Understanding why the justice of group procedures matters: A test of the psychological dynamics of the group-value model.

Procedural justice research has documented many positive consequences of fair decision-making procedures and treatment by authorities. However, it is unclear why these effects of procedural justice occur. The group-value model proposes that fair procedures matter because they communicate two symbolic messages about group membership: (1) whether individuals are respected members of a group and (2) whether they should feel pride in the group as a whole. These messages are conveyed by 3 relational aspects of the actions of authorities: actions that indicate neutrality, trustworthiness, and status recognition. Results from 4 different studies provide evidence that (1) relational aspects of fair procedures communicate group-relevant information and (2) this information mediates the influence of procedural judgments on group-oriented behaviors and feelings of self-esteem. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Procedural context and culture: Variation in the antecedents of procedural justice judgments.

T. R. Tyler and E. A. Lind (1992) identified 3 relational variables that make authoritative procedures seem fair: indications of status recognition, trust in benevolence, and neutrality in decision making. In Study 1, students from the United States, Germany, and Hong Kong recalled a conflict and reported their reactions. In Study 2, U.S. and Japanese students rated 3rd-party and dyadic procedures as ways of resolving a hypothetical dispute. In both studies, trust in benevolence correlated more strongly with procedural justice judgments in 3rd-party procedures. Study 2 showed stronger links between status recognition and procedural justice in the U.S. sample. In both studies, the relational variables appeared to mediate the effects of voice on procedural justice judgments. The results suggest that the basic processes posited in the theory generalize to dyadic conflict situations and across cultural contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychological models of the justice motive: Antecedents of distributive and procedural justice.

Two psychological theories consider why people care about justice. The social-exchange-based resource model argues that people want to maximize the resources they obtain from social interactions, a goal that they believe is facilitated by following rules of distributive and procedural justice; the identity-based relational model suggests that people attempt to maintain high status within groups and use the justice of their experiences to evaluate their group status. Two studies on reactions to experiences with authorities (legal and managerial) examine the influence of these motives on (1) people's evaluations of the distributive and procedural justice of their experiences and (2) affective and behavioral reactions to those experiences. Results support a model in which relational issues dominate definitions of justice. Whereas distributive justice judgments are shaped by both resource and relational judgments, procedural justice judgments are shaped by relational concerns. The findings suggest two distinct justice motives. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Procedures: Do we really want to know them? An examination of the effects of procedural justice on self-esteem.

This study examined the effects of procedural justice on state-dependent self-esteem using the group-value model and attribution theory to present competing theoretical perspectives. The group-value model predicts a positive relationship between self-esteem and fair procedures. In contrast, attribution theory suggests procedural fairness interacts with outcome favorability to influence self-esteem. Thus, fair procedures will result in higher self-esteem ratings than unfair procedures when the outcome is positive but will result in lower self-esteem ratings than unfair procedures when the outcome is negative. The results of a laboratory and field study provide converging evidence to support the attribution theory predictions. The results of a 2nd laboratory study suggest that self-esteem is influenced by outcome expectancies, not actual outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The impact of outcome orientation and justice concerns on tax compliance: The role of taxpayers' identity.

Previous research has yielded inconsistent evidence for the impact of justice perceptions on tax compliance. This article suggests a more differentiated view on the basis of 2 congenial theories of procedural and distributive justice. The group-value model and a categorization approach argue that taxpayers are more concerned about justice and less about personal outcomes when they identify strongly with the inclusive category within which procedures and distributions apply. Regression analyses of survey data from 2,040 Australian citizens showed that 2 forms of tax compliance (pay-income reporting and tax minimization) were determined by self-interest variables. For 2 other forms (nonpay income and deductions), inclusive identification had an additional effect and moderated the effects of self-interest and justice variables as predicted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Procedural justice and participation in task selection: The role of control in mediating justice judgments.

Two experiments on task-assignment procedures, one conducted in a laboratory and one conducted in a field setting, examined the effects of voice and choice on perceived control, perceived procedural justice, task commitment, and task performance. Three models of procedural justice—two positing control mediation of justice judgments and one positing covarying, but not mediating, effects of control—suggested that the procedural justice effect of voice beyond choice would be especially potent when the participation involved decisions about task selection procedures as opposed to decisions about specific task assignments. The models differed with respect to the causal relations they predicted. Both studies examined the effects of three modes of participation (choice?+?voice, choice only, or no participation) in either the selection of a specific task or the selection of a procedure to be used to assign a task. In the laboratory experiment, 72 students worked on a business simulation task; in the field experiment, 72 employees of a mail-order firm worked at taking telephone orders. In both experiments the hypothesized effects were found, and in both experiments LISREL VI analyses showed that the justice judgment effects were not mediated by perceived control. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the Subjective Quality of Social Justice: The Role of Affect as Information in the Psychology of Justice Judgments.

