Sunday, September 06, 2020

Inequality of opportunity drags down everyone's motivation

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-09/ucl-ioo090320.php

News Release 4-Sep-2020
University College London

Unequal compensation reduces people's motivation to work, even among those who stand to benefit from unfair advantages, finds a new UCL-led study.

The researchers found that large disparities in rewards offered for the same task reduce people's happiness, which in turn reduce their willingness to work, in the study published in PLOS One.

•••••

The researchers found that when people were told there were wide disparities in pay between them and their peers, they were less willing to work, including participants who were told that other people were being paid much less than they were.

The findings show how people are less motivated to work if they are being paid less than others, but also if they perceive the whole system to be unjust.

•••••

Senior author Professor Tali Sharot (UCL Psychology & Language Sciences) said: "Whether inequality will negatively affect those at the top in 'the real world', outside the lab, remains to be studied. One thing to consider is that in our experiment, people were made aware that their position was randomly assigned. In the 'real world' people many times assume that their good fortune is justified by their talent and effort and therefore inequality might not have a negative influence on the motivation and well-being of privileged individuals in those situations. This is an important question that we hope to answer in the future."


No comments:

Post a Comment