Vindictiveness doesn`t pay
The guiding motto of "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth" brings neither success nor happiness
Vindictiveness doesn´t pay. This has been demonstrated by a current
study at Bonn and Maastrich Universities. According to this study, a person
inclined to deal with inequity on a tit-for-tat basis tends to experience more
unemployment than other people. Vindictive people also have less friends and are
less satisfied with their lives. The study appears in the current edition of the
Economic Journal.
We tend to live by the motto "tit for tat".
We repay an invitation to dinner with a counter-invitation; when a friend helps
us to move house, we help to move his furniture a few months later. On the other
hand, we repay meanness in the same coin. Scientists speak here of reciprocity.
A person who repays friendly actions in a like manner is said to behave with
positive reciprocity, and one who avenges unfairness acts with negative
reciprocity.
Positive and negative reciprocity are interdependent
traits: many people incline to positive reciprocity, others more to negative;
others, again, incline to both. The researchers from Bonn and Maastricht wanted
to discover what influence these traits of character have on parameters such as
"success" or "satisfaction with life". For this, they resorted to data from the
so-called "socio-economic panel". This contains information gathered by the
Deutsche Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (German Institute for economic
Research) in its annual surveys. These involve around 20,000 respondents from
all over Germany and cover a diversity of topics.
The researchers in
Bonn used this instrument to discover something about the attitudes to
reciprocity of the participants in the study. They were to state, for example,
to what extent they would repay a favour or, on the other hand, an insult on a
tit-for-tat basis. "Both positive and negative reciprocity are widespread in
Germany", declares Professor Dr. Armin Falk of Bonn University, summarising the
results.
Positively reciprocal People perform more
Overtime
The researchers then related these data to other
results of the survey, whereby they stumbled upon a number of interesting
correlations: "Thus, positively reciprocal people tend on average to perform
more overtime, but only when they find the remuneration fair", declares
Professor Dr. Thomas Dohmen of Maastricht University. "As they are very
sensitive to incentives, they also tend to earn more money".
This is in
stark contrast to vindictive people. With these people, the equation "more money
= more work" does not always apply. Even pay cuts are not an effective means of
bringing negatively reciprocal people back into line. Ultimately the danger
arises that they will take revenge – for example, by refusing to work, or by
sabotage. "On the basis of these theoretical considerations it would be natural
to expect that negatively reciprocal people are more likely to lose their
jobs", Falk explains: "A supposition which coincides with our results.
Consequently, negatively reciprocal people experience a significantly higher
rate of unemployment".
And in other respects, too, vindictiveness is
not a maxim to be recommended. Anyone who prefers to act according to the Old
Testament motto of "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth" has on average
less friends - and is clearly less than satisfied with his or her life.
Contact:
Professor Dr. Armin Falk
Institut für
Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Universität Bonn
Telephone:
0228/73-9240
E-Mail: [Email protection active, please enable JavaScript.]
Professor Dr. Thomas Dohmen
Universität
Maastricht
Telephone: 0031/43 388 3647
E-Mail: [Email protection active, please enable JavaScript.]
