A Contingency Model Justice

JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 28,491-522 (1992)
Allocating Scarce Resources: A Contingency Model

of Distributive Justice
LINDA J. SKITKA
Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville
AND
PHILIP E. TETLOCK
University of California, Berkeley
Received March 4. 1991
Two experiments tested predictions derived from a contingency model of dis-

tributive justice that identifies four interrelated categories of determinants of
peoples allocation decisions: (1) abstract distributive norms; (2) perceived attri-
butes of claimants; (3) resource constraints; and (4) attributes of judges. The
model posits that allocations of public resources (e.g., health care or welfare)
engage in two types of appraisal: one focused on the adequacy of the resource
pool, and the other on the causes of claimants needs. When resources are in-
adequate, attributional analysis assumes central importance, and need and effi-
ciency emerge as key distributive values. If claims arise from internal-controllable
causes, allocators experience anger toward claimants, devalue their deservingness,
and withhold resources. If claims arise from other causes, distributive norms
become direct predictors of deservingness and allocation. The experiments ma-
nipulated the causes of need, the severity of need, and the likelihood of effective
assistance under low and high scarcity (Study I) and no scarcity (Study II). Under
scarcity, allocators were much more likely to deny aid to claimants who were
responsible for their predicament. Need and efficiency emerged as joint predictors
of allocating aid to claimants who were not responsible for their predicament.
Politically conservative allocators withheld resources from those personally re-
sponsible for their needs regardless of both severity of need and likelihood of
The authors express their gratitude to John Levine, Charles McGuire, Barbara Mellers,
David Messick, Caryl Rusbult, Howard Tokunaga, and our anonymous reviewers for
thoughtful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. All correspondence and reprint requests
should be directed to Linda J. Skitka, Department of Psychology, Southern Illinois Uni-
versity, Edwardsville, IL 62026-1121; e-mail smOl@siuemus.bitnet.
491
0022-1031192 $5.00
Copyright 0 1992 by Academic Press. Inc.
All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
492 SKITKA AND TETLOCK
effective helping, even when there were sufficient resources to satisfy all claimants,
whereas liberals tended to provide resources to all claimants. 0 1992 Academic
Press, Inc.
Who deserves government help in securing health care or in finding a

home, or a job? In a world of finite resources, policymakers must fre-
quently weigh competing claims on the public purse. They are expected
to represent the communitys interest and to distribute aid fairly.
However, such nostrums tell us little about the decision rules people
actually use in allocating aid. One widely invoked principle is to each
ones due, or as Hospers (1961) suggests, getting what one deserves;
what could be simpler? (p. 433). A more appropriate question is: What
could be more complex?
Psychologists have identified an enormous array of determinants of
perceived deservingness and allocation preferences, including equity,
need, and equality. They have also found support for each approach to
distributive justice in allocations of wages and rewards (e.g., Deutsch,
1985; Lerner, 1975; Leventhal, 1976; Mikula, 1980; Walster, Berscheid,
& Walster, 1976). It is less clear, however, whether these theories can
be extended to predict allocations of public resources, such as health care
or welfare. For example, imagine a drunk driver injures a child walking
across the street in a crosswalk, and then crashes and seriously injures
himself (cf. LeGrand, 1987). Who deserves priority to scarce emergency
care, the child or the driver? Would a doctor who gave priority to the
child be acting unjustly if the driver were suffering more than the child?
Or would most people think that such an allocation of health care services
would, in some sense, be just?
We propose a 4-stage contingency model of allocation decision making
that builds directly on past efforts (see Fig. 1). The first stage involves
assessing resource availability. If there are sufficient resources to help
everyone, the decision-making process ends, and the allocator aids all
claimants. If resources are scarce, allocators move to the second stage:
attributional analysis. If claimants are perceived to be personally respon-
sible for their predicament (an internal-controllable attribution), allocators
consider whether there is a match between the number of personally
responsible claimants and the number of claimants who cannot be helped
because of resource constraints. If there is such a match, the decision-
making process stops, and allocators distribute aid to all but personally
responsible claimants. If there is not an exact fit between resource con-
straints and the number of personally responsible claimants, the allocator
appraises claiments relative deservingness: Are some claimants needier
than others? Would providing aid to some claimants be more effective
than providing it to others?
Stage four involves setting priorities among claimants as a joint function
ALLOCATING SCARCE RESOURCES 493
of their cause of need and relative deservingness. When there are more
resources than there are personally responsible claimants (low scarcity),
people will deny aid to those claimants with the lowest overall priority-
internal-controllable claimants with less than high need and efficiency.
When there are fewer resources than there are personally responsible
claimants (high scarcity), people will deny aid to all personally responsible
claimants. However, they will have to deny aid to other claimants as well.
Claimants with other causes of need will be denied aid to the extent that
they have less than high need and efficiency.
We draw on four broad but interrelated categories of research to provide
theoretical support for this model: (1) distributive norms for assessing
deservingness, (2) attributes of the claimant, (3) ideological and person-
ality attributes of the allocator, and (4) resource constraints on the capacity
of societies to help the less fortunate.
Distributive Norms
Homans (1961) and Walster, et al. (1976) extended a central thesis of
Aristotelian ethics: fairness requires dividing outcomes to reflect the rel-
ative merits of the participants in an exchange. Although considerable
research is consistent with this basic proposition, equity theory is of limited
predictive value in complex political-economic settings in which there are
sharp disagreements over what counts as an input and even over the
morality of factoring such information into ones decision making calculus.
Who, for example, has a more persuasive claim on access to scarce medical
technology: a brilliant 45year-old scientist who drinks heavily but can
pay for his care, or a 6-year-old child of a welfare family who suffers
from chronic liver failure? Equity theory offers little guidance here.
Current theories focus on additional distributive principles, such as
equality, need, and efficiency. Which principle is activated depends on
the social context and goal orientation of the allocator (e.g., Deutsch,
1985; Leventhal, 1976; Leventhal, Karuza, & Fry, 1980; Mikula, 1980)
the relationship between the allocator and recipient (e.g., Lerner, 1977),
and the personality and political ideology of the allocator (e.g., Major &
Deaux, 1982; Rasinki, 1987).
The goal-orientation approach of Leventhal (1976) leads to a number
of testable hypotheses. Leventhal argues that allocators determine out-
comes by a weighted averaging formula that includes contributions, need,
equality, and other distributive norms. The weight attached to each dis-
tributive norm varies as a function of the goal orientation of the social
system. The goals of providing access to health care and public assistance
are based on need norms (the safety net of welfare state capitalism).
The aim is to minimize suffering due to illness, mishap, or extreme pov-
erty. However, if health care or public assistance is limited by technology
or budgetary constraints, efficiency (minimization of waste) will also be
Stage 2: Amihtionsl Analysis Why da claimmu need help?
4 c
I I
weighted heavily in perceptions of deservingness and allocation decisions

(cf. Leventhal, Weiss, & Buttrick, 1973).
Although multivalue contingency theories of justice of this sort organize
a wide range of findings, there is no guarantee such theories give the
right weights to competing values or capture the conditions under which
competing values are primed or activated. For instance, investigators have
given considerable attention to both equality (e.g., Leung & Bond, 1984;
Tinsdale & Davis, 1985), and need (e.g., Lamm & Schwinger, 1980,1983;
Murphy-Berman, Berman, Singh, Pachauri, & Kumar, 1984), but rela-
tively little to efficiency (see however, Leventhal et al., 1973; Taormina
& Messick, 1983). This neglect is surprising, given the prominence of
efficiency as a distributive norm in economic theory (e.g., Okun, 1975).
We also know little about how well distributive norms apply to the
allocation of nonmonetary resources. Although relationships outside of
the employee/employer dyad have been examined, resources besides
money are studied only rarely (see Foa & Foa, 1976). And, importantly,
are distributive norms suficient to explain allocation preferences in social-
political domains?
Attributes of the Claimant (Locus of Responsibility)

