribute them. In the partial allocation task, the participant determines the earnings for himself and another participant. In the impartial allocation task, the participant determines the earnings for two other participants. We also manipulate the participants’ experience, i.e., whether they took part in similar allocation experiments before. We find that participants are more likely to allocate more resources to themselves than what they earned in the real-effort task when they decide partially. Exclusively for inexperienced participants, deciding impartially first dampens selfish behavior when they decide partially. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; ; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Working paper/Preprint
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Fairness, Proportionality Principle, Dictator, Partial Stakeholders, Impartial Spectators, Fairness Bias
in
Working Paper / Department of Economics, School of Economics and Management, Lund University
issue
17
pages
39 pages
publisher
Department of Economics, Lund University
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
0ba17b58-b19a-420d-922c-76ae15f683fd (old id 7370371)
alternative location
http://swopec.hhs.se/lunewp/abs/lunewp2015_017.htm
date added to LUP
2016-04-04 10:17:45
date last changed
2018-11-21 20:57:59
@misc{0ba17b58-b19a-420d-922c-76ae15f683fd,
  abstract     = {{How malleable are people’s fairness ideals? Although fairness is an oft-invoked concept in allocation situations, it is still unclear whether and to what extent people’s allocations reflect their fairness ideals. We investigate in a laboratory experiment whether people’s fairness ideals vary with respect to changes in the order in which they undertake two allocation tasks. Participants first generate resources in a real- effort task and then distribute them. In the partial allocation task, the participant determines the earnings for himself and another participant. In the impartial allocation task, the participant determines the earnings for two other participants. We also manipulate the participants’ experience, i.e., whether they took part in similar allocation experiments before. We find that participants are more likely to allocate more resources to themselves than what they earned in the real-effort task when they decide partially. Exclusively for inexperienced participants, deciding impartially first dampens selfish behavior when they decide partially.}},
  author       = {{Dengler-Roscher, Kathrin and Montinari, Natalia and Panganiban, Marian and Ploner, Matteo and Werner, Benedikt}},
  keywords     = {{Fairness; Proportionality Principle; Dictator; Partial Stakeholders; Impartial Spectators; Fairness Bias}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Working Paper}},
  number       = {{17}},
  publisher    = {{Department of Economics, Lund University}},
  series       = {{Working Paper / Department of Economics, School of Economics and Management, Lund University}},
  title        = {{On the Malleability of Fairness Ideals: Order Effects in Partial and Impartial Allocation Tasks}},
  url          = {{http://swopec.hhs.se/lunewp/abs/lunewp2015_017.htm}},
  year         = {{2015}},
}