公平感社会比较的参照对象选择研究述评

员工的公平感取决于社会比较的参照对象, 分析参照对象选择的规律是理解公平感形成机制的核心问题。首先对公平感社会比较参照对象的种类和特征、参照对象选择的稳定性等进行了介绍, 然后分析了影响参照对象选择的动机、个人、环境和认知因素, 最后重点分析了当前研究中存在的问题, 比如采用问卷无法揭示员工参照对象选择真实的心理过程, 并且提出在以后的研究中采用质的研究方法, 探讨中国组织员工群体化参照对象等新思路。

Referent Selection in Justice Studies

Based on Adam’s equity theory, it can be referred that employees’ perception of justice is mainly depended on whom they compare with. Therefore, the referent selection is critical to understand the mechanism of justice formation. This review firstly made a brief introduction to the classification of referent and its characteristics, and discussed the stability of referent selection. And then, individual and situational factors that influence referent selection, such as demography, motivation, cognition and environment, were introduced. Finally, the limitations of previous studies were analyzed and future research orientations were given. It was suggested that in previous questionnaire studies, priming effect would exist and therefore misguiding the actual psychological process of referent selection. As the result, qualitative method would be a better way to understand and analyze referent selection. And it would be valuable to discuss the topic that Chinese employees prefer to compare with referent group rather than referent individual.