Attribution theorists maintain that arousal of normative pressure to
help others depends critically on attributions of responsibility. Weiner
(1986), for instance, has specified how cognitive appraisal and affect in-
fluence decisions to help. According to this 3-stage model, initial expla-
nations (such as the child needs emergency medical attention because
while walking in a crosswalk, she was hit by a car or the driver needs
help because he was driving under the influence of alcohol) are processed
according to the following sequence: (1) causal analysis (attribution of
cause along the dimensions of locus and control); (2) affective arousal
(different explanations trigger different affective reactions); and (3) be-
havioral decision (in this case, to provide or withhold resources).
Linkages between causal analysis, affective arousal, and behavioral de-
cision have been demonstrated in several domains, including achievement,
helping, and aggression (see review in Weiner, 1986). Experimental re-
search on attributions and helping point to one clear-cut conclusion: Peo-
ple are least likely to help victims whose need is attributed to intemal-
FIG. 1. A 4-stage contingency model of allocation. Depending on resource scarcity and

the match between resource constraints and the number of personally responsible claimants,
allocators go through 1 to 4 stages in deciding how to allocate public aid to a pool of
claimants. Personality and ideological variables moderate stages of analysis: Conservatives
will be more likely to focus on personal responsibility (Stage 2) and liberals will be more
likely to focus on distributive norms (Stage 3).
controllable causes-such as carelessness, laziness, greed, and self-in-

dulgence (e.g., Reisenzein, 1986; Weiner, 1986).
Additional evidence suggests that reactions to needy others are me-
diated by affect. Attributions of personal responsibility arouse more neg-
ative and less positive affect in perceivers (e.g., anger and hostility versus
sympathy and pity; Meyer & Mulherin, 1980; Weiner, 1980). These and
other studies reveal close connections between cognitive appraisal, affec-
tive arousal, and intentions to help (e.g., Batson, Duncan, Ackerman,
Buckley, & Birch, 1981; Reisenzein, 1986).
Although there are strong parallels between these studies of helping
and distributive justice settings that activate need as a distributive norm,
there are also important distinctions: (1) Allocators do not make personal
sacrifices to help (they are spending other peoples money on other
people); (2) Helping someone is a foregone conclusion in allocation con-
texts; the question is how much aid to provide, and to whom; and (3)
Helping typically involves higher potential risk for the provider than al-
locating. In short, we should not assume everyone considers attributional
information morally relevant in fairly allocating public resources-a point
that brings us to individual differences.
Personality and Ideology of the Allocator

Personality and ideological variables moderate allocation preferences.
For example, belief in the Protestant Ethic-that hard work will ultimately
be rewarded-is associated with skepticism toward the value of equality,
a preference for allocating outcomes according to merit and a tendency
to attribute behavior internally to people rather than externally to the
system (Garrett, 1973; Greenberg, 1978; MacDonald, 1971).
These individual differences in allocation preferences are rooted in
sociopolitical ideology. Drawing on the findings of Carroll, Perkowitz,
Lurigio, and Weaver (1987), we expect two clusters of personality and
ideological variables to shape allocation preferences: (1) Cognitive con-
servatism (CC: a combination of political conservatism with personality
measures of dogmatism, authoritarianism, and internal locus of control)
and liberal humanism (LH: a combination of liberal ideals and the prin-
cipled stage of moral development). We also expected personality and
ideology to moderate the cognition-affect-behavior link. High CCs should
experience especially negative affect toward, and withhold resources from,
claimants whose needs are due to internal, controllable causes, whereas
high LHs should be influenced less by cause of need than by need itself.
The moderating effects of personality/ideology should be most evident
under no scarcity, when allocators are less constrained by the situation.
Resource Constraints on the Capacity to Provide Aid

Resource constraints pose painful problems for allocators. Scarcity re-
quires winnowing the competing claimants to determine who shall re-
ceive assistance (Ross & Ellard, 1986). Scarcity also means that justice
defined as equality or equity is often beyond our grasp. If everyone is
given an equal share, or a share proportional to his claims and desert,
then some, perhaps all, will be pressed beneath a minimally acceptable
level (Greenberg, 1981; Rescher, 1966). For example, imagine it takes 3
mg of Drug X to cure an otherwise lethal disease. What if two people
contract the disease, and only 4 mg of the drug are available? An equal
or equitable distribution might be just, but would save neither life.
Consistent with this reasoning, research indicates that equity becomes less
important as scarcity increases (e.g., Coon, Lane, & Lichtman, 1974;
Lane & Messe, 1972). Attention is hypothesized to shift to need and
efficiency and away from equity and equality (Greenberg, 1981). Under
scarcity, allocators try to minimize both suffering (a need value) and waste
(an efficiency value).
Although receiving some theoretical attention, empirical data on al-
locations under scarcity are almost nonexistent. Anecdotal evidence, how-
ever, suggests that as scarcity increases, there is a parallel increase in
concern for efficiency. For example, the World War I concept of triage
advocates allocating medical attention to those who have a high probability
of being saved and withholding treatment from those expected to die, or
from those who will recover without medical attention (Ehrlich, 1968).
Under scarcity, the values of need and efficiency often conflict. Giving
priority to the most urgent claim is often not the most efficient use of
resources.
In addition to making need and efficiency more salient, scarcity may
motivate cognitive appraisal. Under low scarcity, there is less reason to
engage in detailed analysis. Assuming most people are cognitive misers
(cf. Fiske & Taylor, 1991) who seek simple solutions to difficult decisions,
allocators may simply treat claimants as approximately equal when it is
possible to satisfy everyone. But scarcity may promote attributional anal-
ysis of responsibility as allocators search for reasons to deny some claims,
but not others.
The Present Studies

The experiments reported here test the 4-stage model of allocation
preferences. Study 1 investigated allocation preferences under low and
high scarcity and Study 2 examined allocations under no scarcity. To
examine the generalizability of results across operationalizations of key
variables and resources, both studies included three resource domains:
AZT for AIDS victims, organs for people needing organ transplants, and
low-income housing for the poor.
STUDY 1
We organize our hypotheses into two classes: first-order and second-
order questions. It is possible to test the latter only if support is found
for the former.
First-Order Questions
Hypothesis 1
Does attribution of responsibility shape perceptions of fair access to
scarce resources? Whereas previous research demonstrates that the Cog-
nition-Affect-Action model predicts individual decisions to give or with-
hold help, it is not clear whether ordinary people consider causal attri-
butions morally relevant or appropriate in a broader societal context.
Support for the first assumption of the model (that insufficient resources
motivate attributional analysis) will be sought from converging evidence
on allocators reactions to targets who vary in why they need aid. Spe-
cifically, locus and control should interact, with internal-controllable rea-
sons for need consistently rated as least deserving, arousing the greatest
negative and least positive affect and prompting the least aid.
Hypothesis 2
Is the distributive norm of need primed in public aid domains? And
does scarcity activate a concern for efficiency? We predict that concerns
for need and efficiency will be higher than alternative values, such as
various operationalizations of equality (e.g., equal opportunity); the queue
(e.g., first come, first served); and merit (e.g., contributions to society).
The allocation norms used were derived from recurring themes in the
psychological literature as well as from public policy debates about access
to scarce medical technologies.
Second-Order Questions
Assuming locus of causality plays an important role in allocational
decisions, what is the relative role of attributions and distributive norms
in selecting recipients of scarce resources? Study 1 examined allocators
decisions when there is an imperfect match between the number of per-
sonally responsible claimants and the number of claimants who must be
Most of these distributive norms have been neglected in psychological research-a legacy
of the dominance of equity theory. However, these distributive values are widely recognized
in philosophy, economics, and political science. This list is not presumed to be exhaustive,
but does represent the range of distributive concerns that arise in debates over the allocation
of public resources.
denied assistance because of scarcity constraints. For half of the subjects,

