Procedural justice and the hedonic principle: how approach versus avoidance motivation influences the psychology of voice

The authors investigate the relation between the hedonic principle (people's motivations to approach pleasure and to avoid pain) and procedural justice. They explore whether approach or avoidance motivation increases the effect that people feel they were treated more fairly following procedures that do versus do not allow them an opportunity to voice their opinion. Experiments 1 and 2 reveal that these procedures influence procedural justice judgments more strongly when people conduct approach motor action (arm flexion) than when they conduct avoidance motor action (arm extension). Experiment 3 indicates that individual-difference measures of participants' approach motivations predicted procedural justice judgments following voice versus no-voice procedures. The authors conclude that people's motivational orientations stimulate their fairness-based reactions to voice procedures.     

程序公正与权威信任:公共政策可接受性机制

中国正处于深刻的社会转型和社会变迁时期,社会风险加剧。其中一个重要的表征就是群体性事件频发。事件的背后,反映出民众对公共政策的不认可,如果公共政策的制定和执行不能充分考虑民众的接受性,极有可能构成新的社会风险,威胁社会稳定。因此,如何有效地提高民众对公共政策的接受性已经成为我国亟需解决的重大问题。项目欲建立程序公正、结果宜人性和权威信任(认知信任和情感信任)对公共政策可接受性、政府满意度的影响模型,从而有效提升政策可接受性。拟在不同的公共政策情境中通过Scenario、实验室模拟实验和问卷调查,探明程序公正和结果宜人性对政策可接受性、政府满意度的交互作用机制,以及权威信任对此交互作用机制的边界效应,并在此基础上进一步分析认知信任和情感信任对于政策可接受性、政府满意度及其因子关系的调节作用。研究成果可用于提高民众对政策的满意度,为政府制定政策提供科学依据。     

Procedural justice and intragroup status: Knowing where we stand in a group enhances reactions to procedures

The current research investigates the role of relative intragroup status as a moderator of people’s reactions to procedural justice. Based on a review of the procedural justice literature, the authors argue that information about intragroup status influences people’s reactions to variations in procedural justice. In correspondence with predictions, two experiments show that reactions of people who have been informed about their intragroup status position (either low, average, or high) are influenced more strongly by voice as opposed to no-voice procedures than people who are not informed about their intragroup status. It is concluded that knowing where we stand in a group enhances reactions to procedural justice.     

Outcome favorability as a boundary condition to voice effect on people's reactions to public policymaking

Regarding people's reactions to public policymaking, an organizational justice framework has been introduced. Although these studies showed a link between fairness perceptions and attitudes toward public policy and authority, results concerning more behavioral consequences and the moderation of outcome favorability are less clear. The present research explored the voice effect on people's reactions to public policymaking, as well as outcome favorability as a boundary condition to it. Two different settings and use of different designs (a scenario and an experiment) yielded convergent results that people's reactions to public policymaking were more favorable when they had voice than they did not and outcome favorability moderated the voice effect. More precisely, the voice effect was stronger when the outcome was unfavorable than favorable.     

Reactions to the Fairness of Promotion Methods: Procedural justice and job satisfaction

Fairness in promotions is a core issue for organizations as it is directly related to some of the most important organizational outcomes. However, the majority of the existing research about this question has been focused on entry‐level selection, and there is a gap in knowledge in the context of promotions. This paper focuses on how workers’ perceptions of promotion systems affect organizational justice and job satisfaction. In the present study, 213 employees and supervisors from 31 different private sector organizations complete a survey regarding procedural justice (PJ), job satisfaction, transparency, promotion systems, and some demographic variables. The results show that participants who perceived organizational promotion methods as transparent reported a high level of perceived PJ, and that the methods they see as fairer are those based on assessment of performance. In addition, transparency is considered as an important antecedent of PJ. Moreover, the interaction between organizational rank and gender moderates the relationship between transparency and promotion systems with PJ. Finally, organizational justice is strongly related with job satisfaction.     

