Believing the world is more just for oneself than for others—referred to as personal justice ascendancy—can protect and enhance well-being. For African Americans, personal justice ascendancy may be multifaceted, encompassing comparisons not only to other African Americans but also to White Americans. The present research examined relationships between these two specific personal justice ascendancies and psychological well-being among African Americans. African American adults (N = 274) reported their beliefs about justice for self, for other African Americans, and for White Americans. We measured life satisfaction, perceived stress, and perceptions of healthcare systems as outcomes. Overall, participants believed the world to be more just for White Americans, but less just for other African Americans, than the self. Personal justice ascendancy over African Americans and White Americans both predicted greater life satisfaction and lower perceived stress. Personal justice ascendancy over African Americans predicted more negative perceptions of healthcare, whereas personal justice ascendancy over White Americans predicted more positive healthcare perceptions. Findings suggest effects of personal justice ascendancy on well-being and health-related attitudes are governed by multiple social comparisons for African Americans. Attending to and understanding nuances in these comparisons could further inform efforts to understand and address racial health disparities.
Perceived economic inequality is positively associated with public support for policies to reduce it. However, providing information about economic inequality does not necessarily motivate people to support redistributive policies. This inconsistency may be due to how people interpret the information about inequality. We argue that the interpretation of information about inequality differs between individuals as a function of the characteristics of the source and people’s ideologies. We conducted two experiments using an exploratory (N = 239) and confirmatory (N = 707) strategy. We found that attitudes toward redistribution increased when a seemingly neutral international institution (as opposed to a left-wing political party) provided information about economic inequality due to the credibility attributed to the source—but not due to power and familiarity. Moreover, the effect of providing information about inequality on support for redistribution (via source credibility) depended on people’s ideologies: it was positive and statistically significant for people who held more (vs. less) system-justifying beliefs. These findings contribute to understanding the interplay between social psychological processes, communication strategies, and attitudes toward redistribution.
Which reference information do nurses select to evaluate pay and does their employment arrangement matter? To answer these questions, we investigated the role of three types of reference information (perceived responsibility, social appreciation from colleagues and patients) in pay unfairness evaluations of Swiss temporary and staff nurses. Since unfair pay signals a lack of worth, we examined the role of social appreciation from the two sources as boundary condition for the effects of pay unfairness on exhaustion and job satisfaction. We analyzed our time-lagged survey data from 262 staff nurses and 120 temporary nurses using a multi-group framework. The effect of pay unfairness on job satisfaction – but not on exhaustion – was stronger in temporary nurses than in staff nurses. Contrary to our hypotheses, we did not find evidence that social appreciation from colleagues or patients moderated the effects of pay unfairness on job satisfaction and exhaustion. Follow-up analyses showed, however, that staff nurses rely on perceived responsibility and colleagues’ appreciation to gauge pay unfairness. Temporary nurses, in contrast, considered social appreciation on the output side, consistently for both sources of appreciation. This pattern of findings suggests that the comparison processes underlying fairness evaluations are not uniform across different employment arrangements. From a practical perspective, the findings imply that appreciation will not do as compensation for pay staff nurses perceive as unfair.
Research in psychology, sociology, economics, and other disciplines investigating social justice has identified associations between fair treatment and human well-being. However, the lack of a practical and valid instrument for measuring individual experiences of fair treatment in multiple areas of life has limited the ability to understand the relationship between fairness and wellness. The purpose of these studies was to develop and establish the initial psychometric properties and convergent validity of a scale measuring personal experiences of fairness across various life domains. Development and validation occurred across three studies. Scale development in Study 1 included the generation of items, item revision, and analysis of content validity. A review of existing literature and qualitative data derived from focus group discussions informed the initial pool of items. Cognitive interviews and expert input aided in analysis of content validity and revision of items. Study 2 consisted of confirmatory factor analyses to evaluate the performance of items and determine the underlying factor structure of the scale. In Study 3, factor analyses were used to evaluate convergent validity with other fairness-related instruments. Results of the first study supported the conceptualization of fairness along a social-ecological spectrum: experiences of fairness existed in multiple distinct life domains (e.g., interpersonal, occupational, community). Results from the second study revealed a bifactor model with one general Fairness factor and four Interpersonal, Occupational, Community, and Societal ecological group factors. Results from the third study suggested acceptable convergent validity among some subscales and other established instruments, while also suggesting that refinements to the Community fairness subscale might improve the scale. The final 12-item scale demonstrated good reliability. Results of this study produced an instrument able to measure individual experiences of fair treatment across four life domains.