there were more resources than personally responsible claimants (low
scarcity); for the other half of the subjects, there were fewer resources
than personally responsible claimants (high scarcity).
Hypothesis 3
Under low scarcity, allocators are predicted to assist all claimants who
are not personally responsible for their predicament. Only intemal-con-
trollable claimants with less than high need and efficiency are predicted
to be denied assistance under these conditions.
Hypothesis 4
Under high scarcity, allocators are predicted to deny aid to all intemal-
controllable claimants, regardless of their relative need or efficiency. But
because allocators cannot aid all the remaining claimants, only those with
the highest need and efficiency will receive help.
Hypothesis 5
Subjects under low scarcity will report that their decisions were deter-
mined primarily by the reasons why people need aid. In contrast, subjects
in the high scarcity condition will report that their decisions were deter-
mined more by complex combinatorial patterns of information-i.e., by
reasons why people need aid, need and efficiency taken together-than
by any of these sources alone or in lower-level combinations. In other
words, we expect movement toward self-reported cognitive complexity in
decisions made under higher scarcity.
Hypothesis 6
These previous effects will be qualified by the political ideology and
cognitive style of the judge. High conservatism will be related to stronger
tendencies to: (a) attribute personal control to all claimants; (b) have
negative affective reactions to claimants with internal-controllable causes
of need; (c) devalue the deservingness of claimants with internal-con-
trollable causes; (d) choose them less frequently to receive help; and (e)
weight reasons why people need help and efficiency as more important
determinants of choice. People scoring high in liberalism, on the other
hand, are expected to be more likely to (a) have positive affective reactions
to all claimants and (b) perceive all claimants to be deserving of assistance.
Method
Subjects
One hundred and ninety-eight undergraduates at the University of California, Berkeley
completed questionnaires in partial fulfillment of class requirements for an introductory
psychology class.
Design
The experiment was a mixed factorial design. There were five within-subject factors:
Resource Domain (Organs, AZT, Housing), Locus (Internal, External), Control (Con-
trollable, Uncontrollable), Need (High, Low), and Efficiency (High, Low). Two variables
were manipulated as between-subject factors: Scarcity (High, Low) and Target Sexual Ori-
entation (relevant only to the AZT domain: Homosexual, Heterosexual). Six different orders
of resource domain were presented.
Primary dependent measures were: (a) ratings of targets relative deservingness for an
available resource, (b) how unfair it would be if a target did not receive an available resource,
(c) affective ratings of targets seeking aid as a function of locus and control, and (d) the
amount of resources committed to claimants as a function of locus, control, need, and
efficiency.
Rationale for the Design

The pros and cons of between- versus within-subject designs are hotly debated. In this
case, we chose a primarily within-subject design because we were interested in how people
evaluate a pool of applicants competing for insufficient public resources. It follows that
subjects need information on the entire population of applicants. Many real world allocation
decisions take on within-subject forms (e.g., a hiring committee has access to all applicants
files; a medical ethics committee has the files of all patients waiting for organ transplants).
Procedure
Overview
Subjects participated in a study of how people make fair allocation
decisions. Their task was to fill out a number of confidential question-
naires. Rather than reveal their names, subjects picked a 5-digit sequence
of numbers to uniquely identify their materials. Subjects completed par-
allel questionnaires within each resource domain: a total of three ques-
tionnaires (organs available for transplantation, AZT for AIDS victims,
and low income housing for the poor) in one of six random orders. The
first section of each questionnaire assessed information relevant to the
first-order questions, and the second section collected information relevant
to second-order questions. Finally, subjects completed a separate ques-
tionnaire containing the personality and attitudinal measures last.
Each domains questionnaire was prefaced with basic background in-
formation. For example:
AZT is a drug to treat Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). AZT is

not a cure for AIDS, but it does lengthen the life span of those with AIDS. People
who have AIDS hope that AZT treatment will lengthen their lives until a cure is
developed.
Subjects also learned that not everyone who wants and needs AZT (or
an organ transplantation, or low income housing) can receive it because

there is a limited supply.
Allocation preferences. Each questionnaire then assessed subjects per-
ceptions of the appropriateness of a number of allocation procedures.
Subjects rated these options on an appropriateness scale ranging from
-8 (extremely inappropriate) to +8 (extremely appropriate). For ex-
ample, within the AZT domain:
1. AZT should be allocated to people on the basis of their medical
need; those who are the most severely ill should be given priority (Need).
2. People should be given equal opportunity to receive available AZT;
perhaps by a lottery or by drawing straws (Equal Opportunity).
3. People should be given priority on the basis of how long they have
been on a waiting list, irrespective of other factors (Queue).
4. People should be given priority on the basis of how effective AZT
will be for them, since the probability of AZT successfully prolonging
their life is higher (Efjkiency).
5. Priority for AZT should be given to the highest bidder; those people
who can afford AZT treatment should be given first priority (Market).
6. Priority for AZT should be based on the contributions people have
made to their community: those people who have made important con-
tributions to the well being of the community should be given higher
priority than people who have not contributed to the community in any
important way (Merit).
Parallel allocation procedures were rated for appropriateness within the
organ and low-income housing domains.
Attributions of camdity and affect. Subjects were next asked to rate
how they felt about each claimant as a function of locus and control of
their need for resources. For example, within the organ domain, the
conceptual manipulations of locus and control were as follows:3
* We modeled our manipulations of controllability and externality after Weiners (1986)

discussion on pp. 49-50. He argued that if we always conceive of controllability from the
target perspective (e.g., the successful or failing person), external causes will always be by
definition . . uncontrollable, for they are not willfully changed by the actor. He notes,
however, that because people perceive many external causes as controllable (e.g., teacher
bias, unemployment), controllability implies not only controllable by me but also con-
trollable by anyone. In addition, in the attribution of success/failure literature, extemal-
controllable causes usually involve negligence of an external actor (teacher bias, lack of
help from unwilling friends; again, see Weiner, 1986; 1990 for review). Although our
operationalizations of locus of responsibility are consistent with Weiners theory and op-
erationahzations of locus of control in the attribution research literature, it should be noted
that these manipulations do indeed imply a degree of negligence by the external actors (see
also Shaver, 1985).
3 Because of space limitations, examples of manipulations are presented rather than
manipulations across all three resource domains. A complete set of variable manipulations
is available from the first author.
502 SKITKA AND TEYILOCK
Internal controllable (IC): Despite his doctors repeated warnings about the dam-
aging effects on his health and the probability of severe organ damage, this person
continued to eat high cholesterol foods, smoke, and not exercise. As a result, he
now has severe organ failure.
Internal uncontrollable (IU): This person has a genetically defective organ that is
not correctable by any means besides an organ transplantation.
External controllable (EC): This persons employer, even after warnings of the
health risks of a chemical used in a production plant, opted to continue using the
product despite the availability of comparably priced and effective alternatives.
The employees were kept uninformed of the risks, and ultimately this person
suffered irreparable organ damage from repeated exposure to the chemical.
External uncontrollable (ELI): This drug was prescribed for a mild allergy, which
the patient took for a brief period of time. He subsequently suffered severe organ
failure, which was traced to this drug. At the time the medication was prescribed,
these particular side effects had not been discovered. All previous testing had led
everyone to believe it was a safe medication.
Subjects rated each of these targets on the dimensions of pity, sympathy,

disgust, and distaste using 9-point scales where 1 represented Not (none)
at all and 9 represented A great deal. Also, three questions assessed
the effectiveness of the locus and control manipulations:
1. To what extent is this persons disease (need for housing) due to
factors that were preventable, by either himself, or someone else?
2. To what extent is this persons disease due to something about the
person (e.g., his behavior, personality, or body), rather than something
or someone external to the person?
3. How much personal responsibility does this person have for his
condition?
Subjects were asked to play the role of a decision-maker who was
responsible for allocating organs (AZT or low-income apartments). To
examine the second-order hypotheses, we described 16 possible recipients,
whose characteristics varied as a function of the same locus and control
conditions described earlier, crossed with the efficiency of providing treat-
ment (or housing) and the medical urgency of treatment (or severity of
need for housing). For example, high need in the organ context was
operationally defined as having a 1% chance of surviving until another
organ became available, whereas low need placed that chance at 10%.
Efficiency in this context was defined as how long the operation would
extend the claimants life; low efficiency was 1 year, high efficiency was
10 years.4
Subjects rated each of the 16 claimants relative deservingness for an
4 These manipulations were based on the typical ranges of need and efficacy for heart
transplantees.
available organ (slot in an AZT treatment program, low income apart-

