Partnering up (and down): Examining when and why people prefer collaborating with higher paid peers (and lower paid subordinates).

Abstract

Emerging trends toward greater pay transparency and more freedom in teaming decisions intersect to highlight a potential conflict. Extant research suggests that visible pay disparities should adversely affect collaborations, particularly with higher paid partners, but we challenge this thesis and present three preregistered studies demonstrating that visible salary disparities can positively affect collaboration with higher paid peers in teaming decisions. In Studies 1 and 2, people chose to collaborate with higher rather than lower paid peers unless explicitly told that their potential collaborators' knowledge, skills, abilities, and experience were similar, suggesting that pay was viewed as a signal for competence. In Study 3, the preference for working with higher paid peers was replicated even when the decision-makers were familiar with their potential coworkers. In contrast to teaming decisions, in a fourth preregistered study (Study 4) focused on hiring decisions, people were less likely to hire a candidate with a higher (vs. lower) pay history for a subordinate position on their team. Taken together, the studies demonstrate that visible pay disparities affect collaboration and selection decisions but in different ways: People tend to show a bias in favor of higher paid peers as collaboration partners, while they show an aversion to hiring people with higher pay histories as subordinates. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).