Procedural justice in the context of civil commitment: an analogue study

Procedural justice theory posits that the process by which disputes are resolved influences perceptions of fairness and satisfaction with outcomes, even if the outcomes are unfavorable. Within the context of civil commitment, Tyler (1992) has suggested that enhancing respondents' perceptions of procedural justice (i.e., participation, dignity, and trust) during commitment proceedings might facilitate accommodation to an adverse judicial determination (i.e., commitment) and subsequently enhance therapeutic outcomes. The study reported here used videotapes of mock commitment hearings to examine whether patients committed for involuntary treatment are sensitive to procedural justice manipulations. Results suggest that patients are sensitive to procedural justice manipulations and, further, that such manipulations are likely to influence the patients' attitude toward psychiatric care. These findings suggest that the development of strategies to enhance patients' perceptions of procedural justice in commitment hearings may indeed have positive therapeutic implications and warrants further investigation.     

Retributive and restorative justice: Importance of crime severity and shared identity in people's justice responses

Retributive and restorative justice present two different responses to wrongdoing: one that focuses on addressing the moral wrong through punitive sanctions (retribution) and one that focuses on addressing the harm that has been caused through reparative sanctions (restoration). Psychological investigations of what factors influence which justice outcome that people desire (retributive, restorative, or both) have focused on two constructs: crime severity and shared identity. The crime severity approach contends that people can have multiple justice goals, and which justice goals people want to fulfil is dependent on the salient features of the situation (such as offence seriousness). The shared identity approach argues that people's desire for restoration or retribution is dependent on the shared identity and perceptions of value consensus between offender and victim in the judgement context. The findings related to both of these factors are reviewed, and possibilities for future research integrating these two approaches are discussed.     

Procedural justice and compliance behaviour: the mediating role of emotions

Procedural justice researchers have consistently found that if authorities treat people with trust, fairness, respect and neutrality, people will not only be more willing to cooperate with authorities, but they will also be more likely to comply with authority decisions and rules. New research in this area has gone on to explore the role that emotions play in response to procedural justice and injustice. What this new research has neglected to do, however, is examine whether emotions mediate the effect of procedural justice on subsequent compliance behaviour in real life settings. Using longitudinal survey data collected in two real‐life contexts (Study 1: a taxation dispute (N = 652), and Study 2: workplaces (N = 2366)), the present study will show that perceptions of procedural justice influence the emotions experienced by people, but more importantly these emotional reactions (i.e. anger and happiness) mediate the effect of justice on subsequent compliance behaviour. In other words, it is these positive and negative emotional reactions to perceived justice or injustice that go on to predict who will and will not comply with authority decisions and rules. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Intergroup relations in soccer finals: people's forecasts of the duration of emotional reactions of in-group and out-group soccer fans

The authors examined the hypothesis that people forecast a longer duration of uniquely human secondary emotions for their in-group than for an out-group. The authors conducted a field experiment in the setting of the European soccer championship. They asked Belgian participants to forecast the intensity with which their in-group Belgian fans or the out-group Turkish fans would experience various primary and secondary emotions in response to their team's victory or loss immediately after the Turkey-Belgium match and three days later. The results support the hypothesis. Moreover, and as the authors expected, they found no differences in the participants' forecasts of primary emotions. The authors discussed the implications of these findings for intergroup relations in general and for soccer fans' behavior in particular.     

Expectations,procedural justice,and alternative reactions to being deprived of a desired outcome

People often find that they do not have some positive outcome they once expected to obtain, while others around them have attained that outcome. Two experiments were conducted to assess how four possible responses to such a situation are affected by procedural justice (i.e., the fairness of the procedures by which the object was denied) and by one's expectations about obtaining the outcome in the future. The four possible responses examined were anger responses, achievement strivings, devaluation of the object (X), and self-deprecation. A repeated-measures analysis revealed that the dependent variables were differentially affected in Study 1, but less so in Study 2. Analyses further revealed effects of procedural justice, such that unfair procedures led to more anger, lower achievement strivings, greater devaluation of X, and (in Study 1 only) marginally less self-deprecation. Expectations had only a marginal affect on achievement strivings in Study 1, and an effect on self-deprecation in Study 2, with higher expectations leading to lower achievement strivings and less self-deprecation, respectively. Procedural justice and expectations interacted to affect subjects' derogation of the agent who deprived them (Study 1) and their devaluation of X (Study 2). Implications for future research and for theoretical development are discussed.     

