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College students were either overpaid, underpaid, or equitably paid by an individual or an organizational agent for performing a task. Overpayment was more tolerated, but underpayment was less tolerated when it came from an organizational agent than from an individual. The implications for equity theory and research are considered.

Two studies are reported in which job applicants recorded the length of time they were required to wait to see an interviewer with whom they had a scheduled appointment. In the first study, it was found that the higher the status of the position for which the applicants were being interviewed (and therefore, the lower the status differential between the applicant and the interviewer), the shorter were the delays they encountered waiting for a superior interviewer. In the second study, applicants waiting to see interviewers of higher status encountered longer delays than those waiting to see interviewers of equal or lower status. These findings are discussed in terms of the status-asserting impressions cultivated by causing others to wait and in terms of the status-neutralizing impressions cultivated by promptness.

C ertainly, it would appear that being fair is a central interest among today's managers, concerned as they must be about providing "equal employment opportunities," adhering to "fair labor practices," and offering "a fair day's pay for a fair day's work." Just as judges promote fairness in the legal system, and referees and umpires ensure that sporting events are played fairly, managers are responsible for upholding both their company's and society's views of fairness by guaranteeing the fair treatment of employees.1 Despite this, however, it remains unclear what those responsible for the day-to-day management of organizations think constitutes fair behavior. Not surprisingly, just as legal scholars and philosophers cannot agree on what fairness really is in any absolute sense, social scientists have relied on studying justice as it is perceived to be that is, what is fair is in the eye of the beholder.2 In organizations, where the differing perspectives, interests, and goals of supervisors and subordinates might offer each access to different sources of information (as well as different biases on the same information), uncertainties about what is perceived to be fair are likely to arise.3 As a result, we may expect that seasoned managers trying to be fair may learn to focus on what others believe to be fair, thereby cultivating an impression of fairness rather than striving toward any abstract sense of morality. Indeed, when interviewing executives on the topic of organizational justice, I learned that in business organizations fairness was often a matter of impression-management. As one senior vice-president of a Fortune 500 firm confided in me, "What's fair is whatever the workers think is fair. My job is to convince them that what's good for the company is fair for them as individuals." Hearing this sentiment echoed by others, I began to suspect that fairness as viewed by corporate management was perhaps as much a matter of image as it was a matter of morality; that is, "looking fair" may be at least as important as actually "being fair." After all, even the best-intentioned, most "fair-minded" manager may fail to win the approval of subordinates who are not convinced of his or her fairness. Given this, we may ask the following two questions: (1) Are managers more concerned about looking fair or actually being fair? and (2) What do managers do to cultivate impressions of fairness? The Importance of Looking Fair: Survey Evidence

Middle managers from three organizational samples responded to an open-ended questionnaire in which they described the determinants of particularly fair or unfair performance appraisals. By Qsort procedure, the responses were categorized and combined to yield seven distinct determinants of fairness in performance evaluations. Ratings of the perceived importance of these determinants were factor analyzed, revealing two distinct factors---procedural determinants and distributive determinants. The implications of the reported determinants are discussed with respect to existing research and theory on justice in organizations.

Donald Campbell privately distributed a paper in 1953 entitled “Designs for Social Science Experiments. ” It became the basis for a subsequent article (D.T. Campbell, 1957) in which the distinction between internal and external validity was first introduced to the psychological literature. That article was especially noteworthy for presenting in detail the formal logic whereby random assignment to conditions (e.g., treatment vs. control) made implausible some specific classes of threats to internal validity. Later this aspect of assignment arrangements, randomization, was used to distinguish “true experiments” from “quasi-experiments” (D.T. Campbell & Stanley, 1963). Indeed, the special relationship of randomization to internal validity was given such prominence that the term experiment was taken to mean a randomized experiment unless otherwise noted—a convention we follow in this chapter.

