Allocators' maturity as an explanation for inconsistency in cognitive algebra of reward distribution

Abstract

According to equity theory, reward for a person should be proportional to his input or deservingness. Experimental tests of this ratio rule with information integration theory have not yielded consistent results. The same unidimensional tasks sometimes yielded the theoretical pattern of a slanted barrel, but sometimes a pattern of parallelism as though a subtracting rule were operative. In a series of five experiments performed on colege students and professional managers, reasons for the inconsistency in cognitive algebra of uni dimensional tasks were examined. The hypotheses of task simplification, order of presentation of uni dimensional and multidimensional tasks, and design complexity were considered and rejected.