REWARD ALLOCATIONS, GENDER, AND TASK-PERFORMANCE

Undergraduate subjects were asked to picture themselves as supervisors deciding how much to pay each member of a group of five workers. Inde pendent variables are sex composition of work group, sex of high or lo w producer, output of deviant producer, and group task outcome. We exa mined choice of equality versus equity, dollar amount allocated, perce ption of relative value of workers, social orientation, and task orien tation. Only one of the original hypotheses, the only one not related to gender, was supported: There is an association between expressing a social orientation and choosing to allocate equally, and between expr essing a task orientation and choosing to allocate equitably. This fin ding characterized male and female subjects equally. We found no suppo rt for any hypotheses based on common assumptions about gender and all ocation, or gender and management style. Male and female supervisors r espond similarly to both mixed sex groups and groups of their own gend er, but differently to supervising a group that consists entirely of w orkers of the opposite gender to themselves. Perceived success versus failure of the group is an important conditioning variable.