Need norm, demographic influence, social role, and justice judgment

The relationships of distributive justice norms (equity, equality, and need), social role, and demographic variables to judgments of fairness, satisfaction, employer obligation, and employee entitlement were investigated. Subjects functioning as recipient's co-workers, allocators, or observers responded to a need-based salary allocation situation. Multiple regression analyses showed that endorsement of the need norm was most important. Justice norms and demographics each predicted significant unique variance in all of the criterion judgments. Social role yielded significant differences for fairness judgments. The findings indicate that where a situation increases the salience of nonequity factors other justice norms, such as recipient needs, may become more important than the equity norm. The results also suggest the importance of respondent social roles and demographic characteristics in the study of justice judgments.