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Relative deprivation and referent cognitions: Distributive and procedural justice effects
JOURNAL
OF EXPERIMENTAL
SOCIAL
22, 531-546 (1986)
PSYCHOLOGY
Relative Deprivation and Referent Cognitions: Distributive and Procedural Justice Effects FOLGER
ROBERT A. B. Freeman
School
of Business,
Tulane
Uni,*ersiiy
AND
CHRIS Georgia
MARTIN
Institute
of Technology
Received June 19, 1984 In the terms of referent cognitions theory, high-justification procedures are those sufficiently appropriate to inhibit resentment regardless of the outcomes they produce. With low-justification procedures, however, resentment is predicted to increase the more unfavorably actual outcomes compare with those that would have resulted from using other procedures instead. The ordinary-context conditions of an experiment in which subjects had been instructed that their responses were used merely to index typical reactions to experiments produced such results. But within endorsement-context conditions in which subjects thought their responses were used to determine whether their experimenter would be hired as someone placed in charge of conducting research subjects expressed uniformly greater resentment in the low-justification conditions than in the high-justification conditions regardless of how favorable their outcomes might have been otherwise. The results are discussed in terms of reasons why the appropriateness of procedures sometimes becomes a predominant concern. 0 1986 Academic Press, Inc.
As articulated by Stouffer and his colleagues (1949), the concept of relative deprivation provided a post hoc explanation for anomalous findings: When differences in felt deprivation were expressed by two people whose objective conditions were identical, for example, these people were assumed to have used different evaluative standards. Folger (1985) has recently developed a referent cognitions theory (RCT) that conceptualizes such standards as alternatively imaginable states of affairs (cf. Kahneman & Preparation of this article was supported in part by National Science Foundation Grant BNS 8511677 to Robert Folger. Requests for reprints should be sent to him at the A. B. Freeman School of Business, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118. 531 0022-1031/86 $3.00 Copyright 0 1986 by Academic Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
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Tversky, 1982). Relations among elements of this framework have been stated in an a priori fashion, and its predictions have been confirmed in a series of empirical investigations (Folger & Cropanzano, 1985; Folger, Rosenfield, & Rheaume, 1983; Folger, Rosenfield, Rheaume, & Martin, 1983; Folger, Rosenfield, & Robinson, 1983). RCT predicts resentment as a form of hostile feelings toward someone responsible for one’s own unfavorable outcomes-someone whose wrongdoing was instrumental in bringing about such outcomes. Thus part of the basis for resentment is a belief that someone acted inappropriately; they should have behaved otherwise. On the other hand, some improprieties may appear relatively inconsequential and provide comparatively little basis for resentment. The difference in this latter case is that the wrongdoing is perceived as having produced no detrimental change in outcomes (“no harm done”). To assume that adverse consequences have indeed resulted from a person’s actions, it must be possible to believe that the outcomes would have been more favorable if the person had acted otherwise. The RCT research has operationally defined these two resentment producing ingredients-the “would” and “should” components-by manipulating levels of salient referent outcomes (outcomes with which subjects compare their own outcomes) independently of the justification for the experimenter’s procedures or actions. Some subjects have had a high referent outcome made salient by bogus information that they would have experienced more favorable consequences if, for example, another procedure had been used; whereas others have had a low (or “no difference”) referent outcome made salient by information that the consequences would have been the same no matter what procedure had been used. (Typically both sets of subjects are led to believe that they have lost a chance for a desirable reward or opportunity, but only the high-referent subjects believe they would have won under other circumstances.) Cross-cutting this manipulation, other information has provided either high justification for the experimenter’s actions (e.g., a good reason or excuse for a sudden change in procedures) or low justification (a poor reason or none at all-leaving the impression that the experimenter should have behaved differently). RCT specifies that a particular combination of “would” and “should” maximizes resentment; the theory also predicts the relative magnitude of resentment under other combinations as well. One prediction is that equally minimal resentment will be expressed by the high-justification, low-referent and the high-justification, high-referent subjects of a 2 X 2 design. RCT further predicts that under low justification, on the other hand, high-referent subjects will express significantly more resentment than will low-referent subjects. Results confirming the Referent X Jus-
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tification interaction that these predictions Folger, Rosenfield, and Robinson (1983).
