GENDER DIFFERENCES IN DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE - THE ROLE OF SELF-PRESENTATION REVISITED

Kidder, Bellettirie, and Cohn's [(1977) ''Secret Ambitions and Public Performances: The Effects of Anonymity on Reward Allocations Made by M en and Women,'' Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 13, pp . 70-80] self-presentational account of gender differences in distribu tive justice was examined. Men and women attending two, primarily whit e, northeastern universities distributed a jointly earned reward betwe en themselves and a hypothetical co-worker who was either a stranger o r a friend and whose inferior task performance resulted from either lo w ability or low effort. Subjects made ther allocations under both pub lic and private conditions. Men allocated more equitably (i.e., accord ing to co-worker input) in public than women did, whereas women alloca ted more equitably in private than men did, only when working with str angers who exerted low effort. In addition, among female subjects, pri vate allocations to low-effort strangers were more equitable than publ ic allocations. Among male subjects, however, public allocations to lo w-effort strangers were more equitable than private allocations. The c onditions under which men make equitable allocations and women make eq ual allocations, and possible reasons for these differences, are discu ssed.