ment) as well as how unfair it would be if the target person were denied
treatment. Both deservingness and fairness were assessed by 9-point se-
mantic differentials, Subjects were instructed that the purpose of these
judgments was to help them to make their actual allocations later, when
they would have to choose a certain number of recipients. Half the subjects
were told that there were severe resource constraints, and only 3 out of
the 16 (20%) could receive help. The other half of the subjects were told
13 out of 16 (80%) candidates could receive resources. After making their
judgments, subjects chose either 3 or 13 of the potential recipients to
receive organs, AZT, or low income housing. Last, subjects were asked
to report how much weight (in percentages) each factor and combination
of factors had on their choice decisions [i.e., need alone (the extent to
which the person needed an organ transplantation); effectiveness alone
(the extent to which treatment would prolong the persons life); reason
why the person needed help alone (e.g., didnt listen to doctors advice;
genetically based organ failure), need and effectiveness combined, etc.].
Manipulation checks on need and efficiency were collected at the end
of this section. Subjects responded to semantic differentials regarding their
perception of severity of need for each of the need manipulations and
the effectiveness of providing resources for each of the efficiency manip-
ulations within each domain.
Subjects then completed parallel questionnaires in the remaining two
domains.
Individual difference measures. Subjects also completed a packet of
personality and attitudinal measures to assess the cognitive conservatism
and liberal humanism clusters found by Carroll et al. (1987). The packet
also included Rotters Internal-External Locus of Control Scale (Rotter,
1966); the Shortened F for Political Surveys (Authoritarianism, Janowitz
& Marvick, 1953); and the Short Dogmatism Scale (Trodahl & Powell,
1965), a scale assessing attitudes toward proportional and egalitarian pub-
lic policies (Rasinski, 1987), as well as a single, bipolar, lo-point measure
of liberalism-conservatism.
Principal components analysis (with varimax rotation) created the sub-
scales to be used in the study.5 Items with loading of .40 or greater on
components with eigenvalues of 1 or more were retained for the factors.
Three factors were retained: (1) Conservatism: high dogmatism, author-
itarianism, and endorsement of proportionality. (2) Liberalism: Dogma-
tism and authoritarianism both loaded negatively on the component, sug-
gesting greater cognitive flexibility.6 As anticipated, egalitarian value
5 Several subjects did not have enough time to complete the personality inventories. The
sample size for all analyses using personality factor data is N = 171.
6 The labels of liberal and conservative were chosen for these components rather
than cognitive conservatism and liberal humanisms for reasons of linguistic simplicity.
orientation and self reports of political liberalism loaded positively on this

factor. (3) Locus of Control: An unexpected third component emerged
that clearly represents locus of control. This analysis replicated (with one
major exception) the Carroll et al. (1987) solution. Carroll et al. (1987)
found that the cognitive conservatism factor included an internal locus of
control component.7 We used the regression method to compute subjects
factor scores and to investigate personality and ideological effects.
Results
Checks on the Effectiveness of Manipulations
We checked to ensure that the operationalizations of locus of respon-
sibility were consistent across resource domains. The within-subjects anal-
ysis of variance (ANOVA) of domain (3) x locus (2) x control (2) was
conducted separately with the dependent variables of perceived locus and
control. A significanct three-way interaction emerged with perceptions of
control, F(2, 388) = 78.00, p < .Ol. Examination of partial interactions
indicated that the Locus x Control interaction was not different for the
Organ and Housing domains, F(1, 194) = 6.17, ns, but did take a different
form in the AZT domain [partial interactions of Locus x Control with
pairs of domains: AZT with the Organ, F(1, 194) = 154.05, p < .Ol and
AZT with Housing, F(1, 194) = 160.17, p < .Ol]. Simple main effects
analyses of each locus of responsibility manipulation (IC, IU, EC and
EU) across domain revealed significant domain effects for only the IU
target, F(2, 388) = 20.68, p < .Ol. Tukey tests indicated that AZT
claimants with IU needs (AIDS victims who contracted the virus as a
result of sexual relations, before AIDS was known to be a sexually trans-
mitted disease) were perceived as more controllable than IU manipulations
in the Organ (genetically defective organ) and Housing domains (learning
disability). Collapsing across domains yielded no significant differences in
the perceived controllability of IU vs EU claimants, or IC vs EC claimants.
The locus x control interaction did not affect perceptions of locus
differently across domains, F(2,388) = 1.09, ns. However, as is frequently
the case (e.g., Russell, McAuley, & Tarico, 1987; Weiner, 1986), attri-
butions of locus and control were not independent, as revealed by sig-
nificant interactions of locus and control to affect perceptions of both
This result is probably due to the use of different instruments to measure locus of
control. Carroll et al. (1987) used 20 items from Collins (1974) Locus of Control scale,
whereas the present study used Rotters (1966) scale.
* It will be recalled that six different orders of resource domain were presented; there
were no significant effects for this variable. In addition, the sexual preference of internal
claimants was manipulated as a between-subject variable in the AZT resource domain.
Interestingly, no significant effects emerged for sexual preference on the dependent measures
of deservingness, affect, or choice, a result at odds and with other research that manipulates
sexuality as a within-subject variable (e.g., Skitka & Tetlock, in press; Weiner, 1992).
locus [F(l, 194) = 76.45, p < .Ol] and control [F(l, 194) = 55.32, p <
.Ol]. Analysis of simple effects indicated no difference in perceived ex-
ternality of the external locus manipulations, F(1, 194) = 0.46, ns, but
internal-controllable causes were seen as more internal than intemal-
uncontrollable causes, F(1, 194) = 94.68, p < .Ol. Regardless, internal
causes were seen as in fact as more internal than external causes at both
levels of control. Analysis of simple effects with the controllability ma-
nipulation check indicated no significant difference in the perceived pre-
ventability of controllable causes, F(1, 194) = 2.34, ns, but external-
uncontrollable causes were perceived as less preventable than internal-
uncontrollable causes, F(1, 194) = 35.64, p < .Ol. Regardless, control-
lable causes were seen as more preventable than uncontrollable causes at
both levels of locus.
The manipulation checks for need and efficiency indicated that these
independent variables produced the intended effects. Dependent t tests
revealed that high need manipulations produced greater perceptions of
need than low need manipulations in all three domains, t(196) = 11.37,
p < .OOl in the organ domain; t(196) = 10.99, p < .OOl in the AZT
domain; and t(196) = 15.32, p < .OOl in the housing domain. Similarly,
dependent r tests revealed that high efficiency manipulations produced
greater perceptions of effectiveness than low efficiency manipulations in
all three domains, t(195) = 24.22, p < .OOl, in the organ domain; t(194) =
24.85, p < .OOl in the AZT domain; and t(196) = 19.25, p < JO1 in
the housing domain. Analysis of the domain (3) x need (2) and domain
(3) x efficiency (2) within-subjects ANOVAs revealed no differences
across domains in the neediness of high versus low need targets, F(2,
396) = 0.72, ns, nor any differences in the relative efficacy of high versus
low treatment efficiency manipulations, F(2, 396) = 0.96, ns.
Resource Domain
Although some domain effects did reach significance, these results are
not emphasized here for five reasons: (1) Resource domain and any in-
teraction involving domain, regardless of significance level, accounted for
less than 1% of the variance in each case; (2) none of these effects
significantly deviated from the predictions of the proposed model;
(3) intercorrelations among ratings in the three resource domains were
consistently high, ranging from a low of r = 60 to a high of r = .88,
(4) domain did not qualify the highest order interactions observed with
any of our dependent measures; and (5) collapsing across domains allowed
for a more reliable assessment of the funtional relationships across op-
erationalizations of independent and dependent variables. The major find-
ing is how well the results generalized across domains, despite the con-
siderable range of both resources and operationalizations of the relevant
variables.
Hypothesis 1. The Cognition-Affect-Action model was supported by
converging results across two measures of allocation preferences: (1) av-
erage ratings of deservingness and fairness [deservingness and fairness
ratings were highly correlated, r(196) = 89, p < .OOl. For ease of dis-
cussion, this measure will be referred to as simply deservingness]; and
(2) commitment of resources to claimants as a function of locus and
control. If the Cognition-Affect-Action model applies to peoples per-
ceptions of the fair allocation of assistance, locus and control should
interact to determine deservingness, choice, and affective ratings. Internal-
controllable claimants should be perceived as least deserving, receive the
lowest amount of assistance, and arouse the most negative and least
positive affect. Convergence of results across dependent measures pro-
vided strong support for the Cognition-Affect-Action model in describing
allocations under scarcity. These results are described in more detail be-
low.
Deservingness. The Locus x Control interaction (collapsing across
need, efficiency, scarcity, and domain) with the dependent variable of
deservingness was highly significant, F(l, 197) = 583.16, p < .OOOl.
Deservingness ratings were lowest when the cause was internal and con-
trollable (IC, M = 5.05; IU, M = 6.30; EC, M = 6.06; EU, M = 5.42).
Tukey tests indicated that all pairwise comparisons were significant. These
results indicate that interpreting the cause of a recipients need exerts an
important influence on assessments of fairness and deservingness, con-
sistent with results reported by Weiner (1980) on helping behavior.
Choice. Locus x Control interactions (collapsing across need, effi-
ciency, and domain) were also tested with the dependent variable of choice
under high and low scarcity (which claimants received aid). Choice con-
ditions varied as a function of the relative availability of resources: some
subjects were told there was enough for 13 out of 16 recipients (the Low
Scarcity condition) and others were told that there was only enough for
3 out of 16 recipients (the High Scarcity conditions). Because choice
as a dependent measure had different ranges depending on scarcity con-
dition, scarcity could not be included as a variable in analysis, nor could
we collapse across scarcity as a variable. Rather, we had to test these
hypotheses with two separate analyses of variance.
Choice in the low scarcity condition, after collapsing across resource
9 These results are qualified by a significant Sway interaction of scarcity, locus, control,
need, and efficiency on perceptions of deservingness, F(1, 1%) = 11.43, p < .Ol. The
pattern of results and rank-order preferences for IC versus other targets parallel the results
reported for choice (see Hypotheses 3 and 4) although some of the distinctions between
IU, EC, and EU targets found with choice were not found with deservingness. In other
words, choice evoked sharper distinctions between targets.
E Low Scaq
IntiCont lntiuncont ExtiCont ExtiUncont
Locus of Responsibility
FIG. 2. Choice as a function of locus and control. Claimants could be chosen from 0 to
9 times under high scarcity, and 3 to 12 times under low scarcity as a function of locus and
control.
domain, need, and efficiency (but not locus of control), ranged from 3
to 12. As Fig. 2 indicates, Locus and Control interacted to predict choice,
F(1, 84) = 287.45, p < .OOl. IU, EC, and EU claimants were chosen
on the average more than 11 times each-quite near the ceiling of 12.
Tukey tests revealed no differences among these groups. On the other
hand, Tukey tests indicated that IC targets were chosen less often than
other claimants, on average only 5 out of a possible 12 times each.
Choice under high scarcity ranged from 0 to 9. Once again, the locus
by control interaction demonstrated that people withheld resources most
from IC claimants, F(1, 94) = 149.95, p < .OOl (see Fig. 2). Allocators,
on average, spread their 9 choices evenly among IU, EC, and EU targets
(Tukey tests indicated no significant differences among these groups).
However, IC candidates were selected only rarely (M = .20) and signif-
icantly less than other claimants.
The role of affect in causal analysis and deservingness. We expected
that IC causes of need would arouse considerable negative and little
positive affect, whereas other causes of need would arouse the opposite
reaction. To investigate the influence of locus of responsibility on affect,
Locus (2) x Control (2) interactions were tested with the dependent
measures of sympathy, pity, disgust, and distaste. A multivariate test
(MANOVA) was conducted first, because these dependent variables were
Extreme
None
Sympathy Pi;y Disiust Distaste
Affect
FIG. 3. Affective reactions to claimants as a function of locus and control.
intercorrelated. After passing this initial test [F(4, 190) = 167.58, p <
.OOl], univariate analyses of variance were examined. These revealed
significant interactions of Locus by Control for each affective measure
[Sympathy, F(1, 196) = 680.85, p < .OOl; Pity, F(1, 196) = 221.78, p <
.OOl; Disgust, F(1, 196) = 425.74, p < .OOl; and Distaste, F(1, 196) =
472.40, p < .OOl)].
Figure 3 indicates the source of the interaction effects: the negative
emotional reactions to the IC target. Potential recipients whose needs
were rooted in internal and controllable causes aroused half the sympathy
and pity accorded to other recipients and over twice as much disgust and
distaste.
Hypothesis 2. Subjects rated the appropriateness of various allocation
procedures. A one-way within-subjects ANOVA with the independent
variable of distributive norms yielded significant differences in perceived
appropriateness (collapsing across resource domain), F(5, 990) = 197.67,
p < .OOl. Subjects rated need (e.g., allocating resources to those who
are the sickest, or in the worst housing) as the most appropriate way to
set fair priorities (M = 3.65), followed by efficiency (M = 2.90). Ap-
propriateness ratings dropped considerably for the next most appropriate
norm-the queue (M = .83). Equal opportunity, such as a lottery, was
rated slightly inappropriate (M = - .47) and the values of merit (i.e.,
priority should be based on the contributions people have made to society)
and the market (priority should be given to the highest bidder) were rated
as the most inappropriate ways to allocate resources (M = - 2.18 and

