The present study examined the effects of perceived performance, ability, and effort of recipients on reward allocation. Based on an assumption that performance might be attributed to ability and effort, we predicted that allocators would weight performance in their reward allocation more than ability and/or effort (Hypothesis 1), and that they would weight ability and/or effort in their reward allocation more if they expected they would have exchange interactions with the same recipients in the future than if they did not expect so (Hypothesis 2). Subjects were forth-eight junior college students. They were given information of performance, ability, and effort of two recipients, and asked to allocate reward (24,000 Yen) between the recipients, to rate weights of performance, ability, and effort, and to rate fairness of their own allocation. The results were consistent with hypothesis 1, but inconsistent with hypothesis 2; they showed allocators weighted performance more than ability and effort, but the expectation of future interaction did not influence the weight of them.