533 entail have been obtained by
Situational Context as a Qualifying Condition We designed the present experiment to investigate a possible qualification of this Referent x Justification interaction, namely, that it might be obtained only under one level of a higher order factor involving the situational context. Our arguments center on the reactions of subjects in the low-justification, low-referent cell of the Folger et al. study. These subjects expressed significantly less resentment than their high-referent counterparts-as predicted-but they also failed to express any more resentment than either set of high-justification subjects. This relative lack of negative responses to a procedural injustice (in this case, low justification for sudden procedural change) is surprising. Perhaps people sometimes simply overlook procedural improprieties so long as their own outcomes are not adversely affected. But will they always be so forgiving about a procedural impropriety when it has not worked against their own current self-interests? Will an authority figure whose procedural decision making style is arbitrary and autocratic, for example, be tolerated and allowed to act with impugnity-sans complaint-simply because “[slhe hasn’t yet done anything to hurt me personally”? We think not-at least not always. An ordinary laboratory experiment, however, may not be the ideal staging ground for testing this proposition. Again consider the low-justification, low-referent subjects of the Folger et al. experiment. They received a single, one-time outcome which was the same as what they would have received if the alternative (more justifiable) procedure had been implemented instead. In the context of a brief laboratory encounter, the experimenter’s failure to use the more justifiable procedure had no further implications of any consequence. The same might not be the case in other contexts, however, as is suggested by evidence from the study of social institutions. Evidence from the Context of Social Institutions How might this situational context be modified to imply broader-and graver-implications of a procedural impropriety by an experimenter? One such modification would be to portray the role of experimenter as a position that entailed enduring responsibilities, so that it more nearly paralleled the nature of positions occupied by authority figures in actual social institutions. How do constituents respond to the actions of such authorities? Tyler and Caine (1981) reviewed research by political scientists and reached the following conclusion: “This literature suggests that citizen support for authorities is more strongly dependent on acceptance of the belief that government leaders and institutions function according to fair and impartial procedures than upon outcomes received from the political
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system or specific government decisions” (p. 643). Research conducted by Tyler and his colleagues (e.g., Tyler, 1984a; 1984b; Tyler & Caine, 1981; Tyler, Rasinski, & Spodick, 1985) also supports that conclusion and extends it beyond the political realm to the endorsement of “leaders” in positions of authority generally (e.g., teachers, judges). An examination of teacher ratings, for example, was summarized as follows: “These results strongly suggest that in natural settings [emphasis added] procedural considerations are important in leadership endorsement but variations in outcome level and outcome fairness are not” (Tyler & Caine, 1981, p. 648; the emphasis added indicates the basis for our reservation about obtaining similar effects under ordinary laboratory conditions). We must note, however, the nature of the dependent variables in these investigations. Tyler and his colleagues were interested in the degree of support accorded authorities, and their measures of “leadership endorsement” have represented global evaluations of the authorities in question. There is some evidence that an item’s globality can affect responses. For example, one investigation used a vignette describing a vote by ‘Councilman Jones” on a specific issue that a city council had to resolve (Tyler & Caine, 1981, Study 3). The dependent measures were described as follows: “Subjects were then asked [a] how satisfied they were with the performance of Councilman Jones and [b] how they would rate Jones’ performance as a councilman” (p. 650). These two assessments-(a) a satisfaction measure, and (b) a performance rating-appear to differ in the globality of their implications. The former could be considered less global because it assessed respondents’ feelings about the immediate and personally relevant consequences of a specific action taken by the councilman. The latter seems more global in that it pertains to endorsement of a leader qua someone in a position of enduring responsibility. These measures did indeed produce different patterns of results in response to manipulations of outcome favorability (Jones’ vote being consistent vs inconsistent with the respondents’ views) and procedural fairness (Jones’ vote being based on consultation with constituents vs no consultation). Specifically, the outcome and procedure factors either did or did not interact, depending on the item. On the satisfaction item, there was both a main effect of procedure and an interaction of the outcome and procedure factors. The latter corresponds to the Referent x Justification interaction of Folger et al. (1983) because respondents expressed the greatest dissatisfaction “when poor outcomes resulted from unfair procedures” (Tyler & Caine, 1981, p. 650~that is, when they would have done better if others had used procedures that should have been implemented (the RCT model). In contrast, the performance ratings also yielded a significant procedure main effect but did not yield an interaction, F < 1. We suspect that an interaction is unlikely to emerge, and that a main effect of procedure
