E. Allan Lind

The Social Psychology of Procedural Justice

1. Introduction.- 2. Early Research in Procedural Justice.- 3. Research Methods in Procedural Justice Research.- 4. Procedural Justice in Law I: Legal Attitudes and Behavior.- 5. Procedural Justice in Law II: Sources and Implications of Procedural Justice Judgments.- 6. The Generality of Procedural Justice.- 7. Procedural Justice in the Political Arena.- 8. Procedural Justice in Organizations.- 9. Conclusions and Hypotheses.- 10. Two Models of Procedural Justice.- References.- Author Index.

A Relational Model of Authority in Groups

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on one particular aspect of authoritativeness: voluntary compliance with the decisions of authorities. Social psychologists have long distinguished between obedience that is the result of coercion, and obedience that is the result of internal attitudes. Opinions describe “reward power” and “coercive power”, in which obedience is contingent on positive and negative outcomes, and distinguish both of these types of power from legitimate power, in which obedience flows from judgments about the legitimacy of the authority. Legitimate power depends on people taking the obligation on themselves to obey and voluntarily follow the decisions made by authorities. The chapter also focuses on legitimacy because it is important to recognize, that legitimacy is not the only attitudinal factor influencing effectiveness. It is also influenced by other cognitions about the authority, most notably judgments of his or her expertise with respect to the problem at hand. The willingness of group members to accept a leaders directives is only helpful when the leader knows what directives to issue.

When fairness works : Toward a general theory of uncertainty management

Abstract The only way in our opinion to account for this striving for justice and truth is by the analysis of the whole history of man, socially and individually. We find then that for everybody who is powerless, justice and truth are the most important weapons in the fight for his freedom and growth (Fromm, 1942/2002, p. 248) .

Speech style and impression formation in a court setting: The effects of “powerful” and “powerless” speech

Abstract On the basis of a previous empirical analysis of speech patterns in court trials, speech styles were identified that covaried with speaker social status and power. The “powerless” style is characterized by the frequent use of such linguistic features as intensifiers, hedges, hesitation forms, and questioning intonations, whereas the “powerful” style is marked by less frequent use of these features. Male and female introductory psychology students heard the testimony of a male or female witness who used either a powerful or a powerless style to deliver the same substantive evidence. The testimony was presented either on audio tape or in written transcripts. Use of the powerful style resulted in greater attraction to the witness, regardless of the sex of the witness, the sex of the subject, or the mode of presentation of the testimony. The powerful style also resulted in greater perceived credibility of the witness than did the powerless style; however, this effect was stronger when the subject and the witness were of the same sex than when they were of the opposite sex. In all but the male witness-written presentation condition, the powerful style produced more acceptance of the position advocated in the testimony than did the powerless style. The results are discussed with regard to possible relations between speech style and person perception and persuasion processes and with regard to the social psychology of legal issues.

The Winding Road from Employee to Complainant: Situational and Psychological Determinants of Wrongful-Termination Claims

Structured interviews with 996 recently fired or laid-off workers provided data for analyses of the situational and psychological antecedents of both thinking about filing a wrongful-termination claim and actually filing such a claim. Potential antecedents were drawn from relational theories of organizational justice, economic theories about claiming, and sociolegal studies of claiming in other contexts. Wrongful-termination claims were most strongly correlated with the way workers felt they had been treated at the time of termination and with their expected winnings from such a claim. Structural equation model analyses of panel data from follow-up interviews with 163 respondents four months later showed that the psychological variables were, in fact, causal antecedents rather than consequences of claiming thoughts and actions. These findings support relational models of organizational justice and lead to practical suggestions for managing the termination process so as to avoid wrongful-termination suits.

Procedural Context and Culture: Variation in the Antecedents of Procedural Justice Judgments

Twenty-five years ago the social psychological study of procedural justice judgments began with the discovery that different dispute resolution procedures engender quite different fairness judgments, regardless of the outcome of the dispute. John Thibaut, Laurens Walker, and their students found that disputing procedures that grant disputants the opportunity to express their views and argue their case are seen as fairer than procedures that deny disputants this opportunity, even when the procedure results in poor outcomes (Walker, LaTour, Lind, & Thibaut, 1974; see Thibaut & Walker, 1975, and Lind & Tyler, 1988, chap. 2). The finding took on particular importance when research showed that procedural justice judgments play a very substantial role in determining which procedures are preferred by disputants (Thibaut, Walker, LaTour, & Houlden, 1974) and how satisfied the disputants are with the ultimate resolution of

Procedural Justice and Culture

Abstract The past fifteen years have seen the development of a considerable research literature on the social psychology of procedural justice (see Lind & Tyler, 1988, for a review). Procedural justice research reveals some serious shortcomings in the exchange theories that have traditionally dominated Western analyses of the social psychology of groups, and in so doing, the procedural justice literature has important ramifications for cross–cultural psychology. Results from a number of studies conducted in the United States and Western Europe show that individualistic, self–interest based models of human behaviour are insufficient to explain procedural justice phenomena. Instead, procedural justice effects frequently reveal strong group–oriented concerns and motivations even in cultural contexts generally thought to be characterized by individualistic orientations. The research literature also shows that if a groups procedures are judged to be fair, people are more likely to show group–oriented behaviou...

The Psychology of Own Versus Others’ Treatment: Self-Oriented and Other-Oriented Effects on Perceptions of Procedural Justice

This article focuses on how people interpret their own versus others’ treatment. Two experiments investigate how perceived procedural justice is affected by procedures that are experienced personally versus those seen to have been experienced by others. The studies show that, at least under some conditions, the treatment of others is as potent a consideration in justice judgments as is one’s own treatment. These findings are contrasted with previous insights into the psychology of social justice in general and procedural justice in particular.

Fairness and participation in evaluation procedures: Effects on task attitudes and performance

A laboratory study was conducted to examine the role of two components of participatory work evaluation procedures on fairness attitudes and work performance. “Opportunity for influential opinion expression” and “knowledge of evaluation criteria” were manipulated in a business simulation exercise. Thirty-eight male and 49 female undergraduates worked under a task evaluation procedure that either did or did not allow them to express their opinions to the evaluator. In addition, subjects either were or were not provided with specific information about the criteria to be used in making the performance evaluation, and they received either a favorable or an unfavorable outcome. Questionnaire responses indicated that influential opinion expression enhanced perceptions of procedural and distributive fairness independently of the outcome of the evaluation. Both knowledge of evaluation criteria and perceptions of evaluation fairness correlated with subsequent task performance. The implications of these findings are discussed with respect to understanding the influence of procedural justice on attitudes and task behavior in organizational settings.

Apparent impropriety and procedural fairness judgments

Abstract Variation in decision making and allocation procedures has been shown to affect judgments of the fairness of the procedure and its outcome, but such effects have always been studied in the context of properly enacted procedures. It was hypothesized that the appearance of impropriety in the enctment of a fair procedure would increase the extent to which the procedure is judged in terms of its outcome. One hundred twenty undergraduate males and females were placed in the role of either defendant or observer with respect to an adversary procedure trial. Appearance of impropriety was manipulated during the trial by either including or not including evidence of a friendly personal relationship between the judge and the plaintiffs lawyer. The defendant was said to have either won or lost the case. A significant impropriety × outcome interaction on ratings of procedural fairness, unqualified by higher order effect, supported the hypothesis: a favorable outcome increased and an unfavorable outcome decreased the fairness of the procedure more when the impropriety was present. Discussion focuses on the implications of these findings for future investigation and theory on procedural justice and for practical issues.