This paper tries to demonstrate the existence of social norms against self-evaluations that are more favorable than people deserve (over-evaluation of self) and evaluations of others that are less favorable than others deserve (under-evaluation of others). The norms are derived from a resource theory in which these norms are needed to protect against the conflict that follows from people attempting to get ahead of others in acquiring scarce interpersonal resources. In an interpersonal exchange situation, persons who violated the above norms were evaluated less favorably by subjects and were attributed more responsibility for a negative event than non-norms violators. Surprisingly, subjects (1) failed to aggress against unfavorably evaluated norm violators, and (2) evaluated aggressive persons as favorably as nonaggressive ones. Implications of the findings for the interpersonal evaluation and social protest situations are discussed. (Author)