See me, judge me, pay me: Gendered effort moralization in work and care

Displaying high effort at work is rewarded with more positive moral judgments (effort moralization effect) and increased cooperation partner attractiveness. This holds, even if higher effort is unrelated to better performance. Yet, current evidence is exclusively based on males, mostly situated in the work context. This prohibits generalization to the full population and neglects critical aspects of our lives, such as the care context (e.g., unpaid care for elders). To address this gap, we conducted two studies (Nwork = 859, Ncare = 701) testing the effect between genders and contexts—work and care. Study materials featured two actors performing the same task, requiring different levels of effort (high/low). Participants rated the actor’s morality, suggested hourly salary, and reported their satisfaction to cooperate with them as assigned partners. The results confirmed the effort moralization effect in work contexts but were mixed for the care context. There were no gender differences, substantiating the demographic generalizability of the effect. Contrary to previous studies, effort did not influence suggested pay, and participants expressed greater satisfaction with low-effort actors as assigned cooperation partners. Further, we observed that care work received lower pay suggestions than traditional work. While further research is needed to explore the boundary conditions of effort moralization in different contexts, the findings support its role as a robust heuristic for moral judgment in the work context.