The preceding chapter discusses debriefing procedures—postexperimental sessions during which experimenters attempt to disabuse their subjects of experimentally created misinformation and eliminate any negative aftereffects caused by the research. The focus in debriefing is on the experimenter’s telling subjects about the study. However, postexperimental sessions are also used to ask subjects about the study. Specifically, experimenters attempt to judge the degree to which the manipulations and measures were appropriate and effective, to determine the extent and accuracy of participants’ suspicions, and to verify that the participants construed the situation as intended (e.g., accepted the “cover story”) and were involved with it…(Tesch, 1977, p. 219)

Questions as to the fairest way of allocating resources arise in all social activities, and the way these ubiquitious questions are answered can have critical, widereaching impact on the individuals concerned and on society in general. The profundity of such questions comes into clear focus when the supply of resources in question is inadequate to meet all claims. Examples range from seemingly ordinary matters of allocating journal pages to authors (Latane, 1979) or deciding which little leaguers will get to play baseball, through more far-reaching concerns of how gasoline will be rationed (Pauly & Walcott, 1979) or whether veterans should be given preferences for civil service hiring (Labich, LaBrecque, & Camper, 1979). Consider also the tragic choices of who will be drafted into the armed services (U.S. National Advisory Commission on Selective Service, 1967), which women should bear children (Berelson, 1974), or who will be given access to hemodialysis machines and other scarce medical resources (Katz, 1973; “Scarce Medical Resources,” 1969).

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the relations between distributive justice and status congruence. The equity theory predicts that, relative to equitably paid persons, persons who are overpaid will raise their performance, and that persons who are underpaid will lower their performance. This action is taken as a behavioral attempt to adjust performance so as to bring the ratio of one's rewards to performance into line with the ratios of others. However, an ostensibly contradictory finding has been obtained by researchers studying the phenomena of insufficient and over-sufficient justification. The equity theory allows that persons may cognitively distort their liking for a task to justify performing it under conditions in which alternative justification is lacking. Deci has also postulated that the type of response to inequity that will be observed depends upon individuals' beliefs about the extent to which they have a choice over, and responsibility for, their behavior. Citing the results of forced-compliance research, Deci argues that individuals have a greater need to justify their behavior if they feel personally responsible for having engaged in it.

