The relationship between justice and attitudes: An examination of justice effects on event and system-related attitudes

Research in organizational justice has always been interested in the relationship between justice and attitudes. This research often examines how different types of justice affect different attitudes, with distributive justice predicted to affect attitudes about specific events (e.g., performance evaluation) and procedural justice predicted to affect attitudes about organizations (e.g., organizational commitment). However, there is mixed support for these predictions. Moreover, this approach generally ignores the relationship between attitudes about the specific event and attitudes toward the organization. In this study we identify three alternative models of justice and attitudes. We use customer responses to complaint handling to test these alternative conceptualizations. Results generally support a mediated model, wherein event attitudes mediate the effect of justice perceptions on system-related attitudes. The implication of these findings for organizations and justice researchers are discussed.     

孟子王道理想的心性向度

王道理想是孟子政治哲学的核心,作为一套超乎现实却又对现实具有普遍导向意义的治国理念,其践行的基石被孟子归结在人的心性之上。立足于“心”孟子提出王道缘起于“仁”,基于“性”孟子断言王道的落实在于“义”;由“心”“性”的统一确立了仁义一体的构想,据此认为,“居仁由义”是王道理想得以向现实转化的基本思路。     

The biological bases of unfairness: Neuroimaging evidence for the distinctiveness of procedural and distributive justice

A classic debate in the organizational justice literature concerns the question of whether procedural justice and distributive justice are independent constructs. We investigate this question by using fMRI methods to examine brain activation patterns associated with procedural and distributive unfairness. We observed a clear dissociation of activation between these two forms of justice, and only a minimal amount of shared activation in the hypothesized regions. Specifically, unfair procedures evoked greater activation in parts of the brain related to social cognition, such as the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) and the superior temporal sulcus (STS), whereas unfair outcomes evoked greater activation in more emotional areas of the brain, such as the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), anterior insula (AI) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). We interpret the findings as supporting the notion that the two forms of justice reflect distinct constructs, while recognizing that, as forms of justice, they are closely related nomologically.     

Is Justice the Same for Everyone? Examining Fairness Items Using Multiple-group Analysis

Purpose  The purpose of this study was to examine whether fairness assessed in a widely used multisource instrument written by practitioners possessed a similar factor structure as fairness measured in academic literature, and whether different groups based on their relationship to the ratee (e.g., peers, subordinates, supervisors) perceived a similar structure to the construct. Design/methodology/approach  Multisource data were collected for 141 managers from a variety of organizations across the United States, who participated in a leadership development program offered by Personnel Decisions International (PDI), a global management consulting firm. Findings  The study results show that fairness measured with a widely used multisource instrument indeed assesses the same construct as that examined in the academic literature. Peers, subordinates, and supervisors perceived fairness similarly, whereas self-reports of fairness differed, suggesting that they function as a systematic source of variance in the measurement of fairness. Implications  The findings in this study demonstrate that leaders can be confident that their constituents are all conceptualizing fairness the same way, such that differences are meaningful and not due to differences in the understanding of the items in the instrument. Originality/value  The proliferation of the use of multisource feedback instruments in leadership development programs has facilitated the assessment of the fairness of managers. This study shows that perceptions of fairness of the manager as reported by his or her constituencies (e.g., peers, supervisor, subordinates) change very little as a function of who is doing the perceiving, which heretofore has not been shown.

Huck Finn the Inverse Akratic: Empathy and Justice

An inverse akratic act is one who believes X, all things considered, is the correct act, and yet performs ~X, where ~X is the correct act. A famous example of such a person is Huck Finn. He believes that he is wrong in helping Jim, and yet continues to do so. In this paper I investigate Huck’s nature to see why he performs such acts contrary to his beliefs. In doing so, I explore the nature of empathy and show how powerful Huck’s empathic feelings are. Drawing from Martin L. Hoffman, I show the relationship between empathy and a principle of justice. This relationship leads to Huck acting virtuously, as Rosalind Hursthouse maintains.

Liberalism and the general justifiability of punishment

I argue that contemporary liberal theory cannot give a general justification for the institution or practice of punishment, i.e., a justification that would hold across a broad range of reasonably realistic conditions. I examine the general justifications offered by three prominent contemporary liberal theorists and show how their justifications fail in light of the possibility of an alternative to punishment. I argue that, because of their common commitments regarding the nature of justification, these theorists have decisive reasons to reject punishment in favor of a non-punitive alternative. I demonstrate the possibility of this alternative by means of a careful examination of the nature of punishment, isolating one essential characteristic—the aim to impose suffering—and showing how this characteristic need not guide enforcement. There is logical space for a forceful and coercive, yet non-punitive method of enforcement. This fact poses difficulties for many classical and contemporary justifications of punishment, but it poses particularly crippling problems for general liberal justifications.

Personality psychology as the integrative study of traits and worldviews

Personality psychology inevitably studies human beings not just as mechanical systems, but also as rational agents, whose experiences and actions are imbued with meaning. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the implications of taking this core element of personality psychology seriously, and to thereby contribute to the development of an integrative and normative framework for the field. I argue that personality can be studied both through trait constructs, referring to objective behavioral regularities, and through worldview constructs, referring to subjective sources of meaning, and try to show that worldviews are, contrary to popular belief, not inherently less universal, or in other ways less basic, than traits. I conclude by emphasizing the importance of more systematic study of worldviews, integration across the trait-worldview divide, and complementing the individual differences approach with personalistic methodology, for the development of richer and more unified portraits of personalities.     

A National Survey of Social Justice Engagement Among Professional Counselors

This exploratory survey examined the relationship between 169 professional counselors’ social justice engagement and demographic, personality, and contextual factors. A hierarchical regression analysis indicated that counselors’ sexual orientation, trait extraversion, and postgraduate training predicted their level of engagement in social justice behaviors. The authors recommend that counselor training in social justice be focused on quality, rather than quantity, and that personality and identity characteristics of individuals be incorporated into pedagogical practices.     

The roles of retribution and utility in determining punishment

Three studies examined the motives underlying people’s desire to punish. In previous research, participants have read hypothetical criminal scenarios and assigned “fair” sentences to the perpetrators. Systematic manipulations within these scenarios revealed high sensitivity to factors associated with motives of retribution, but low sensitivity to utilitarian motives. This research identifies the types of information that people seek when punishing criminals, and explores how different types of information affect punishments and confidence ratings. Study 1 demonstrated that retribution information is more relevant to punishment than either deterrence or incapacitation information. Study 2 traced the information that people actually seek when punishing others and found a consistent preference for retribution information. Finally, Study 3 confirmed that retribution information increases participant confidence in assigned punishments. The results thus provide converging evidence that people punish primarily on the basis of retribution.     

Justice in teams: The activation and role of sensemaking in the emergence of justice climates

Justice climates are considered to be an emergent phenomenon, which originates in the cognition, affect and behaviors of individuals, but is amplified by their interactions and manifests itself as a collective construct (see Kozlowski & Klein, 2000). However, researchers have given little attention to the role of social interaction in the convergence of member justice perceptions in teams. Using conversational data from 372 students working in a team business simulation with two levels each of procedural treatment and outcome favorability, this study examines how treatment fairness arouses sensemaking in teams and the features of such sensemaking processes that give rise to shared justice perceptions. The results highlight an interactive effect of outcomes and procedures on team sensemaking, which is shown to influence justice climate strength. The results also provide insight into the effects of discussion content, intensity and duration on the emergence of justice climates.