Moral disagreement and procedural justice: Moral mandates as constraints to voice effects

Procedural voice is a widely used and effective means to reduce or eliminate conflict. Moral disagreements, however, are particularly inflammatory, divisive, and difficult to manage. The current article reports two studies that demonstrated the unique challenge that moral disagreements pose. Specifically, the studies tested the extent to which procedural voice affected justice judgements, group climate, and decision acceptance when people perceived decisions to have moral implications. Results indicated that when people's outcome preferences represent strong moral convictions, outcomes were the primary determinant of perceived fairness and related judgements, irrespective of whether people had voice in the decision‐making process.     

Aggressive reactions to abusive supervision: the role of interactional justice and narcissism

In this study, we explore personality and situational conditions in which negative leadership - specifically, abusive supervision - is associated with aggressive behavior in subordinates. That is, we examine the role that interactional justice and narcissism play in an employee's decision to respond aggressively to an abusive supervisor. We demonstrate that interactional justice mediates the relationship between perceptions of abusive supervision and subsequent employee aggression. In addition, we demonstrate that narcissism interacts with interactional justice perceptions to predict workplace aggression. We find that individuals with high levels of narcissism are the employees who are most likely to respond aggressively when they interpret their leader's behavior as abusive.     

Familiarity influences judgments of sex: the case of voice recognition

Two experiments are reported in which subjects made judgments about the sex or the familiarity of a voice. In experiment 1, subjects were fans of the BBC-radio soap opera, The Archers, and familiar voice clips were taken from this programme. Subjects showed a large reduction in response times when making sex judgments to familiar voices, despite the fact that sex judgments are generally much faster than familiarity judgments. In experiment 2, the same familiar clips were played to subjects unfamiliar with the soap opera, and no difference was observed in times to make sex judgments to Archers or non-Archers voices. We conclude that, unlike the case of face recognition, sex and identity processing of voices are not independent. The findings constrain models of person recognition across multiple modalities.     

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.     

Young people's experience of the Canadian youth justice system: interacting with police and legal counsel

Young people's knowledge and experience of the youth justice system was examined to explore self-reported factors that influenced their decisions regarding assertion versus waiver of rights to silence and legal counsel. Participants were 50 adolescents from Toronto, Canada ranging in age from 12 to 18 (mean age=15.6 years). Results of semi-structured interviews indicated that while over 60% of participants recalled being told of their rights to silence and counsel, three-quarters did not contact a lawyer at the police station and half of those asked by police answered their questions. Findings suggest that the awareness of due process rights is not sufficient to mitigate the atmosphere of coercion that characterizes the police station. Implications and limitations of the study are discussed.     

Understanding customer reactions to brokered ultimatums: applying negotiation and justice theory

There has been little research examining customer reactions to brokered ultimatum game (BUG) contexts (i.e. exchanges in which 1 party offers an ultimatum price for a resource through an intermediary, and the ultimatum offer is accepted or rejected by the other party). In this study, the authors incorporated rational decision-making theory and justice theory to examine how customers' bids, recommendations, and repatronage behavior are affected by characteristics of BUG contexts (changing from an ultimatum to negotiation transaction, response timeliness, and offer acceptance or rejection). Results indicated that customers attempt to be economically efficient with their bidding behavior. However, negotiation structures, long waits for a response, and rejected bids create injustice perceptions (particularly informational and distributive injustice), negatively influencing customers' recommendations to others and their repatronage. The authors then discuss the practical and theoretical implications of their results.     

Lay people's and police officers' attitudes towards the usefulness of perpetrator voice identification

Expert and lay knowledge of factors that affect the identification of a voice is an area of research that is still relatively unexplored. Much more research has focused on eyewitness identification and eyewitnesses' common knowledge. However, results from ‘eyewitnessing’ studies may not be directly applicable to ‘earwitnessing’. The present study examines how knowledgeable British lay people and police officers were concerning earwitness identification performance. One hundred nine participants (i.e. 49 lay people and 60 police officers) responded to a specially designed questionnaire. Results showed respondents to be more knowledgeable than expected, although police officers were no more knowledgeable than the general population. The existence of meta‐knowledge is discussed in relation to previous studies. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Procedural justice climate and group power distance: an examination of cross-level interaction effects

In this article, the authors extend research on the cross-level effects of procedural justice climate by theorizing and testing its interaction with group power distance. The results indicated that group power distance moderated the relationships between procedural justice climate and individual-level outcomes (organizational commitment and organization-directed citizenship behavior). More specifically, a larger group power distance was found to attenuate the positive cross-level effects of procedural justice climate. Implications for procedural justice climate research are discussed.