This study aimed to systematically investigate the effects of event intensity and frequency on the judgment of procedural justice in fair and unfair situations. Data were collected using Qualtrics online survey questionnaires from 420 employees across different industries in the United States. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three frequency conditions (high, medium, and low), and within each frequency condition, two conditions of event intensity (high and low) were applied. Additionally, participants were randomly assigned to either fair or unfair situations. The findings indicated that frequent exposure to fair procedures had a positive impact on perceived procedural justice, underscoring the significance of maintaining fair practices for employee perceptions of justice. Conversely, the intensity of the event significantly influenced judgments of procedural justice. Unfair procedures in high-importance events could negatively affect employees’ perceptions of procedural justice. The study also revealed that specific combinations of procedural justice rules seemed to be applied based on the interaction of fairness, frequency, and intensity. Based on these findings, managers and supervisors should not overlook seemingly insignificant daily practices, as their cumulative effect can significantly affect employee perceptions of procedural justice.
Despite the challenge of income and wealth inequality around the world, people tend to underestimate the degree of inequality in their societies. In this research, we examine how people estimate inequality at subnational scales by focusing on urban‒rural income inequality in China, a society characterized by a unique dual urban‒rural social structure but that is also facing a steep increase in income inequality. Using a nationwide sample of Chinese adults (N = 953), we found that Chinese participants tend to underestimate the level of urban‒rural income inequality while overestimating the progress made toward its reduction. System-justifying ideologies were found to be negatively associated with support for redistributive policies, with the underestimation of the level of urban‒rural income inequality mediating this association. These findings highlight that Chinese people vastly underestimate the actual levels of urban‒rural income inequality, which shapes their attitudes toward redistributive policies.
How individuals perceive the fairness of their pay carries profound implications for individuals and society. Perceptions of pay injustice are linked to a spectrum of negative outcomes, including diminished well-being, poor health, increased stress, and depressive symptoms, alongside various detrimental effects in the work domain. Despite the far-reaching impact of these justice evaluations, validity evidence on their measurement in survey research is missing. Two measurement strategies dominate applied justice research with surveys: Asking for evaluations using a response scale or relying on measures of the just reward to capture fairness. It remains an unresolved question which of these two prevailing approaches—corresponding to the concepts of expressed justice and experienced justice, respectively—yields more robust and high-quality assessments, especially in cross-country research contexts where measurement consistency is critical. This study evaluates the measurement quality of these two approaches using the European Social Survey, which encompasses 29 countries. Our comparative analysis of experienced and expressed justice for gross and net earnings offers comprehensive insights into measurement choices in cross-national surveys. We find that nonresponse to income questions significantly undermines the measurement quality of experienced justice due to its dependence on actual earnings data. Moreover, while both experienced and expressed justice correlate with related concepts as anticipated, the patterns are more consistently observed in expressed justice. These findings suggest that survey practitioners aiming to measure distributive justice of earnings may favor expressed justice instruments, particularly those utilizing rating scales, for efficient and rigorous evaluation.
