Correlates of employee evaluations of pay increases

Abstract

In a sample of 1500 white-collar, industrial employees, average perceptions of small, average, or large increases in salary formed a relatively constant function of level of current salary. The analogy to the psychophysical Weber/Fechner model, while explaining much of the variance in perceptions of salary increases was not complete. Additional variability was related to a series of demographic variables, with higher dollar expectations registered by college-educated vs. noncollege, younger vs. older, exempt vs. nonexempt, and among nonexempt, male vs. female employees. Results suggest that probable earnings potential, in addition to current earnings level, contributes variance to differences in perceptions of equitable salary increases. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)