Summary Of Michael I. Norton's Unequality

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Michael I. Norton wrote the article titled “Unequality: Who Gets What and Why it Matters.” He collaborated several experiments to prove his ideas (Norton 152-155). Michael came to the understanding that inequality, whether from wealth or income, rich or poor, everyone supports the idea of being unequal (Norton 152). The vast majority of Americans believe we all should be unequal, whereas the rich should get more than the poor (Norton 152). They do not believe however that we should be as unequal as we are today (Norton 152). Given Michaels findings he also understands that inequality in its severity demotes motivation, decision making and ethical and unethical choices (Norton 151). In his article he showed that the world has this similar view of who should get what (Norton 153). Michael asked, in one of his own research studies, …show more content…

Norton’s article, inequality has some positive and negative effects to the wealth and income gap (Norton 153). He notes that although some people find inequality good, saying that higher wages motivates workers to strive to become better, there are negatives as well (Norton 153). Negative consequences on higher inequality stem from psychological behaviors that lower motivation in the work field (Norton 154). For example, when workers realize who is getting paid what, in a situation where one of the workers is getting paid less than the other for the same work, it demotivates them to work harder (Norton 154). Research shows in the article that not only does inequality effect the low paid worker, it also effects the CEO’s of the corporation as well (Norton 154). When a worker gets promoted or gets a huge bonus, it can stumble their work ethic negatively (Norton 154). With this research conducted by Ariely, Gnezzy, Loewenstiein and Mazar in 2009, it confirms Michael Norton’s views that inequality is demotivating to higher and lower paid workers causing both groups to perform badly under the circumstances (Norton