Locus of Control and the Acknowledgment of Effort

Dados Bibliográficos

ID3757901
AutoresFernando Aguiar (0000-0003-4473-480X, Spanish National Research Council (IFS-CSIC), Madrid, Spain), Maria Alvarez (0000-0003-3162-5938), Luis Miller (0000-0002-7447-2313, Spanish National Research Council (IFS-CSIC), Madrid, Spain)
Ano2021
Volume65
Fascículo11
Páginas1480-1496
Data de publicação2021-10-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoAmerican Behavioral Scientist (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0002-7642 • E-ISSN: 1552-3381
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0002764221996754
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas3
Referências citadas49

What individual characteristics predict inequality acceptance? Previous literature has focused on economic and sociological determinants of accepting inequalities. Here, we present experimental evidence of one individual correlate of inequality acceptance: the personality trait known as locus of control. In our study, inequality is induced experimentally through the exogenous assignment to one of two experimental treatments. In one treatment, initial inequalities depend on individual performance in a previous real-effort task, that is, they are earned through effort, while in the other they are randomly determined. We report that people who show an internal locus of control (the belief that life's outcomes are under one's control) are significantly more likely to accept both arbitrary and effort-based inequalities, although they accept the latter more often