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Compromising between equity and equality: The effects of situational ambiguity and computational complexity
Author(s) -
Debusschere Marc,
van Avermaett Eddy
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
european journal of social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.609
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1099-0992
pISSN - 0046-2772
DOI - 10.1002/ejsp.2420140307
Subject(s) - ambiguity , equity (law) , situational ethics , computation , computational complexity theory , psychology , social psychology , computational model , preference , equity theory , simple (philosophy) , computer science , microeconomics , economics , algorithm , political science , epistemology , programming language , economic justice , philosophy , law
This study tested the hypothesis that in situations, incorporating demands for opposing allocation rules, people will only compromise between the relevant rules if the allocational computation is fairly simple. Male secondary‐school pupils were given a description of one of three situations (an unambiguous equality, an unambiguous equity or an ambiguous equality and equity situation), and they were then asked to divide 100 units of reward over four persons in easy or in complex computation circumstances. Instead of the expected interaction between situational ambiguity and complexity the results showed a computational complexity main effect: compromising decreased with complexity. In addition, in the ambiguous conditions, the proportion of equitable distributions was greater in the simple and smaller in the complex condition than the proportion of equal distributions. It was concluded that greater computational complexity not only decreases the amount of compromising, but also induces a preference for equality over equity allocations, if situational demands for equity are not too strong. Both are considered expressions of the same tendency to switch to computationally easier allocations, as allocation computations become more complex.