This article argues that it is not uncommon for people forming justice judgments to lack information that is most relevant in the particular situation. In information-uncertain conditions, people may therefore construct justice judgments by relying on how they feel about the events they have encountered, and justice judgments may hence be strongly influenced by affect information. Findings show that in information-uncertain conditions, the affective states that people had been in prior and unrelated to the justice event indeed strongly influenced their justice judgments. These findings thus reveal that in situations of information uncertainty, people's judgments of justice can be very subjective, susceptible to affective states that have no logical relationship with the justice judgments they are constructing. Implications for the social psychology of justice and the literature on social cognition and affect are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comparing three processes underlying judgments of procedural justice: A field study of mediation and arbitration.

A natural setting in which 158 coal miners who had filed grievances were assigned to either mediation or arbitration was used to test a model of 3 mediating processes underlying judgments of procedural justice: instrumental, noninstrumental, and procedural enactment. The generality of these processes was tested across procedures varying objectively in the degree of disputants' outcome control, across contexts in which disputes rather than decisions were resolved, and across situations in which the grievance was won, lost, or compromised as a result of the dispute resolution procedure. All 3 processes consistently accounted for judgments of procedural justice in all but 1 of these circumstances (instrumental processes did not account for procedural justice when grievants won). Perceptions of the 3rd party's enactment of the procedure emerged in this study as a key influence (as a moderator and mediator) of procedural justice judgments. Implications for the theory of procedural justice and the design of dispute resolution procedures are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evaluating outcomes by means of the fair process effect: Evidence for different processes in fairness and satisfaction judgments.

The authors refine and extend their explanation of the psychology of the fair process effect (the positive influence of procedural fairness on outcome evaluations). On the basis of fairness heuristic theory's substitutability proposition, the authors predicted and found that outcome evaluations show strong effects of procedural fairness when outcomes are better or worse than expected, whereas less strong fair process effects appear when outcomes are equal to or differ from the outcome of a comparison other. This finding suggests some important differences in how people use expectations versus social comparisons as reference points for evaluating outcomes. Findings also revealed that fairness judgments do not always show the same effects as do satisfaction judgments, indicating differences in the way people form judgments on these two dimensions of outcome evaluation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Procedural justice and status: Status salience as antecedent of procedural fairness effects.

The current article explores status as an antecedent of procedural fairness effects (the findings that perceived procedural fairness affects people's reactions, e.g., their relational judgments). On the basis of the literature, the authors proposed that salience of the general concept of status leads people to be more attentive to procedural fairness information and that, as a consequence, stronger procedural fairness effects should be found. In correspondence with this hypothesis, Experiment 1 showed stronger procedural fairness effects on people's relational treatment evaluations in a status salient condition compared with a control condition. Experiment 2 replicated this effect and, in further correspondence with the hypothesis, showed that status salience led to increased cognitive accessibility of fairness concerns. Implications for the psychology of procedural justice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Organization structure as a moderator of the relationship between procedural justice, interactional justice, perceived organizational support, and supervisory trust.

Organizational justice researchers recognize the important role organization context plays in justice perceptions, yet few studies systematically examine contextual variables. This article examines how 1 aspect of context--organizational structure--affects the relationship between justice perceptions and 2 types of social exchange relationships, organizational and supervisory. The authors suggest that under different structural conditions, procedural and interactional justice will play differentially important roles in determining the quality of organizational social exchange (as evidenced by perceived organizational support [POS]) and supervisory social exchange (as evidenced by supervisory trust). In particular, the authors hypothesized that the relationship between procedural justice and POS would be stronger in mechanistic organizations and that the relationship between interactional justice and supervisory trust would be stronger in organic organizations. The authors' results support these hypotheses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Influence of voice on satisfaction with leaders: Exploring the meaning of process control.

Explored judgments of procedural justice in 3 studies when Ss had the opportunity to express opinions (process control) or actual influence over the decisions made (decision control). In Study 1, 121 traffic and misdemeanor defendants were interviewed by telephone 2–4 days after their courtroom appearance about their opportunities to present evidence and their control over the way evidence was presented. Results show that most Ss felt that they had some or a great deal of process control but little or no decision control. In Study 2, 137 undergraduates completed a questionnaire that measured process and decision control in a course they had taken the previous quarter. Most Ss felt that they had some process and decision control. In Study 3, 200 university students read a scenario about tax allocation in which the city council had complete control or made recommendations to citizens. Ss completed a questionnaire on the judgments about the scenario. Results were consistent with those of the 1st 2 studies and suggest that increases in process control heighten judgments of procedural justice and leadership endorsement under conditions of low decision control. Heightened process control had as much impact at low as at high decision control. (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Procedural justice in the context of civil commitment: A critique of Tyler's analysis.

This article is a critique of T. R. Tyler's 1992 review of procedural justice and its effect on therapeutic outcome in patients involved in civil commitment hearings. The article clarifies critical elements of Tyler's analysis by drawing on the social cognition construct of information control and elements in the consumerism literature that may mirror and facilitate procedural justice effects. The importance of the committing psychiatrist's role during the commitment hearing is emphasized and issues unique to civil commitment respondents that might affect their susceptibility to procedural justice effects are highlighted. Further research examining the effects of judges', attorneys', and psychiatrists' behavior on the patient's perception of procedural justice and subsequent therapeutic outcome is suggested. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Alternative images of the citizen: Implications for public policy.

