History, sociology, economics, psychology et al. confirmed Joyce's view of Everyman as victim.
Interaction in Groups
by
Charles Lamson
The Fairness Principle
We see ample evidence that people tend to expect certain kinds of treatment from others and that they tend to become angry when they do not receive it, especially when they feel that they have done what is expected of them in the situation. We want the rules to apply equally to everyone in the game, be it a friendly game of pool or the more complex game of corporate strategy. When we are not rewarded in the same ways as others, we say that we are being treated unfairly.
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The unfair condition in which a person or group has come to expect certain rewards for certain efforts, yet does not get them while others do, is called relative deprivation. In times of economic depression, for example, all groups in society must make do with less, and all feel deprived in comparison to their previous condition. If the economy begins to improve and some groups begin to get higher wages or more profits while others experience only limited Improvement, members of the less successful group will feel deprived relative to others and will likely become angry even though their own plight has actually improved somewhat (Merton & Kitt, (1950). Contributions to the Theory of Reference Group Behavior. In R. K. Merton & P. Lazarsfeld (Eds.), Continuities in Social Research).
People's ideas about what is fair in their interactions with others often conflict with simple calculations of gain and loss. The fact that they might come out ahead in an interaction does not guarantee that they will feel good about it and continue the interaction. This was demonstrated in a series of studies by Daniel Kahneman and his associates ((1986). Fairness and the Assumptions of Economics. Journal of Business). A large number of respondents were asked to judge the fairness of this situation:
A landlord rents out a small house. When the lease is due for renewal, the landlord learns that the tenant has taken a job very close to the house and is therefore unlikely to move. The landlord raises the rent $40 more than he was planning to.
An economist might argue that the tenant should think of the situation in terms of whether the rent increase is offset by the savings in the cost of travel to work (in terms of money, time, convenience, etc.). If the tenant still comes out ahead, it will make sense to sign the new lease (the rationality principle). But more than 90% of the respondents in Kahneman's survey said that the landlord was being unfair. In real life, when people feel that a transaction like this is unfair they often end the interaction, even at some cost to themselves. In this case people intuitively felt that the landlord was unfairly taking advantage of a gain made by the tenant (the new job) without adding anything to the property to earn the right to raise the rent.
The pure-rationality model of behavior predicts that people will act in their own interests in order to maximize their profits. If we were simple profit takers, however, our feelings about fairness would not play such a strong part in explaining group interaction (R. H. Frank, (1988) Passions Within Reason: The Strategic Role of the Emotions). But in fact these feelings are very powerful. Kahneman and his associates examined the strength of these findings in an experiment in which they asked subjects to divide $20 with another player whom they could not see but were told was in the room. Only two choices were given: to give $10 to each player, or to keep $18 and give the other player $2. Out of 161 subjects, 122---76%---offered the even split. From this the experimenters concluded that most people are motivated by their own ideas of fairness, presumably as a result of socialization over many years.
In real life there are many examples of situations in which notions of fairness outweigh the principle of rationality. Barbers and beauticians do not charge more for haircuts on Saturday, nor do ski resorts usually charge more for lift tickets on holidays. Although they might like to profit from the higher demand at those times, they are afraid that people would regard the higher prices as unfair (R. H. Frank, 1988. Passions within Reason). However, services are often offered at higher rates during peak seasons, or bargain offers such as early bird specials or off-peak pairs are used to encourage people to accept services at times other than those they might prefer.
Applications of the fairness principle can be seen many group situations. In the classic study conducted by Elton Mayo and his associates at Western Electric Hawthorne plant, the observers often noticed that workers used various forms of joking and sarcastic teasing to enforce the group's norms. They had a strong sense of how much work they should turn out, both individually and as a group, in order to merit their pay: a fair day's work for a fair day's pay. It was common to see the members of a workgroup gang up on and in a joking way hit a fellow worker on the shoulder when he produced more than the other members of the group.
The culture of this work group had evolved over many years. Its norms functioned to control the workers responses to the demands of the company's managers.
The workers shared a common body of sentiments. A person should not try to do too much work. If he did, he was a "rate buster." The theory was that if an excessive amount of work was turned out, the management would lower the piecework rate so that the employees would be in the position of doing more work for approximately the same pay. On the other hand, a person should not turn out too little work. If he did he was a "chiseler"---that is, he was getting paid for work he did not do.
*MAIN SOURCE: SOCIOLOGY IN A CHANGING WORLD, 6TH ED. WILLIAM KORNBLUM, PP. 159-160*
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