When and Why “Consoling” Marginal Underperformers With a Small Versus Zero Reward Hurts Fairness (Without Consolation)

ABSTRACT When resource allocation decisions involve marginal underperformers (MUs)—individuals or parties who underperform only “by inches” relative to a threshold—allocators may adopt the consolatory approach, compensating MUs with a small portion of the total resource. Seven studies ( N = 2585) revealed that the consolatory approach, albeit often well intended, may backfire. Specifically, when compared with the non‐consolatory, binary approach (allocating all the resource to outperformers and nothing to MUs), the consolatory approach can be perceived as less fair, even by MUs themselves who economically benefit from it. As the consolatory approach is objectively more equitable than the binary approach, this effect contradicts the prediction of proportional equity, thereby demonstrating its discontinuity at zero. The underlying mechanism is grounded in people's fundamental perception of zero as unique relative to other numbers, which leads them to adopt different criteria to evaluate fairness depending on whether the allocation outcomes involve zero. This work suggests that the common practice of offering MUs a small “consolation prize” may backfire, harming fairness without mitigating MUs' negative feelings of losing.