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Justice Standard Determines Emotional Responses to Over-Reward

Publication ,  Journal Article
Clay-Warner, J; Robinson, DT; Smith-Lovin, L; Rogers, KB; James, KR
Published in: Social Psychology Quarterly
March 1, 2016

How do people feel when they benefit from an unfair reward distribution? Equity theory predicts negative emotion in response to over-reward, but sociological research using referential standards of justice drawn from status-value theory repeatedly finds positive emotional responses to over-reward. Researchers have proposed methodological explanations for these different findings, but we propose a theoretical explanation—that over-reward based on local comparisons with an interaction partner creates guilt and other negative emotions, while over-reward relative to an abstract justice standard leads to more positive emotion. We describe two experiments that address methodological explanations for the status value findings: (1) lack of tangible rewards and (2) lack of sufficiently large over-rewards. We find that people who are over-rewarded relative to their referential expectations still report less negative emotion and more positive emotion than those who receive expected rewards. We report results from a third experiment that demonstrate support for our theoretical argument.

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Published In

Social Psychology Quarterly

DOI

EISSN

1939-8999

ISSN

0190-2725

Publication Date

March 1, 2016

Volume

79

Issue

1

Start / End Page

44 / 67

Related Subject Headings

  • Sociology
  • 5205 Social and personality psychology
  • 4410 Sociology
  • 1702 Cognitive Sciences
  • 1701 Psychology
  • 1608 Sociology
 

Citation

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Clay-Warner, J., Robinson, D. T., Smith-Lovin, L., Rogers, K. B., & James, K. R. (2016). Justice Standard Determines Emotional Responses to Over-Reward. Social Psychology Quarterly, 79(1), 44–67. https://doi.org/10.1177/0190272516628299
Clay-Warner, J., D. T. Robinson, L. Smith-Lovin, K. B. Rogers, and K. R. James. “Justice Standard Determines Emotional Responses to Over-Reward.” Social Psychology Quarterly 79, no. 1 (March 1, 2016): 44–67. https://doi.org/10.1177/0190272516628299.
Clay-Warner J, Robinson DT, Smith-Lovin L, Rogers KB, James KR. Justice Standard Determines Emotional Responses to Over-Reward. Social Psychology Quarterly. 2016 Mar 1;79(1):44–67.
Clay-Warner, J., et al. “Justice Standard Determines Emotional Responses to Over-Reward.” Social Psychology Quarterly, vol. 79, no. 1, Mar. 2016, pp. 44–67. Scopus, doi:10.1177/0190272516628299.
Clay-Warner J, Robinson DT, Smith-Lovin L, Rogers KB, James KR. Justice Standard Determines Emotional Responses to Over-Reward. Social Psychology Quarterly. 2016 Mar 1;79(1):44–67.
Journal cover image

Published In

Social Psychology Quarterly

DOI

EISSN

1939-8999

ISSN

0190-2725

Publication Date

March 1, 2016

Volume

79

Issue

1

Start / End Page

44 / 67

Related Subject Headings

  • Sociology
  • 5205 Social and personality psychology
  • 4410 Sociology
  • 1702 Cognitive Sciences
  • 1701 Psychology
  • 1608 Sociology