I Conflict, Power, and Justice.- 1 Cooperation, Conflict, and Justice.- Cooperation-Competition: Initial Studies of Distributive Justice.- Conflict and Bargaining Studies: Conditions for Establishing a System of Justice.- Distributive Justice.- Experimental Studies of the Effects of Different Systems of Distributive Justice.- The Choice of Distribution System.- The Sense of Injustice.- Some Conclusions.- References.- 2 Justice and Power: An Exchange Analysis.- Power as a Determinant of Reward Distributions.- Power as a Determinant of Reactions to Injustice.- An Exchange Analysis and Some Preliminary Evidence.- Perceptions of Fairness in Exchange Networks.- The Perceived Origins of Inequality and Reactions to Injustice.- Concluding Comments: From Interpersonal to Intergroup Relations.- References.- 3 Justice Considerations in Interpersonal Conflict.- A Glance at the Literature.- Interpersonal Conflict: Definition, Delimitation, and Analytic Approach.- Interpersonal Justice.- Justice Considerations in Interpersonal Conflict: Conditions of Occurrence and Effects.- At the Intra-Individual Level: Justice Thoughts.- At the Interindividual Level: Justice Statements.- Justice Conflict.- Types and Psychological Concomitants of Justice Conflict.- The Justice Dispute.- Significance of Justice Conflict for the Outcome of the Primary Conflict.- Conclusions.- The Role of Different Justice Motivations.- Concluding Remarks.- References.- 4 Power and Justice in Intergroup Relations.- Justice and Power.- Private Problems and Public Issues.- The Effects of Power.- Endorsement, Authorization, and Legitimation.- Revolutionary Mobilization.- The Symbols of Justice.- Conclusion.- References.- II Theoretical Perspectives on Justice.- 5 Justice Ideology and Social Legitimation: A Revised Agenda for Psychological Inquiry.- Overview.- Personhood and Justice.- The Personhood Ideal.- Justice.- Enlarging Personhood.- Toward an Objective Base for Justice.- Bases of Legitimation.- Critique.- Caretaking and Receiving.- Vulnerability to Ideology.- Psychology and the Reproduction of Injustice.- Conclusion.- References.- 6 The Experience of Injustice: Toward a Better Understanding of its Phenomenology.- Retrospective Reports on Experiences of Injustice.- Procedure.- Results.- Discussion.- Role-Playing Investigation 1.- Role-Playing Investigation 2.- Categories of Cognitions and Feelings.- Objectivity of Coding.- Results.- Discussion.- Conclusion.- References.- 7 Thinking about Justice and Dealing with One's Own Privileges: A Study of Existential Guilt.- The Concept of Existential Guilt.- Coping with One's Own Privileges: An Empirical Study.- Sample.- Research Instruments.- Cognitive Analysis of Inequality and Existential Guilt.- Distributive Justice and Existential Guilt.- The Role of Perceived Control.- Felt Responsibility for and Attitude toward the Disadvantaged.- Belief in a Just World and Existential Guilt.- The Moderating Role of Centrality of Justice.- A Predictive Model for Existential Guilt.- Discriminating Existential Guilt from Empathie Distress.- Criterion Group Validity of Existential Guilt.- Concluding Remarks.- References.- 8 Rethinking Equity Theory: A Referent Cognitions Model.- Levels of Referent Outcomes.- Effects of Referent and Likelihood Cognitions.- Levels of Justification.- Distributive and Procedural Effects.- Context Effects.- Summary and Conclusion.- References.- III Norms and Justice.- 9 Social Context and Perceived Justice.- Justice in Interpersonal Relations: Equity or Equality.- Equity versus Equality and Response to Reward Allocation.- Gender Differences Revisited: Response to Equity and Equality.- The Other Way Around.- Just World, Expectations, and Scripts.- Summary.- References.- 10 Levels of Interest in the Study of Interpersonal Justice.- Levels of Interpersonal Justice Phenomena.- Specific Domains.- The Justice Motive.- Justice Principles as Different Forms of Social Interdependence.- Determination of Value and Perception of Inputs.- Postscript.- References.- 11 The Need Principle of Distributive Justice.- Traditional Theoretical Perspectives.- Consideration of Needs in Allocation Situations: Conclusions from Experiments.- Need Satisfaction as the Basis of Distributive Justice.- Prototypes of Relationships and Transaction Principles.- Empirical Findings.- Conclusion.- References.- 12 Group Categorization and Distributive Justice Decisions.- Reward Distribution Behavior as Reasoned Action.- Target Characteristics as Mediators of Norm Salience: A Role-Theory Analysis.- Group Categorization as a Mediator of the Influence of the Norm of Equity on Reward Distributions to Workers.- Supervisors' Pay Allocations when Outgroup Norms are Unknown.- Supervisors' Pay Allocations when Beliefs Exist about Workers' Relevant Norms.- Implications of Reasoned-Action-Role-Theory Approach for Past and Future Work.- References.- 13 Children's Use of Justice Principles in Allocation Situations: Focus on the Need Principle.- Cognitive Developmental Models of Distributive Justice.- Investigations into Concrete Allocation Behavior.- Studies of Distributive Justice.- Differentiation between Just and Unjust Aims.- Preschool Children's Preferences for Justice Principles.- Primary School Children's Preferences for Justice Principles.- Encouraging the Consideration of Need.- Summary and Concluding Remarks.- Distinguishing Just from Unjust.- Preference for Equality.- Instability in the Preference for Equality.- Children's Social Knowledge.- The Need Principle.- References.- IV Applications of Justice Research.- 14 Two Rotten Apples Spoil the Justice Barrel.- Methods.- Subjects.- Procedures.- Results.- Preliminary Analyses.- Testing the Hypotheses.- Additional Analyses.- Discussion.- References.- 15 Justice as Fair and Equal Treatment before the Law: The Role of Individual Versus Group Decision Making.- Implicit Psychological Assumptions in the Law.- Equality before the Law as a Minimum Standard.- Equality before the Law as a General Desideratum.- Procedures to Ensure Equality before the Law in Legal Decision Making.- Individual versus Group Decision Making in the Legal Process.- Examples from a Comparative Legal Analysis.- Decision Making by Jurors, Juries, and Judges: Social Psychological Evidence.- Sentencing Councils and their Effects on Equal Treatment before the Law.- Method.- Results.- Discussion.- Conclusions.- References.- 16 The Psychology of Leadership Evaluation.- Factors Influencing Leadership Evaluations.- Research.- The Evaluation of Legal Authority.- The Evaluation of Political Authority.- Other Research.- Implications.- The Meaning of Procedural Justice.- When Is Procedural Justice Important?.- References.- 17 When Expectations and Justice Do Not Coincide: Blue-Collar Visions of a Just World.- Questioning the Contentment of the Disadvantaged.- Equity and Exchange.- Relative Deprivation.- Self-Blame and the Disadvantaged.- Hypotheses.- Method.- Subject Sample.- Locus of Control.- Political Ideology.- Videotape.- Expected, Satisfying, and Perfectly Just Pay-Plan Designs.- Results.- Political Profile.- Visions of a Perfectly Just World.- Discussion.- Limited Visions of Perfect Justice: Why?.- Cognitive Limits of Imagination.- The Generation of Radically Different Just World Views.- References.- 18 The Distributive Justice of Organizational Performance Evaluations.- Distributive Justice in the Context of Performance Appraisal.- Channels of Influence in Appraisal Systems.- Performance Appraisal and Organizational Justice.- A Taxonomy of Organizational Performance Evaluations as Outcomes.- The Input-Defining Function of Organizational Performance Evaluations.- Performance Evaluations as Ultimate and Penultimate Outcomes: Research Evidence.- Using Performance Evaluations to Qualify Reactions to Monetary Outcomes.- Using Performance Evaluations to Qualify Reactions to Job Titles as Outcomes.- Implications.- Implications for Conceptualizations of Distributive Justice.- Implications for Organizational Theory and Practice.- References.- Author Index.

