Scientific Definition
Distaste for unequal payoffs — including when we'd benefit.
Plain-English Definition
Distaste for unequal payoffs — including when we'd benefit.
Feynman Explanation
Fairness is a constraint people will pay real money to enforce.
Core Principle
Distaste for unequal payoffs — including when we'd benefit.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Distaste for unequal payoffs — including when we'd benefit.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Visible inequity inside a team predicts disengagement more reliably than absolute pay.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
Fairness is a constraint people will pay real money to enforce.
Examples
- Splitting bonuses; reaction to executive comp disclosure.
- Visible inequity inside a team predicts disengagement more reliably than absolute pay.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Design comp ranges, transparency, and explanations for the inequity-averse human.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Design comp ranges, transparency, and explanations for the inequity-averse human.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
Click any neighbor to re-center the graph and follow the threads of connection.
Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
People sacrifice payoff to punish unfair distributions — even unfairness that benefits them produces guilt-style discomfort.
A group decides on a course of action that nobody actually wants, because everyone assumes others prefer it.
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
We attribute our own actions to situations but others' actions to their character.
We favor people who are similar to us or who like us.
Sacrificing for others without expecting a personal reward.
Masking the sponsors of a message to make it appear grassroots.
Disagreement grows more extreme as the parties think more about the issue.
Systematic errors in explaining the causes of behavior — yours or others'.
We accept vague, general statements as personally meaningful.
Adding the word 'because' (with any reason) increases compliance dramatically.
Behaviors spread through groups via observation and imitation.