WHO’S THE FAIREST OF THEM ALL?: THE IMPACT OF NARCISSISM ON SELF- AND OTHER- RATED FAIRNESS IN THE WORKPLACE

This dissertation examines individual differences in self-perceived and other-assessed fairness. Specifically, it tests whether the personality trait of narcissism can predict higher self-rated fairness, lower other-rated fairness and a larger divergence between self-rated and other rated fairness. Additionally, this study considers the impact of narcissism on the accuracy of one’s perceptions of how one is viewed by others as well as the accuracy of others ’ perceptions of how one views oneself. Messick, Bloom, Boldizar & Samuelson (1985) published a study in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology entitled “Why we are fairer than others ” in which they found that people associate more fairness with their own behavior than that of other people. Given that not everyone can be fairer than average, the authors conclude that people have a self-enhancement bias in their perceptions of fairness. Cates & Messick (1996) describe how the “I am fairer than others ” (or the “dual slope phenomenon ” in which the “self ” and “other ” lines in a plot of the frequency of behaviors on the dimensions of fair vs. unfair, frequent vs. infrequent have different slopes and cross one another) has been replicated cross culturally, in the Netherlands by Liebrand, Messick and Wolters (1986), in Hong Kong by Chan (1987) and in Japan by Tanaka (1993). One shortcoming of these studies is that they lack criterion measures against which self-ratings of fairness could be compared and evaluated. Some theorists have claimed that inflated self-perception, within a reasonable range, is necessary for and diagnostic of healthy mental functioning (Taylor, 1989). Completely accurat