The Effects of Legitimacy on Responses to Injustice

Emory University, Atlanta GA

Investigators

Abstract

SES-0136747 Karen Hegtvedt Cathryn Johnson Emory University The investigators will conduct two experiments that provide a novel combination of the justice and legitimacy areas in group processes research. Generally, missing from the justice literature is the notion of justice as a collective process, albeit one dependent on individual perceptions. This research will augment current understanding of reactions to injustice in task groups by incorporating collective sources of legitimacy. It also will have implications for understanding issues of injustice in concrete instances such as wage disputes, environmental conflict, and organizational budget decisions. Specifically, the objective of this research is to address two general questions: 1) how does the legitimacy of an outcome distribution affect an individual's emotional and behavioral reactions to perceived injustice? and 2) how does the legitimacy of an allocator and his or her use of fair or unfair procedures affect an individual's emotional and behavioral responses to perceived injustice? Legitimacy takes two collective forms: authorization refers to support by individuals who occupy higher positions within a group than the focal person and endorsement refers to similar support from people of equal or lower status than the focal person. Hypotheses pertaining to the two questions above are derived from tenets of justice and legitimacy theories. To test the effects of legitimacy and other factors on perceptions of and reactions to injustice, two computerized experiments are created. Experiment One addresses the effects of legitimacy of the outcome distribution and group identification on perceptions of and reactions to an unjust (from the subject's point of view) outcome distribution. The design of Experiment One is a 2 x 2 x 2 factorial experiment that includes: authorization of outcome distribution (low/high), endorsement of outcome distribution (low/high), and group identity (salience of identity with peers/salience of identity with authorities). The dependent variables are perceptions of the justness of the outcome distribution, emotional expressions, and cognitive and behavioral responses to perceptions of injustice. Experiment Two examines the effects of legitimacy of the allocator and procedural justice on reactions to an unjust outcome distribution. Experiment Two is also a 2 x 2 x 2 factorial experiment involving authorization of the allocator, endorsement of the allocator, and procedural justice (fair/unfair procedures). Computer programs will be developed for each experiment to create independent variable manipulations. Approximately 160 subjects are required for each experiment (n=20 subjects in each cell).