Fairness Views, Equal Sharing, and Contributions in Team Production

Previous research has documented heterogeneity in individuals’ fairness views regarding how jointly produced output should be distributed. Using a public goods game as a simplified representation of collective production, we report three experiments examining whether individuals’ fairness views are associated with their contributions under an equal-sharing rule (Experiment 1), whether fairness-related prompting can affect contributions (Experiment 2), and whether the procedure used to determine participation under the arrangement affects rule acceptance and contributions (Experiment 3). Experiment 1 shows that participants with more egalitarian fairness views contributed more under the equal-sharing rule, while Experiment 2 provides causal evidence that fairness-related prompting affected subsequent contributions: participants asked to generate reasons why equal sharing is fair contributed more than those asked to generate reasons why it is unfair. Experiment 3 shows that, compared with a procedure in which participation was imposed, a procedure in which participation was determined by group voting resulted in higher contributions and greater acceptance of the equal-sharing rule. Exploratory analyses further suggest that the effects of voting may be stronger among participants with less egalitarian initial fairness views. Our findings indicate that individuals’ fairness views and the procedures used to determine participation are relevant to understanding contribution behavior under an equal-sharing rule.