Date of Award
Spring 5-2016
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
M.A.
Degree Program
Sociology
Department
Sociology
Major Professor
D'Lane Compton
Abstract
According to social psychologists, we as a species are inequity averse. We prefer conditions that foster fairness and reject injustice against common good. At the same time, however, unequal power and status hierarchies color almost every aspect of our lives. Advantages are distributed asymmetrically based on hierarchical status processes. Life, in other words, is systematically unfair in addition to being populated by free riders. Are the outcomes of potential free riders correlated with status as well? Does status affect the individual’s ability to successfully free ride? Are higher status actors typically granted a greater degree of social leniency than lower status actors? Are they less likely to be marked as free riders? I conducted a simple vignette study to in which participants were presented with a hypothetical, one-shot interaction, involving a collectively oriented, task in order to investigate the relationship between status and free riding.
Recommended Citation
McDougal, Mary Kathryn, "Unequal and Unfair: Free Riding in One-Shot Interactions" (2016). University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations. 2173.
https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/2173
Rights
The University of New Orleans and its agents retain the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible this dissertation or thesis in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. The author retains all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis or dissertation.