M = - 3 57, respectively). All pairwise comparisons were significant using
Tukey post hoc tests.
Summary offirst-order results. The first-order analyses set the stage for
the second-order questions. We have established that need, efficiency,
locus, and control were all manipulated successfully; that need and effi-
ciency were the primary allocation values activated in these contexts; and
more importantly, that attributions of responsibility and associated affect
influence perceptions if deservingness and fairness and allocation choices.
We now ask more differentiated questions about the relative and inter-
active roles of perceptions of personal responsibility, affect, distributive
norms, and personality in predicting allocations of scarce resources.
The choice dependent variable had sharply different distributions under
low scarcity (when subjects could choose 80% of the claimants) and high
scarcity (when subjects could choose only 20% of the claimants). Scarcity
was not included as a factor in analyses with choice as a dependent measure
because of this difference. Rather, hypotheses involving scarcity and
choice were tested by direct examination of the four-way interactions of
locus, control, need, and efficiency under different conditions of scarcity.
Hypothesis 3. Under low scarcity it was predicted claimants not per-
sonally responsible for their need would receive assistance, and that in-
ternal-controllable claimants with anything less than high need and effi-
ciency were most likely to be denied assistance. To test this hypothesis,
the Locus (2) by Control (2) by Need (2) by Efficiency (2) interaction
with the dependent variable of choice across domains under low scarcity
was examined. This interaction was significant, F(1) 97) = 51.95, p <
.OOl.
In statistical terms, our hypothesis predicts that need and efficiency will
interact within IC causes. IC claimants with high need and efficiency are
expected to be much more likely to receive resources than IC claimants
with other combinations of need and efficiency. In contrast, all claimants
with other causes of need should receive assistance, regardless of the
urgency or efficacy of their claims. Therefore there should not be a partial
interaction or simple main effects for need and efficiency within IU, EC,
and EU claims, because essentially all the claimants are predicted to
receive assistance. Consistent with this hypothesis, the need-by-efficiency
interaction with the dependent variable of choice within IC claimants was
significant, F(1, 97) = 36.77. IC claimants with high need and efficiency
were selected much more (M = 2.20) than IC claimants with low-high
(M = 1.51), high-low (M = 0.89), and low-low (M = 0.42) combinations
of need and efficiency, all pairwise differences significant with the Tukey
test (see Table 1).
TABLE 1
AVERAGE NUMBER OF TIMES CLAIMANTS WERE CHOSEN TO RECEIVE AVAILABLE AID UNDER
HIGH VERSUS Low SCARCITY AS A FUNCTION OF Locus, CONTROL, NEED, AND EFFKIENCY
Need/efficiency
Locus of High need High need Low need Low need