Traditionally, concern about matters of justice and fairness among scientists interested in organizational behavior has focused on ways of determining equitable payment and assessing behavioral and attitudinal reactions to inequitable payment (Greenberg, 1982). This orientation toward money as the primary medium through which justice is studied is reflected not only in some of the other contributions to this volume on justice, but also in much of the organizational literature (e.g., Vecchio, 1982). At the same time, however, there also appears to be a growing recognition that matters of justice are involved in several nonfinancial exchanges taking place within organizations (see Nord, 1980). The chapter by Martin (Chapter 17, this volume) and the recent chapter by Crosby (1984) in an organizationally oriented serial represent excellent examples of this trend. Much of the present author’s recent work on procedural justice (e.g., Folger & Greenberg, 1985, Greenberg, in press-a) also reflects an appreciation for the idea that considerations of justice are involved in many forms of nonmonetary social exchange in organizations.

Publisher Summary The two factors—intimacy and interdependence—can be combined to reflect one dimension of potential conflict over resources. Various social relationships can be located along this dimension, and specific normative standards appear to be associated with each. When intimacy is low and interdependence is low, conflict over resources may be highest. Strangers fall into this category, and can be expected to follow the practice of selfishly satisfying their own desires. Conflict is lower when intimacy is low and interdependence is high, as is the case among bargainers. Persons in this type of relationship tend to prefer whatever justice norm is most advantageous to them. Among friends, intimacy is high and interdependence is relatively low. The degree of conflict over resources is lower, and the equality norm prevails. When intimacy and interdependence are both high, conflict is lowest. Ideally, such is the case among married persons who, therefore, adhere to the norm of satisfying their mutual needs.

Scientists try to answer questions of theoretical interest by gathering relevant data. Controversies can arise from disagreements over the proper methods for gathering such evidence, and the preceding chapters have touched on controversial issues regarding various aspects of the data-gathering process. Procedures for collecting data, however, are not the only source of conflicting methodological viewpoints. The research process is not over once the data are in; indeed, it is clear that some of the liveliest debates concern how to interpret findings after they have been reported. Ideally, such interpretative squabbles will not be settled by a single study but on the basis of patterns emerging from evidence accumulated across numerous investigations. Thus, in the aftermath of research an additional problem often arises: What approaches should be used to summarize the results from a series of studies addressing the same issue?

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the major theoretical conceptions of justice in social psychology. It discusses the early work in social psychology, specifically the statements by George Homans, Blau, and J. Stacy Adams, which shaped much of the work that followed. It also discusses the theoretical statements derived from the research activity of the 1960s and the 1970s. The chapter presents a set of issues that are considered to be most important in underlying past work and in establishing the outlines of an agenda for the future. Philosophers writing on justice have addressed two different kinds of issues. The first involves the definition of the concept of justice and what it could be argued to entail. The second issue involves attempts to establish material principles of justice, specifications of the conditions that must be met if justice is to exist. The chapter discusses several classical and contemporary philosophical statements on justice.

