Abstract
A central tenet of justice theory and research is that people prefer decisions to be made with processes that adhere to principles of fairness. The present research identified a boundary condition for this general tendency. Across three studies, we found that people who experienced non-contingent success had less of a desire for fair processes relative to their counterparts who experienced contingent success. Furthermore, results attributable to other independent variables, namely regulatory focus in Study 2 and self-affirmation in Study 3, shed light on the underlying mechanism: people experience non-contingent success as self-threatening and lower their desire for processes that adhere to fairness in the service of protecting themselves against the threat. Theoretical implications are discussed as are limitations of the studies and suggestions for future research.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
For ease of reading throughout the manuscript, we will use the words, “people’s desire for process fairness,” as opposed to “people’s desire for processes that adhere to principles of fairness.” Strictly speaking, however, the more accurate depiction is the latter rather than the former.
The finding that the positive relationship between process fairness and self-evaluations is significantly reduced when outcomes are unfavorable (rather than favorable) has taken three different forms across studies: (1) attenuation, in which people’s self-evaluations are more positive in response to higher than lower process fairness, albeit to a significantly lesser degree than when outcomes are favorable, (2) elimination, in which people’s self-evaluations do not differ as a function of process fairness when outcomes are unfavorable, and (3) reversal, in which people’s self-evaluations are actually lower when process fairness is high rather than low. While intriguing, the reversal effect may be the least likely to emerge. Whereas people’s use of process fairness information to make inferences about how much they are personally responsible for their outcomes may give rise to a reversal effect, their preference for high process fairness for other reasons such as status concerns (e.g., Lind & Tyler, 1988) may counteract this tendency, thereby giving rise to attenuation or elimination. The present research examines the conditions under which people’s typical desire for high process fairness may be reduced, while treating the more precise form that this reduced preference may take (attenuation, elimination, or reversal) as an exploratory empirical question.
We included gender as a covariate in the analyses in Study 2 because unlike in Study 1 gender was significantly related to participants’ tendencies to prefer the more fair method over the less fair method; specifically, women showed more of a tendency to prefer the voice-giving method over the voice-denying method than did men, F(1, 60) = 5.69, p < .02.
The question preceding the certainty measure (i.e., how well participants expected to perform on the next section of the BAT) also yielded a significant effect of success contingency (p < .001), such that participants expected to do better on the next part of the BAT in the contingent success condition than in the non-contingent success condition. Controlling for participants’ responses to this question in an analysis of covariance on the subsequent measure of certainty, we found the success contingency effect remained highly significant (p < .001).
References
Bies, R. J. (1987). The predicament of injustice: The management of moral outrage. In L. L. Cummings & B. M. Staw (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior (Vol. 9, pp. 289–319). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Brockner, J. (2010). A contemporary look at organizational justice: Multiplying insult times injury. New York: Routledge.
Brockner, J., Ackerman, G., Greenberg, J., Gelfand, M., Francesco, A., Chen, Z., et al. (2001). Culture and procedural justice: The influence of power distance on reactions to voice. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 37, 300–315.
Brockner, J., Heuer, L., Siegel, P., Wiesenfeld, B., Martin, C., Grover, S., et al. (1998). The moderating effect of self-esteem in reaction to voice: Converging evidence from five studies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75(2), 394–407.
Colquitt, J. A. (2001). On the dimensionality of organizational justice: A construct validation of a measure. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 386–400.
Folger, R. (2001). Fairness as deonance. In S. W. Gilliland, D. D. Steiner, & D. P. Skarlicki (Eds.), Research in social issues in management (pp. 3–31). Greenwich, CT.: Information Age.
Higgins, E. T. (1998). Promotion and prevention: Regulatory focus as a motivational principle. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 30, pp. 1–46). San Diego: Academic Press.
Higgins, E. T. (2012). Regulatory focus theory. In P. Van Lange, A. W. Kruglanski, & E. T. Higgins (Eds.), Handbook of theories of social psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 483–504). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Higgins, R. L., Snyder, C. R., & Berglas, S. (1990). Self-handicapping: The paradox that isn’t. New York: Plenum Press.
Holmvall, C. M., & Bobocel, D. R. (2008). What fair procedures say about me: Self-construals and reactions to procedural fairness. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 105, 147–168.
Jones, E. E., & Berglas, S. (1978). Control of attributions about the self through self- handicapping strategies: The appeal of alcohol and the role of underachievement. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 4, 200–206.
Kolditz, T. A., & Arkin, R. M. (1982). An impression management interpretation of the self- handicapping strategy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43(3), 492–502.
Leventhal, G. S., Karuza, J., & Fry, W. R. (1980). Beyond fairness: A theory of allocation preferences. In G. Mikula (Ed.), Justice and social interaction (pp. 167–218). New York: Springer-Verlag.
Lind, E. A., & Tyler, T. R. (1988). The social psychology of procedural justice. New York: Plenum Press.
Shepperd, J. A., & Arkin, R. M. (1989). Determinants of self-handicapping: Task importance and the effects of preexisting handicaps on self-generated handicaps. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 15, 101–112.
Sherman, D. K., & Cohen, G. (2006). The psychology of self-defense: Self-affirmation theory. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 38, pp. 183–242). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Siegel, P. A., Scillitoe, J., & Parks-Yancy, R. (2005). Reducing the tendency to self-handicap: The effect of self-affirmation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 41, 589–597.
Spencer, S. J., Zanna, M. P., & Fong, G. T. (2005). Establishing a causal chain: Why experiments are often more effective than mediational analyses in examining psychological processes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 845–851.
Steele, C. M. (1988). The psychology of self-affirmation: Sustaining the integrity of the self. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 21, pp. 261–302). New York: Academic Press.
Thibaut, J., & Walker, L. (1975). Procedural justice: A psychological analysis. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Tucker, J., Vuchinich, R., & Sobell, M. (1981). Alcohol consumption as a self-handicapping Strategy. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 90, 220–230.
Tyler, T. R., & Lind, E. A. (1992). A relational model of authority in groups. In M. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 25, pp. 115–191). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Van den Bos, K., Bruins, J., Wilke, H. A. M., & Dronkert, E. (1999). Sometimes unfair procedures have nice aspects: On the psychology of the fair process effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 324–336.
Van den Bos, K., & Lind, E. A. (2002). Uncertainty management by means of fairness judgments. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 34, pp. 1–60). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Van den Bos, K., Wilke, H. A. M., & Lind, E. A. (1998). When do we need procedural fairness? The role of trust in authority. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 1449–1458.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
All authours declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Ethical Standards
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.
Additional information
We thank Shu Zhang for her data collection assistance.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Siegel, P.A., Brockner, J., Wiesenfeld, B.M. et al. Non-Contingent Success Reduces People’s Desire for Processes that Adhere to Principles of Fairness. Soc Just Res 29, 375–401 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-016-0272-z
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-016-0272-z