EN
Respondents in two representative samples of inhabitants of the city of Łódź in 1977 and 1984 were asked to modify the three demonstrated salaries. Thirteen possible egalitarian and as many meritocratic kinds of modifications were distinguished, the former being those reducing the gap within each of the three pairs of salaries and the latter those enlarging it. Each way of achieving a given modification was given a motivational meaning and appropriate name (e.g.a. “Robin Hood modification”, “equal sharing of poverty”, “jealousy modification”, “enlarging a gap at a generally higher level”, etc.). Empirically ascertained kinds of modifications in two samples were found and their percentage distributions calculated among qualified and unqualified manual workers, white collar workers and pensioners. Diachronic changes in these distributions which occurred between 1977 and 1984 were found and explained by referring to the change in the level of and relations between the three salaries and to the rise of popular radicalism in 1984.