The controversy over role playing and deception can be traced back to the late 1960s when the then-popular topic of cognitive dissonance—which usually employed a research paradigm in which the use of deception was widespread (e.g., Festinger & Carlsmith, 1959)—confronted challenges on both conceptual and ethical grounds. Notably, in developing his self-perception theory, Daryl Bem (1967, 1972) conducted several experiments demonstrating that observers of a cognitive dissonance situation were able to successfully judge the attitudes of others who were described as actually being in that situation (see Bem, 1967). These studies employed a type of role playing Bem referred to as the “interpersonal simulation” method, a technique in which “an observer-subject is either given a description of one of the conditions of a dissonance experiment or actually permitted to observe one of these conditions and then asked to estimate the attitude of the subject whose behavior is either described or observed” (Bem, 1972, p. 23). Adherents of dissonance theory (e.g., Jones, Linder, Kiesler, Zanna, & Brehm, 1968) also challenged the use of this methodology on epistemological grounds that soon became controversial (see review by Bem, 1972, especially pp. 27-31). It is this controversy that appears to have sown the conceptual seeds of more general arguments about the value of role playing in social psychological experimentation.

At the turn of the century, Norman Triplett (1897-1898) conducted a simple laboratory experiment in which people were asked to wind fishing reels in the presence or absence of others. Triplett’s intent was to explain a phenomenon he observed while racing a bicycle—namely, that racers performed better when competing against others than when racing against the clock. By using a laboratory experiment to isolate the variables of interest and testing hypotheses about them, Triplett was among the first psychologists to study a social psychological phenomenon using a method that in this century has gained widespread prominence in the social and behavioral sciences.

Modern social psychology is characterized by a fundamental commitment to the experimental method (Aronson, Brewer, & Carlsmith, 1985; Aronson & Carlsmith, 1968). However, faith in the experimental method, and confidence in the prospects for a “mainstream” social psychology grounded by it, have been subjected to tremors of doubt. Indeed, it is easy to identify a specific period—the 1960s—during which the legacy of experimental social psychology was first challenged in dramatic fashion. The repercussions of that challenge to orthodoxy constitute much of the subject matter of this book, and as a precursor, the nature of that challenge is reviewed in this chapter.

The vast body of theory and research on justice in groups and organizations has focused primarily on issues of distributive justice (Homans, 1961), that is, the manner in which resources are distributed, and on responses to these distributions (for recent reviews, see Freedman & Montanari, 1980; Greenberg, 1982). Another fundamental type of justice manifest in groups and organizations, but one that has received considerably less attention, concerns the rules and processes through which resources are allocated, that is, procedural justice (Leventhal, 1976; Thibaut & Walker, 1975; Tyler & Caine, 1981). For example, in considering the fairness of pay raises, workers may not only take into account how much pay they receive relative to others, but also such procedural factors as who made the decision, and what criteria were taken into account (see Lawler, 1971). Concerns of this type, focusing on the process of allocation, rather than on the outcome of allocation per se, fall into the domain of procedural justice.

Subjects judged the relationship between two diners who either divided their restaurant check equally, or who paid for exactly what they ordered (i.e. divided it equitably). Relative to persons dividing the check equitably, those making equal divisions were perceived as liking each other more, having a closer relationship, being better friends, and being more likely to see each other again.

The article presents a response to the 1986 article “‘The Science of the Sophomore’ Revisited: From Conjecture to Empiricism,” by M. E. Gordon, L.A. Slade, and N. Schmitt regarding using college students as subjects for organizational research. The author states that though the subject of the original paper is valid, it deserves further analysis, and offers two reasons why journal editors should consider studies that feature college student data. The author suggests that editors consider the relative usefulness of student and non-student samples and the interpretation of the between-subject differences.

Subjects rated the perceived fairness of equitable and inequitable payments to either themselves or another while they were made either self-aware (by confronting their images in a mirror) or not self-aware. When not-self-aware, overpayment to oneself was perceived as being more fair than overpayment to a similar other, and underpayment to oneself was perceived as being more unfair than underpayment to a similar other. Among subjects who were made self-aware, however, the egocentric bias were not evidenced; subjects perceived all inequities as being equally unfair, regardless of whether these affected oneself or another. This evidence provides support for the heightened importance of internal standards offairness induced by the self-aware state.

A taxonomy is presented that categorizes theories of organizational justice with respect to two independent dimensions: a reactive-proactive dimension and a process-content dimension. Various theories within each of the four resulting categories are identified. The implications of the taxonomy are discussed with respect to clarifying theoretical interrelationships, tracking research trends, and identifying needed areas of research.