responsibility High efficiency Low efficiency High efficiency Low efficiency
High scarcity
Internal-controllable 0.16 0.01 0.03 0.01
Internal-uncontrollable 1.97 0.23 0.56 0.19
External-controllable 2.07 0.15 0.58 0.06
External-uncontrollable 2.22 0.12 0.53 0.05
Low scarcity
Internal-controllable 2.20 0.89 1.51 0.42
Internal-uncontrollable 2.97 2.72 2.95 2.78
External-controllable 2.95 2.76 2.94 2.54
External-uncontrollable 3.00 2.86 2.91 2.66
Note. Bold-faced numbers highlight claimants predicted to have highest priority under
high scarcity, and underlined numbers highlight claimants predicted to have lowest priority
under low scarcity.
Within other causes, the Cause (3) by Efficiency (2) and Cause by Need
simple interactions under low scarcity revealed no effects. However, the
simple interaction of Need by Efficiency within remaining causes was
significant, F(1, 98) = 21.00, p < .OOl. Tukey tests indicated that IU,
EC, and EU claimants who had high need and efficiency or low need
and high efficiency were selected most often to receive aid (M = 2.97
and M = 2.93, respectively, no significant difference), followed by high
need, low efficiency (M = 2.78), and then low need and efficiency (A4 =
2.66). To some extent these results are inconsistent with hypotheses.
Under low scarcity, need and efficiency were not expected to play major
roles in deciding whether IU, EC, or EU claimants would receive as-
sistance. Whereas some significant effects for need and efficiency emerged
within these claimants, examination of the means reveals that these dif-
ferences are very small.
Hypothesis 4. Under high scarcity, claimants not responsible for their
predicament with high need and efficiency should receive aid, and other
claimants should typically be denied assistance. This hypothesis was tested
by exploring the four way interaction of Locus (2) by Control (2) by Need
(2) by Efficiency (2) on choices made under high scarcity. This interaction
was significant, F(1, 98) = 25.84, p < .OOl.
This hypothesis predicts effects of need and efficiency on choice for
IU, EC, and EU claimants, but not for IC claimants. Therefore, paral-
leling the low scarcity analysis discussed earlier, two partial interactions
were tested: (1) the Need by Efficiency interaction within IC causes and
(2) the Need by Efficiency interaction within Remaining Causes.
Partially inconsistent with this hypothesis, the Need by Efficiency simple
interaction was significant within IC claimants, F(1, 98) = 9.69, p < .Ol.
Tukey tests revealed that high need and efficiency IC claimants were
selected more (M = 0.16) than IC claimants with other combinations of
need and efficiency (low-high, M = 0.03; high-low, M = 0.01; low-low,
M = 0.01, respectively). This result needs to be examined within the
context of Table 1 that reveals an overwhelming tendency to deny IC
claimants aid under high scarcity (IC claimants were almost never chosen
to receive assistance, with means hovering near 0) and an excellent fit of
the data with the priority predictions. Less than 8% of the subjects selected
any IC targets to receive aid under high scarcity, regardless of need or
efficiency.
The Cause by Need and Cause by Efficiency simple interactions within
remaining causes under high scarcity revealed no effects on choice. Con-
sistent with expectations, a simple interaction did emerge for Need by
Efficiency within remaining causes, F(1, 98) = 186.53, p < .OOl. Tukey
tests showed that high need and efficiency IU, EC, and EU claimants
were chosen dramatically more often than claimants with other combi-
nations of need and efficiency (M = 2.09). After a large drop, there is
a significant secondary preference for low need, high efficiency claimants
(M = O-56), followed by high-low and low-low combinations of need and
efficiency (M = 0.17 and M = 0.10, respectively, no significant dif-
ference) ,
In summary, these analyses indicated that when causal analysis yields
attributions of low personal responsibility (i.e., IU, EC or EU causes for
need), need and efficiency emerge as the best predictors of who receives
help. Attribution of IC cause of need is associated with the overall lowest
amount of aid (see first order analyses), but to the extent that people do
aid IC claimants, they select those with high need and efficiency. Most
subjects adhered to the pattern of choices under high and low scarcity
predicted by the model.
Hypothesis 5. Analysis of the weights assigned to need, efficiency, and
locus of control alone, and combinations of these variables under varying
conditions of scarcity (factor weight), provides additional support for the
judgmental sequence proposed by our model. A main effect for factor
weight, F(6, 1170) = 28.08, p < .OOl was qualified by an interaction with
scarcity, F(6, 1170) = 4.74, p < .OOl (see Table 2 for more detail). Tukey
tests indicated only two simple effects for scarcity: As predicted, reasons
alone were perceived as less important under high (M = 19.03) than low
(M = 26.49) scarcity, whereas reasons, need and efficiency-in other
words, all factors combined-were perceived as more important under
high (M = 24.72) than low (M = 17.09) scarcity.
TABLE 2
AVERAGE PERCENTAGE OF WEIGHTS ASSIGNED TO EACH FACTOR AND FACTOR COMBINATION
IN MAKING ALLOCATION DECISIONS UNDER SCARCITY AND No SCARCITY
High scarcity Low scarcity
Need alone 12.55 11.25

Efficiency alone 16.65 17.33
Reasons alone 19.03 26.49
Need and reasons 6.43 10.02
Efficiency and reasons 10.04 10.80
Need and efficiency 13.04 10.53
Reasons, need, and efficiency 24.72 17.09
Hypothesis 6. Although the 4-stage model does an adequate job of

predicting and explaining how the majority of people allocate aid, there
is considerable individual variation in the cognitive strategies underlying
allocation decisions. The next analyses explore individual differences in
allocation preferences and strategies.
Individual Differences: Correlational Approach

As can be seen in Table 3 and consistent with hypotheses, people high
in conservatism were more likely to: (a) attribute personal control to
internal claimaints; (b) have negative affective reactions (disgust and dis-
taste) to claimants with internal-controllable causes of need; and (c) de-
value the deservingness of claimants with internal-controllable causes of
need. Conservatives were also expected to be less likely to choose IC
claimants to receive help; this result was significant under high scarcity,
but not low scarcity.
People scoring high on liberalism, on the other hand, expressed more
sympathy and pity to targets with internal causes of need and less disgust
and distaste and higher ratings of deservingness for all targets. In other
words, our hypotheses were generally well supported.
Although we made no specific hypotheses regarding the relationships
between ideology and other causes of need, some other interesting results
were found. For example, conservatism was negatively related to deserv-
ingness and sympathy ratings of all claimants and greater distaste for all
claimants except those with EC causes of need. Conservatism was also
associated with higher ratings of personal responsibility to not only IC
but also IU claimants and a higher likelihood of choosing EU claimants
to receive assistance under high scarcity.
Liberalism, on the other hand, was associated with lower ratings of
disgust and distaste, higher ratings of deservingness toward all claimants,
and higher ratings of sympathy and pity for claimants with internal causes
TABLE 3
CORRELATIONS BETWEEN PERSONALITY-IDEOLOGY FACTORS AND AFFECTIVE REACTIONS, DESERVINGNESS, PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY, AND CHOICE
Personal Low scarcity High scarcity

