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doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2005.04.003 
Copyright © 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
On preferences and doing the right thing: Satisfaction with advantageous inequity when cognitive processing is limited
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Kees van den Bosa, 
, 
, Susanne L. Petersa, D. Ramona Bobocelb and Jan Fekke Ybemac
Received 6 May 2004;
Abstract
We examine outcome satisfaction in situations in which people receive better outcomes than comparable other persons. Building on classical and modern social psychological theories, we argue that when reacting to these arrangements of advantageous inequity, judging the advantage is quick and easy as preferences are primary. We further propose that adjusting this appraisal requires cognitive resources as it entails integrating fairness concerns with the initial preference appraisal. Extending the literature on cognitive busyness, we therefore predict that people should be more satisfied with advantageous inequity when cognitive processing is strongly—as opposed to weakly—limited. Findings across several different experimental paradigms support our predictions. Taken together, our findings shed light on the psychological processes underlying the intriguing interplay between egoism- and fairness-based considerations when evaluating outcomes, as well as on more general preference and adjustment processes.
Keywords: Fairness; Justice; Equity; Preferences; Cognitive busyness
Article Outline
- How do people usually evaluate advantageous inequity?
- Satisfaction with advantageous inequity and cognitive busyness
- Experiment 1
- Experiment 2
- Experiment 3
- Method
- Results
- Relative outcomes
- Justice judgments
- Recalled symbols
- Cognitive busyness
- Comparability measures
- Outcome satisfaction
- Discussion
- Experiment 4
- General discussion
- References
We thank Henk Aarts, Johan Karremans, Mel Lerner, Wolfgang Stroebe, Remco Wijn, and several anonymous reviewers for their comments on previous versions of this paper, and Sophie de Vente, Erik Eizema, and Parcival von Schmid for their assistance with Experiment 4.
Corresponding author. Fax: +31 30 253 4718. 
