The key features of Equity Theory
- Equity theory is based on the concept of fairness in a relationship i.e. are both partners receiving the same profit and not incurring unequally-weighted costs?
- Equity theory - like Social Exchange Theory and Rusbult’s Investment Model - is an economic theory of relationships but it attempts to explain aspects of the costs/rewards balance which SET fails to elucidate
- Equity means that both people in the relationship benefit from the relationship rather than one person scooping all of the rewards (known as overbenefitting) while the other person misses out (known as underbenefitting)
- The overbenefitted partner may feel unease, guilt and embarrassment about the inequity in the relationship; the underbenefitted partner may feel anger, resentment and dissatisfaction about the inequity in the relationship
- Perception is everything: if one of the partners feels that the relationship is unfair then this may result in them feeling dissatisfied with it regardless of whether they overbenefit or underbenefit
- Equity is not the same as equality: it is the balance of costs and rewards which is important, not the number of rewards and costs involved
- Insisting on equality in a relationship would involve, say, all tasks being allocated equally between the couple but if one person works away from home for several weeks at a time this is clearly not going to be viable
- Using the example from the above bullet point: equity would be established if the partner who works away from home was responsible for all household accounts and for booking holidays; in this way both partners would feel that the tasks were divided fairly
Can any relationship achieve perfect equity?