Argues that in attempting to understand socially significant political issues and problems, political scientists and other policy makers have made heavy use of psychological models of the citizen. It is argued that instead of drawing such models from psychology, their efforts have utilized the psychological models of the citizen suggested by economic theory. As a result, the potential effects of citizens' concerns with distributive and procedural fairness—factors typically excluded from economic theories—have been ignored in studying citizens' political evaluations and behaviors. Evidence is given to show (1) that political evaluations and behaviors are influenced by justice-based concerns and (2) the need to broaden the image of the psychology of the citizen to include the influence of citizens' concerns about fairness. (93 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Judgment of covariation by social perceivers.

Judgments about relationships or covariations between events are central to several areas of research and theory in social psychology. In the present article, the normative, or statistically correct, model for making covariation judgments is outlined in detail. Six steps of the normative model, from deciding what data are relevant to the judgment to using the judgment as a basis for predictions and decisions, are specified. Potential sources of error in social perceivers' covariation judgments are identified at each step, and research on social perceivers' ability to follow each step in the normative model is reviewed. It is concluded that statistically naive individuals have a tenuous grasp of the concept of covariation, and circumstances under which covariation judgments tend to be accurate or inaccurate are considered. Finally, implications for research on attribution theory, implicit personality theory, stereotyping, and perceived control are discussed. (137 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Justice as a dynamic construct: Effects of individual trajectories on distal work outcomes.

Despite an amassing organizational justice literature, few studies have directly addressed the temporal patterning of justice judgments and the effects that changes in these perceptions have on important work outcomes. Drawing from Gestalt characteristics theory (Ariely & Carmon, 2000, 2003), we examine the concept of justice trajectories (i.e., levels and trends of individual fairness perceptions over time) and offer empirical evidence to highlight the value of considering fairness within a dynamic context. Participants included 523 working adults who completed surveys about their work experiences on 4 occasions over the course of 1 year. Results indicate that justice trends explained additional variance in distal work outcomes (job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover intentions) after controlling for end-state levels of justice, demonstrating the cumulative effects of justice over time. Findings also reveal that change in procedural justice perceptions affected distal work outcomes more strongly than any other justice dimension. Implications for theory and future investigations of justice as a dynamic construct are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive bias in procedural justice: Formation and implications of illusory correlations in perceived intergroup fairness.

Illusory correlations in procedural justice were investigated in 2 experiments. After receiving information describing the fair and unfair treatment of 2 groups' members by police, participants judged the fairness of each group's treatment. Illusory correlations formed in both experiments, resulting in erroneous associations between the smaller group and the infrequent type of treatment. In Experiment 2, participants made harsher guilt judgments of members of the group perceived as receiving relatively favorable treatment. Mediational evidence suggests that differences in guilt judgments reflected attempts to compensate for perceived injustice, creating real differences in group treatment. The benefit of incorporating cognitive biases in models of procedural justice is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of computer surveillance on perceptions of privacy and procedural justice.

Electronic workplace surveillance is raising concerns about privacy and fairness. Integrating research on electronic performance monitoring, procedural justice, and organizational privacy, the author proposes a framework for understanding reactions to technologies used to monitor and control employees. To test the framework's plausibility, temporary workers performed computer/Web-based tasks under varying levels of computer surveillance. Results indicated that monitoring job-relevant activities (relevance) and affording those who were monitored input into the process (participation) reduced invasion of privacy and enhanced procedural justice. Moreover, invasion of privacy fully mediated the effect of relevance and partially mediated the effect of participation on procedural justice. The findings are encouraging for integrating theory and research on procedural justice and organizational privacy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of overall justice judgments in organizational justice research: A test of mediation.

Organizational justice research traditionally focuses on the unique predictability of different types of justice (distributive, procedural, and interactional) and the relative importance of these types of justice on outcome variables. Recently, researchers have suggested shifting from this focus on specific types of justice to a consideration of overall justice. The authors hypothesize that overall justice judgments mediate the relationship between specific justice facets and outcomes. They present 2 studies to test this hypothesis. Study 1 demonstrates that overall justice judgments mediate the relationship between specific justice judgments and employee attitudes. Study 2 demonstrates the mediating relationship holds for supervisor ratings of employee behavior. Implications for research on organizational justice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Metatheoretical dilemmas in the psychology of gender.

Presents a constructionist perspective on the validity of explanations in psychology that views human understanding as being objectively based but subjectively constructed in a social context. This metatheory recognizes both sociological influences and epistemological limitations while retaining the distinction between them. Resolutions to 4 dilemmas that arise when this framework is used to demarcate a psychology of gender—the tension between scholarship and advocacy, scientific vs humanistic values in the choice of methods and procedures, conflicting perspectives on the legitimacy of the psychology of gender as a psychological discipline, and bias in the conduct of inquiry—are developed using a dialectical technique. Two research strategies in the psychology of gender that are consistent with the metatheory proposed are compared with respect to the value judgments made at each of 3 levels of analysis: presuppositions, decisions about the domains for which explanations are sought, and interpretations of the research. (117 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)