GAIN-LOSS-FRAME IN OUTCOME-INTERDEPENDENCE - DOES IT INFLUENCE EQUALITY OR EQUITY CONSIDERATIONS

Research suggests that framing outcomes as gains produces stronger con cern for distributive justice than framing outcomes as losses. Unfortu nately, however, this prior research manipulated own and other's outco mes only (and not own and other's input). Hence, it remained unclear w hether framing affects concern with equality-everyone gets an equal sh are regardless whether one 'deserves' it or not-and/or equity-the shar e one gets is a function of the proportionality of one's own, and the other parties' inputs. The current experiment addressed this problem. Subjects (N=94) read a scenario manipulating own and some co-workers' inputs, and subsequently rated satisfaction with pairs of outcomes pro viding themselves with more, equal or less outcomes than their co-work er. Outcomes to oneself exceeded expectation (gain-frame) or remained below it (loss-frame). Corroborating and expanding prior research, res ults showed that people are more concerned with both equality and equi ty when they have a gain- rather than loss-frame. In addition, results revealed evidence for a self-serving bias, in that people prefer equi ty or equality, depending on what serves best their own interests. It is concluded that frame affects the degree to which people are concern ed about distributive justice.