Third-Party Allocation of Rewards

Abstract

The present study shows that categorization of reward recipients into different entities affects distributive preferences by third-party non-recipient allocators. Rewards were allocated more equally to members of one group than to members of two dyads or to independent recipients. Moreover, allocators who were explicitly requested to allocate rewards justly were more egalitarian than those who were not requested to do so. More interestingly, rewards were allocated more equally between members in each of two dyads and between independent recipients, when a just allocation request was made, than when such a request was not made. This implies that a request for just allocation modifies the effects of recipient entity categorization toward more equal reward allocations.