Self-evaluations and the framing of unfair treatment

Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park CA

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Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Feelings of injustice are associated with greater stress, depression, alcoholism, workplace violence, theft, rioting and collective protest. Several social justice models propose that injustice is so threatening to self-evaluations that people are motivated to minimize or deny it. According to the Group-Value model, self-evaluations are linked to justice because procedural justice, in particular, communicates symbolic information to people about their value to the group. When authorities treat people fairly, they communicate status and importance but when authorities treat people unfairly, they communicate marginality and exclusion However, people should care most about treatment quality when the group the authority represents is important to their sense of identity and self If the group is not important to their sense of identity, then treatment quality should not influence attitudes and behavior. The first purpose of the proposed research is to use laboratory experiments and an event-contingent sampling study of students' daily interactions with university authorities to confirm the basic causal propositions of the Group-Value model. The second purpose is to explore why unfair treatment by an outgroup authority does not diminish self-evaluations. First, people might view outgroup authorities, regardless of their behavior, as less legitimate than ingroup authorities (and therefore, any negative information is discounted). Second, they may act as group representatives rather than as unique individuals. What happens to them could happen to any member of their group (and therefore, any negative information is not personally relevant). However, whether people discount the personal relevance of an outgroup authority's behavior may depend on the collective representations associated with the intergroup relationship. If we can understand why people react differently to the same behavior from ingroup and outgroup authorities, we might better understand when people feel empowered to confront injustice and when they might simply accept it.