Place and the intergenerational transmission of cultural knowledge are deeply intertwined among Indigenous groups due to the significance of the environment and land within Indigenous ideologies, and the legacies of displacement wrought by settler colonialism. Little research explores this topic among Indigenous tribes in the Gulf South, who face unique environmental challenges related to climate change, land loss, oil extraction, and who depend on the coastal environment for cultural and subsistence resources. Scholarship on this topic among tribes that are not federally recognized is similarly limited. Using semi-structured interviews among 31 self-identified women members of a U.S. Gulf South tribe, we show how gendered and place-based knowledges manifest within the embodied and material experiences of tribal members, as well as the ways that those experiences and the transmission of knowledge are mediated by political and environmental changes through the example of traditional health and healing practices and knowledges. Key findings that emerged include: (a) Place-Based Concerns about Environmental Change and Displacement; (b) Concerns about Future Generational Changes in Knowledge Transmission; (c) Loss of Indigenous Health Knowledge. We suggest that there are significant impediments to the sociocultural reproduction of traditional health and healing practices and knowledges within the tribe brought about by environmental changes (e.g. saltwater intrusion, land loss, etc.) and the continuing influx of Western medicinal knowledge and practices. In contextualizing these findings within the environmental reproductive justice framework, we echo extant intersectional environmental research suggesting that environmental degradation and legacies of settler colonialism, by virtue of place-based and gendered knowledges and labor, disproportionately burden women, especially Indigenous women. We also note that despite significant material and cultural threats, tribal members demonstrate resilience and resistance to the macro-scale forces obstructing Indigenous ways of life.
Based on nationally representative data from the 2019 and 2021 Chinese Social Survey, this study examined the relationship between perceptions of upward and downward social mobility (PUSM/PDSM) and political trust by using the diagonal reference model and ordinary least squares model. We found that PUSM was positively related to political trust, while PDSM was negatively related to it after excluding the influence of social positions of origin and destination. We also provided evidence that perceived fairness mediated the nexus between PUSM/PDSM and political trust. Our findings underscored the pivotal role of perceived social mobility in shaping the political trust of Chinese citizens and elucidate the micro-level psychological mechanisms underlying this relationship. Hence, we advocate for the implementation of policies geared towards fostering upward mobility and alleviating inequality, aimed at addressing potential crises in political trust. Considering the decline in overall social mobility and the exacerbation of inequality following the COVID-19 epidemic, this research holds heightened contemporary significance.
Based on social exchange theory and organizational support theory, this study explores the relationship between four dimensions of organizational justice (OJ) and affective commitment (CMM) and whether perceived supervisor support (PSS) mediates this relationship. Using online survey data collected from employees recruited from India industry verticals, the authors identified the role of distributive and informational justice in directly enhancing employees’ CMM. PSS also mediates the relationship between all four forms of OJ and CMM. An importance–performance map analysis (IPMA) indicates that informational organizational justice (IFJ) is the most important factor for predicting employees’ CCM. This is a pioneering study because it includes four dimensions of organizational justice as a precursor for CMM in a non-Western context.
While inclusion, participation and victim-centredness have become catchwords in transitional justice discourse, this rhetoric has not necessarily enabled the articulation of more complex identities and experiences, or the pursuit of varied justice claims. To probe this disconnect, this article engages with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Liberia, a mechanism established to reckon with the country’s history of internal armed conflict, and hailed for its involvement of vulnerable, disenfranchised and oft-overlooked groups. The article combines expressive theories of justice with an innovative corpus-based methodology to critically examine how the Commission made visible, defined and construed these actors through its language of inclusion. Results from word frequency, co-occurrence and sentiment analyses illustrate how the Commission foregrounded the plight and rights of women and children, and their participation as a vehicle for emancipation, but simultaneously reproduced universalist and static identities, fixation on sexual violence and child soldier recruitment, and subject positions lacking in positive or political capabilities. This duality points to inherent tensions in the expressive messaging of TJ institutions, and rather locates the transformative potential of their inclusionary language in the strategic openings it affords for victims’ groups, women and youth organizations in their broader trajectories towards justice and change.
This article presents outcomes from a critical interpretive synthesis inquiry exploring whether community music can contribute to more equitable societies. Drawing on 74 cross-disciplinary articles, we identify equity-related outcomes across three key categories: outcomes to improve the immediate wellbeing and life trajectories for individuals experiencing disadvantage; outcomes relating to the development of skills, knowledge and understandings empowering individual participants to enact positive social change within their communities; and outcomes with the potential to affect the root causes of social inequity. This review provides a solid foundation for further conceptual and theoretical development within and beyond the fields of social justice research and community music. Our findings will also be helpful for translating the creative and cultural benefits that community music practice could bring to addressing social justice issues in a wide range of complex contexts.