Pity Sympathy Disgust Distaste Deservingness control choice choice F
Internal-controllable causes k
Conservatism - .28** - .31** .17* .25** -.31** .12* -.03 - .18*
Liberalism .12 .14* - .15* - .23** -.02 2;
.21** -.lO .13 52
Internal-uncontrollable causes 0
Conservatism -.13* - .23** .lO .20** - .34** .17* -.ll - .24** z
Liberalism .17* .23** - .25** - .28** .26** -.07 .07 .16 %
External-controllable causes m
Conservatism - .Ol -.17* .09 .07 - .25** .05 -.04 -.09 E
Liberalism .08 .12 - .13* - .14* .13* -.09 - .25** .08
External-uncontrollable causes 5
Conservatism -.03 -.15* .12 .14* - .35** .04 .07 .17* E
Liberalism .05 .07 -.18* -.14* .15* -.09 - .17* .Ol E
Note. N = 171 for all correlations except choice, N = 84 for choices made in low scarcity conditions, and N = 88 for choices made in high
scarcity conditions.
* p < .05, ** p < .Ol.
of need. Liberals were also less likely to select claimants with external
causes of need to receive assistance under low scarcity.
Table 4 presents the correlations of conservatism, liberalism, and locus
of control with subjective impressions of decision strategies under high
versus low scarcity.
Under high scarcity conservatives were less likely to report using need
or need and efficiency information than low scorers on this dimension,
whereas under low scarcity they were more likely to use efficiency, rea-
sons, and efficiency and reasons combined. Liberalism only correlated
with the weight assigned to factors under high scarcity and was associated
with greater weight to need and efficiency combined and a lower weight
to efficiency and reasons combined. Although we had no specific hy-
potheses for respondents locus of control, under high scarcity internal
locus of control was positively associated with placing greater weight on
need and efficiency combined and efficiency and reasons combined. Under
low scarcity, internal locus of control was associated with greater weight
on reasons why people needed help.
Discussion
Distributive norms were not sufficient to explain allocations of public
aid. Cognitive, affective, and personality-ideological variables also played
critical roles in predicting allocation preferences. These results were con-
sistent with the 4-stage model (see Fig. 1). For example, when there were
insufficient resources to help everyone, allocators took locus of respon-
sibility into account when deciding who should receive assistance (Stage
2 of the model). Personally responsible claimants were denied aid at a
much higher rate then other claimants (see also Skitka, McMurray &
Burroughs, 1991). Other results revealed different emotional reactions to
claimants as a function of locus of responsibility: Claimants with internal-
controllable causes of need aroused half the pity and sympathy and four
times the disgust and distaste as claimants with other causes of need-
results also consistent with predictions from Weiners Cognition-Affect-
Action model.
Support was also found for Stage 3 of our decisional model. When
there was an imperfect match between the number of personally respon-
sible claimants and the number of claimants to be denied resources, the
vast majority of subjects reacted as expected. Under low scarcity, allo-
cators generally gave aid to everyone who was not personally responsible
for their predicament. Those who were responsible were also selected to
receive help if they were needy and aid looked likely to be effective.
Under high scarcity, most allocators denied aid to all intemal-control-
lable claimants and selected only claimants who were not responsible for
needing help, who were very needy, and who were relatively likely to
benefit from help. Analysis of self-reported judgment strategies further
TABLE 4
CORRELATION OF PERSONALITY AND IDEOLOGY CLUSTERS WITH SELF-REPORTED WEIGHT OF
INFORMATION (AND CQMBINATIONS OF INFORMATION) IN MAKING ALLOCATION DECISIONS
Personality-ideology clusters
Cognitive Liberal Locus

conservatism humanism of control
High scarcity
Need - .19* .17 - .Ol
Efficiency .ll .09 - .13
Reasons .05 .03 - .Ol
Need and efficiency - .18* .19* - .03
Need and reasons .03 -.16 .28**
Efficiency and reasons .02 - .20* .18*
Need, efficiency, and reasons .07 -.09 -.OO
Low scarcity
Need .Ol .Ol .03
Efficiency .19* -.lO - .12
Reasons .23** - .Ol .20*
Need and efficiency .03 .oo -.06
Need and reasons .13 .03 .07
Efficiency and reasons .25** - .13 - .05
Need, efficiency, and reasons -.12 .06 -.07
Note. N = 84 for low scarcity, N = 88 for high scarcity.

* p < .05, ** p < .Ol.
supported the model. Subjects reported more complex cognitive strategies

(taking into account all sources of information combined) under high as
compared to low scarcity. In contrast, the reasons why people needed
help were given greater weight under low as compared to high scarcity.
The results also revealed relationships between personality and ideo-
logical variables and judgment strategies. People high in liberalism and
low in conservatism reacted more favorably toward claimants with internal
causes of need, whereas people high in conservatism and low in liberalism
favored claimants with external causes, a result consistent with previous
research (Carroll et al., 1987). Correlational analysis indicated that high
conservatives rated all claimants lower in deservingness and expressed
less sympathy and pity and more distaste toward those personally re-
sponsible for their plight than people low in conservatism. Conversely,
high liberals expressed more sympathy and pity toward those with internal-
controllable (and internal-uncontrollable) causes of need and less disgust
and distaste and higher deservingness for all claimants, as compared to
people scoring low on this dimension.
Personality and ideological correlations with self-reported judgment
strategies also provided insight into which subjects deviated from the four-
stage model. Under scarcity, high scorers on liberalism (and low scorers
on conservatism) assigned more weight to need and efficiency than other
subjects.
To provide a more comprehensive test of this decisional model, it is
necessary to examine what happens when there is no scarcity. Here it is
predicted that appraisal of responsibility and deservingness will not occur,
and that people will simply allocate resources to everyone (see Stage 1
of the model). However, the present model may seriously underestimate
the tendency to engage in causal analysis and the interdependencies among
causal processes, especially in light of the potential moderating effects of
personality and ideology. Consider, for example, the large internal-con-
trollable effect. It may be rational from an efficiency perspective to with-
hold help from this group. If these people did not take care of themselves
before, they probably wont do so later, in which case money spent on
providing help has been wasted. It may also be rational, from a societal
point of view, to create incentives for people to take care of themselves
by promoting a fear of falling through the safety net if they misbehave.
The effects of personality-ideology are likely to be the strongest under
no scarcity. To examine whether some people (e.g., conservatives) will
react punitively toward internal-controllable claimants when situational
constraints are less severe, we must explore allocation decisions when
scarcity constraints disappear.
STUDY 2
Study 2 explored whether allocators assist all claimants when there are
sufficient resources to do so. One possibility is that at least some allocators
will withhold resources from claimants with internal-controllable causes
of need, even when there is enough for everyone. A related possibility
is that personality-ideological variables will allow us to differentiate those
who do and do not withhold aid under no scarcity. According to our
model, when there are enough resources to satisfy claims, people, es-
pecially liberals, are unlikely to engage in causal analysis of why people
need help. However, to the extent that withholding resources is a punitive
response by conservatives (consistent with their affective reactions in the
previous study), they should withhold resources from people with internal-
controllable causes, even under no scarcity.
Method
Subjects
Thirty-seven subjects from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville participated in
the study as part of class requirements.
Method
The same 16 claimants per resource domain [varying as a function of locus (2) x control
(2) x need (2) x efficiency (2) x domain (3)] used in the previous study were used as
the stimulus materials for the current study (see second-order questions of the previous
method section). Subjects read these descriptions and selected as many or few of the
claimants as they wanted to receive resources. Subjects were told explicitly that there was
no scarcity and to use only the information that they though was appropriate to make fair
allocations. The key dependent measure was who received resources. Claimants were ran-
domly ordered within domains, and domains were randomly ordered across questionnaires.
Subjects read the descriptions of the targets within each domain, chose whom they wanted
to receive help, and then went on to the next domain. After completing their selections
across all three resource domains, subjects completed the personality-ideology questionnaire
used in the earlier study.
Results
Did people still deny claimants assistance when there was no scarcity
of resources and when instructed explicitly to be fair? Under these con-
ditions, 14 subjects assisted all claimants; 23 subjects denied assistance
to at least one claimant. A dichotomous variable was created to denote
who gave resources to everyone (givers) versus who denied assistance to
one target or more (deniers). Independent t tests indicated that deniers
were more dogmatic, t(34) = 3.46, p < .Ol; politically conservative, t(34)
= 2.11, p < .05; and authoritarian, t(34) = 2.02, p < .05 than givers,
but did not differ significantly on attitudes related to egalitarianism or
proportionality. Consistent with this pattern of results, deniers were higher
on conservatism than givers, t(33) = 2.96, p < .Ol, but not different on
the liberalism factor, t(33) = .73, ns.
A discriminant function analysis was performed using liberalism and
conservatism to characterize givers versus deniers. Results yielded a sig-
nificant association between groups and predictors, x2(2) = 9.09, p <
.Ol. Conservatism and liberalism had within-group correlations of .90 and
.22 with the canonical discriminant function, indicating that conservatism
is a better predictor of giving or denying aid to all claimants than liberalism
(people high in conservatism are more likely to withhold aid from at least
one claimant). The function correctly classified 76% of the cases and was
better at predicting givers (misclassifying only 2 out of 14 cases) than
deniers (misclassifying 7 out of 23 cases).
Consistent with hypotheses, personality and ideological variables ex-
plain deviations from the general model. Conservatives withheld aid from
some claimants even when there were sufficient resources to help every-
one. To examine which claimants were denied aid by conservatives, a
Conservatism (2: High, Low, using a median split) x Locus (2) x Control
(2) x Need (2) x Efficiency (2) mixed design ANOVA was run with
the dependent variable of choice. The result was a five-way interaction,
F(1, 33) = 6.61, p < .05.
It was predicted that conservatives would be more likely to take causes
Factor scores for this sample were based on the regression weights from Study 1.
into account regardless of scarcity because reacting punitively to internal

