1. Getting What They Deserve
Getting What They Deserve? The Effects of Perceived Deservingness of an Outperformed Person on an Outperformer
Erika J. Koch and Shawnee F. M. Totton
St. Francis Xavier University
Introduction
Outperforming others can bring positive emotions such as pride but also negative experiences, such as awkward interactions with others (Exline & Lobel, 1999).
The present research examined how deservingness, manipulated via effort, influences how people respond to being an upward comparison target.
Method
Female Ps (N = 53) completed a bogus task along with a confederate in three conditions: confed.-success-deserved, confed.-success-undeserved, and control.
Each P then received false feedback indicating that she had performed well, and the confederate performed poorly.
The confederate asked the P how she had done so well.
Ps completed measures of deservingness, threat, concerns, and state SE.
The experimenter and confederate completed a behavioral checklist.
Results
Preliminary analyses
Results revealed that, across conditions, Ps understood that they performed better than average (M = 2.8) and confederates performed worse than average (M = 1.15), F (1, 50) = , p < .001.
Ps reported that the confederate exerted less effort in the confederate-success-undeserved than in the other two conditions, t (50) > 1.99, ps < (See Figure 1.)
However, the two other items tapping perceptions of the confederate’s effort did not significantly differ across conditions.
Results
Primary analyses
Ps showed the highest levels of appeasement and avoidance behaviors in the confederate-success-deserved condition., X2 (2) = 16.57, p = .01,
In particular, Ps were especially likely to downplay their score in the confederate-success-deserved condition, X2 (2) = 10.08, p = (See Figure 2.)
Threat, concerns, and state SE did not significantly differ across conditions.
Across conditions, over 50% of Ps displayed nervous laughter upon hearing the confederate’s question.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Conclusion
Results suggest that people may be most likely to downplay their success when they perceive that someone they outperformed exerted effort and therefore deserved to do well.