Societies are confronted with the dilemma that need satisfaction requires transparent individual needs. We study the effect of information about others’ needs on the distribution of a joint endowment in a three-player network exchange game in a laboratory experiment. Need levels are exogenously given and either transparent (known to all three network members) or opaque (only known to the players themselves). The three players negotiate in dyads until two players agree on a distribution. We expect that the transparency of need thresholds raises need satisfaction but lowers equality. The results suggest that the members of the dyad who agree on the distribution can satisfy their own need thresholds even when information about thresholds is opaque. The effect of transparency on the remaining network member is antithetical: while transparency increases the rate of need satisfaction, it decreases the average share of allocations when needs are low. In the opaque condition, allocated shares are larger, but need satisfaction is lower. This reveals the ambivalent distributive effects of transparent need thresholds: Transparency helps those with the highest need thresholds, but it can hurt those with lower need thresholds, and it barely affects the ones with the most influence on the decision.
We propose and test a new conceptual model in which overall justice is an antecedent to personal flourishing. Flourishing, in turn, partially mediates the relationship of overall justice to job performance and organizational citizenship behaviors directed toward individuals (OCB-I). These hypotheses are confirmed. However, high materialism weakens the relationship between overall justice and flourishing. Consequently, the mediated effects of justice on performance and OCB-I are moderated by materialism. In short, materialism sets limits on overall justice as an antecedent of flourishing and effective work behaviors.
Are certain characteristics of dispute resolution procedures associated with higher levels of procedural justice? We address this question through a quantitative analysis of real-world experiences of 194 professional legal representatives with the objection procedures of 81 Dutch administrative authorities. In our analysis, two general procedural characteristics are taken into account: the involvement of an independent third party and the extent to which the procedure is focused on the conciliation of competing interests. The involvement of an independent third party was not associated with higher levels of procedural justice. Procedures that were perceived to be more focused on the conciliation of competing interests were evaluated as more procedurally just, even more so in disputes where the administrative authority was perceived to have a higher degree of discretion and in disputes that ended in a negative result for the litigant.
In this paper, we provide evidence on attitudes toward indirect past-in-present educational discrimination (i.e., educational discrimination that took place in the past but has a negative impact on the current employment opportunities of the discriminated against workers). We use an original vignette-based hypothetical survey experiment and collect data from a representative sample of the US population. We find that a significant majority of respondents support costly compensation for past educational discrimination. Moreover, we find that respondents are as sensitive to indirect past-in-present educational discrimination as they are to present-day employment discrimination. We point out that the causal effects on attitudes are stronger for the intentionality of discrimination than for its financial consequences for the discriminated group. Finally, attitudes appear to be driven more by respondents' political perspective than by their own actual identity.
The empowering function of the belief in a just world for the self (BJW-self) has been suggested as one mechanism by which BJW-self promotes positive psychological functioning for the individual. In this investigation we seek to understand if this empowerment function generalises to a broad range of positive and negative psychological variables and whether the function can be observed outside of tightly controlled experimental designs. We use a mix of cross-sectional and longitudinal designs (N = 840) to test these aspects of the empowerment function. In Sample 1 we find support for the positive indirect effect of BJW-self on life satisfaction, optimism, and resilience through empowerment. Similarly, BJW-self has a negative indirect effect on depression, anxiety, and stress through empowerment. These findings are broadly replicated in Sample 2. A subsample of Sample 1 completed measures again after one year (Subsample 3) allowing for a longitudinal test of the empowerment function. Findings provide mixed support for the empowering contribution of BJW-self to adaptive outcomes over time. Theoretical implications are discussed, as well as the important methodological and measurement issues that require attention for the individual differences study of BJW to progress effectively.