and controllable needs is a well-rehearsed ideological response for this
group. This suggests a significant locus-by-control simple interaction for
people high, but not low, in conservatism. No effects for need and effi-
ciency were anticipated, and therefore analyses for these effects were
corrected for familywise error using the Scheffe test. No effects for need
and efficiency were significant using this criterion.
The simple interactions of locus and control within high versus low
conservatism groups supported the hypotheses. High conservatives had a
significant locus by control simple interaction, F(1, 33) = 9.68, p < .Ol.
Planned comparisons indicated that conservatives chose IC targets less
frequently than targets with any other cause, regardless of their respective
levels of need or efficiency, F(1, 33) = 150.81, p < .Ol. No significant
simple effects emerged for locus, control, need, or efficiency for low
conservatives.
Discussion
Taken together, the two studies support the 4-stage contingency model
of allocation that incorporates causal analysis, affect, distributive norms,
situational constraints, and the effects of political ideolody of the allocator.
People placed in the role of impartial allocator of public resources consider
not only norms of distributive justice but also why help is needed as
morally relevant criteria for distributing outcomes under scarcity, regard-
less of ideological orientation. However, conservatives withheld resources
punitively, reacting with strong negative affect toward claimants with in-
ternal-controllable claims and withheld assistance from them even when
there were sufficient resources to satisfy all claims and needs. Perhaps
from a conservative point of view, people who were personally responsible
for needing help violated a fundamental social contract. If people want
to enjoy the benefits of society, such as access to expensive medical
technology, they should behave responsibly. Because internal-controllable
claimants have broken this implicit contract, conservatives feel no obli-
gation to grant these claims, even when there were sufficient resources
and providing help would maximize distributive goals that allocators them-
selves had indicated were most appropriate (e.g., minimizing need and
waste). In effect, conservatives may try to preserve equity or maintain
incentives that induce effort by endorsing minimal government-at least
when it comes to social welfare policy.
Past work on attribution has established the role of causal analysis in
helping situations. This work has not, however, examined whether per-
ceivers consider using causal information morally appropriate in allocating
public resources, nor has it explored situational and ideological boundary
conditions on these effects. Our results revealed a clear ideological con-
sensus that causal analysis was appropriate under scarcity. Even low levels
of scarcity primed causal analysis. However, only conservatives continued

to withhold assistance from internal-controllable claimants when there
were sufficient resources to satisfy all claims and needs.
The data also indicated that liberals and conservatives are in funda-
mental agreement that causal information was an appropriate basis to
decide who should be refused scarce resources. This finding does not
mean, however, that liberals and conservatives were equally swayed by
such information. Based on the correlational evidence (e.g., liberals had
more positive affective reactions-e.g., sympathy-to personally respon-
sible claimants), denying aid to internal-controllable claimants under scarc-
ity was a painful and awkward decision for liberals (see also Skitka &
Tetlock, in press). Liberals, while sympathetic to these claimants, ulti-
mately denied them assistance. For example, in postexperimental inter-
views, one liberal explained: I dont have the right to play God. Whether
its their fault or not, they deserve treatment. Id rather give it to everyone,
but because there wasnt enough, I didnt choose the ones who were sick
because of their own fault. Conservatives, on the other hand, were less
ambivalent about punishing internal-controllable claimants. Consistent
with the idea that conservatives felt released from an implicit social con-
tract to help the needy when the needy bring misfortune upon themselves,
conservatives reacted with anger and disgust to internal-controllable claim-
ants. As one conservative explained, I didnt choose some people to get
AZT because I feel they knew the risks of getting AIDS and did nothing
about it. So in a way, they dealt their own punishment-when they ob-
viously didnt care what would happen, why should I? Society owes them
nothing.
Although the results presented here are consistent with the present
model, future research needs to investigate the temporal sequence of the
allocation decision-making process and the cue-weighting strategies that
people use. It is also worth noting that resource scarcity is not purely an
exogenous variable (something imposed on people); how much aid one
has to allocate is also the product of political choice. Implicitly or ex-
plicitly, people set priorities among competing claims (savings and in-
vestment, national defense, health care, personal consumption). Subjects
in the current experiment were not allowed to regulate resource scarcity
in the ways possible in the real world-for example, decreasing scarcity
by increasing taxes and accepting a lower standard of living or increasing
scarcity by decreasing taxes. An open question concerns the feedback
relationships between the size of the resource pool and the perceived
deservingness of recipients. Are some people more willing than others to
make personal sacrifices to avoid making painful choices about who does
and does not deserve help (setting a safety net below which no one can
fall)? Once people have capped the size of the resource pool themselves,
are they more inclined to see those who cannot be helped as therefore
less deserving? Conservatives may, for example, feel it is better to give

money back to the taxpayers than spend it on the unworthy. And just
as it is possible to be too stingy (capping the resource pool so that
many are denied help), is it also possible to be too generous (flooding
the pool with resources to the point of imperilling future economic growth
and capacity to tend to future needs)? Further work building real-world
feedback loops into the experimental scenarios should address these ques-
tions.
Another domain for future investigation is the generality of these find-
ings. The current context highlighted the need to minimize suffering and
waste. Other contexts will prime different goals, such as maximizing profit
and productivity. How will distributive norms, attributes of the claimant
and judge, affect, and structural constraints shape allocations in this other
social context? Will the same variables that predict allocations of body
organs, expensive drugs and low-cost housing also predict allocations of
pay bonuses or scholarship aid? Given the goal orientation of the market-
place, emphasis will probably shift from need toward equity. Moreover,
instead of receiving less (as we have found in need settings), people whose
success is the result of internal-controllable causes will probably be as-
signed more in these settings (especially by conservatives). In short, some
effects may be mirror images of those observed here.
Much current thinking in distributive justice has focused on expanding
the range of values that can be activated as norms in various settings.
Consistent with the equity theory tradition, researchers have given primary
attention to wage settings. In applying these theories to the political
domain, we find it necessary to include not only norms and goal orien-
tations, but also causal attributions, affect, political ideology, and the
empirically neglected variable of scarcity. Normative principles (by them-
selves) are relatively poor predictors of how we allocate public assistance.
The interactions between allocator characteristics and situational pressures
produce the most practically interesting and theoretically relevant findings.
By omitting even one class of these variables, we have a distorted picture
of how people cope with these extraordinarily consequential decisions.
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A Contingency Model Justice

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JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 28,491-522 (1992)

Allocating Scarce Resources: A Contingency Model

Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville

University of California, Berkeley

Received March 4. 1991

Two experiments tested predictions derived from a contingency model of dis-

Who deserves government help in securing health care or in finding a

Stage 2: Amihtionsl Analysis Why da claimmu need help?

weighted heavily in perceptions of deservingness and allocation decisions

Attributes of the Claimant (Locus of Responsibility)

FIG. 1. A 4-stage contingency model of allocation. Depending on resource scarcity and

controllable causes-such as carelessness, laziness, greed, and self-in-

Personality and Ideology of the Allocator

Resource Constraints on the Capacity to Provide Aid

The Present Studies

denied assistance because of scarcity constraints. For half of the subjects,

Rationale for the Design

AZT is a drug to treat Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). AZT is

an organ transplantation, or low income housing) can receive it because

* We modeled our manipulations of controllability and externality after Weiners (1986)

Subjects rated each of these targets on the dimensions of pity, sympathy,

available organ (slot in an AZT treatment program, low income apart-

orientation and self reports of political liberalism loaded positively on this

IntiCont lntiuncont ExtiCont ExtiUncont

as the most inappropriate ways to allocate resources (M = - 2.18 and

Locus of High need High need Low need Low need

High scarcity Low scarcity

Need alone 12.55 11.25

Hypothesis 6. Although the 4-stage model does an adequate job of

Individual Differences: Correlational Approach

Personal Low scarcity High scarcity

Cognitive Liberal Locus

Note. N = 84 for low scarcity, N = 88 for high scarcity.

supported the model. Subjects reported more complex cognitive strategies

into account regardless of scarcity because reacting punitively to internal

of scarcity primed causal analysis. However, only conservatives continued

less deserving? Conservatives may, for example, feel it is better to give

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