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is more likely to emerge instead, whenever evaluations are global in nature. We believe the enduring implications of endorsement were more salient in the task of rating Jones’ performance “as a councilman,” whereas these implications were less salient in the task of expressing satisfaction about his performance per se. Research Strategy This interpretation is admittedly speculative, but it suggests an investigative strategy. If the context inherent in wording differences between questionnaire items (mere expression of feelings vs endorsement for a leadership position) can produce different patterns of response to those items, then it should be possible to obtain different response patterns to the same item if the context is manipulated. We adopted this strategy in the present investigation by giving subjects different instructional contexts regarding the purpose of a “departmental questionnaire” administered at the end of an experiment in which referent outcomes and procedural justifications had been manipulated. Half the subjects were told the questionnaire was intended merely for the purpose of obtaining an indication of psychology students’ feelings about experiments (ordinav-context conditions). The remaining subjects were told their experimenter had applied for the position of research assistant in charge of running experiments for the Psychology Department, and that their questionnaire responses would influence the hiring decision (endorsement-context conditions). Two types of dependent measures were included on this questionnaire. The first consisted of mood-related scales (e.g., angry, resentful). Responses to the angry and resentful scales have been the primary dependent measure in previous RCT experiments. Within the ordinary-context conditions, RCT predicts a Referent x Justification interaction (cf. Folger et al. 1983) on these mood items. If Tyler’s work and our arguments correctly imply the overriding importance of procedures when enduring positions are at stake, then this interaction should be replaced by a justification main effect when the same mood ratings are said to help determine a hiring decision (i.e., this main effect alone should emerge within the endorsement-context conditions). Overall, these effects should tend to produce a three-way interaction from the mood data. A second type of measure was included to provide supplemental information. At the end of the questionnaire, subjects read the following sentences: “Suppose the department were hiring someone as a paid research assistant in charge of running experiments. Is your experimenter someone you would recommend for hiring, under those circumstances?” Subjects in the endorsement conditions knew that “those circumstances” did indeed apply in the present case, so again their responses should produce a justification main effect. Of primary interest was the response
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of ordinary-context subjects for whom the experimenter role as a position of enduring responsibility had not been raised prior to that point. Would raising this issue at that point of the questionnaire suddenly highlight the importance of procedures ? If so, ordinary-context subjects would not be expected to respond to this hypothetical hiring question with the same Referent x Justification pattern that was predicted for their moodrelated responses. Rather, their responses to this hiring item should produce a justification main effect comparable to that obtained from responses of the endorsement-context subjects to both the mood items and the hiring item. That is, the hiring item should yield an overall main effect for justification and no interaction. Although mood data within the ordinary-context conditions should produce the Referent x Justification interaction obtained by Folger et al., the present investigation used a different paradigm. That earlier study involved competing pairs of subjects and hence allowed for social comparison. The present study assessed whether these results can be generalized to a situation in which social comparison is not available, and referent outcomes are established on the basis of subjects’ previous expectations. Specifically, subjects were led to anticipate an opportunity for obtaining a desirable reward, but they differed (by referent outcome condition) in the estimate of what their chances would be to obtain that reward. The opportunity was later canceled (on the basis of either a lowjustification or a high-justification procedure), at which point the referent outcome consisted of what the subject thought would have happened if the opportunity had not been canceled. After the cancelation, in other words, subjects with high previous expectations had a high-referent outcome made salient, whereas subjects with low previous expectations had a low-referent outcome made salient. METHOD Subjects. The subjects, randomly assigned to conditions, were 80 male and 80 female undergraduates taking introductory psychology classes. Participation in the experiment entitled students to “units” of credit, which were converted into points later added to final course grades. The standard rate of compensation was one unit for every half-hour of participation. Only one subject participated in a given session. An experimenter of the same gender as the subject conducted the session. At the start of the semester, an announcement was made to all classes about this system of units. The announcement also contained information about a “departmental questionnaire” to be administered at the conclusion of each experiment that semester. Students were informed that the Department of Psychology wanted to obtain descriptive information about students’ reactions to experiments in general, and that the questionnaire would contain such things as mood-related items. Procedure. Each subject was escorted into a room where the experimenter tone of two males or two females) opened a sealed envelope containing credit slips, a description of the experiment, and experimental materials. The experimenter “discovered,” upon opening the envelope, that the departmental questionnaire had not been included in the materials.
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Before leaving to obtain a copy, the experimenter started the subject on a bogus task. This task was an adaptation of one actually used in a previous semester by another investigator, whose experiences with it helped us to gauge the amount of time required and to be confident that the subject would feel comfortable working on it alone while the experimenter was gone. The alleged purpose of this task was to collect some preliminary data for a later set of studies on memory. The instructions said that these data would be used to determine how well people could remember the names of objects by looking at the objects’ shapes. The task consisted of several pages on which the shapes of various American states (e.g., Iowa) had been drawn; the subjects was asked to write the name of the state on a line below each drawing. The credit slips for the experiment, which were filled out prior to the work on the bogus task, contained the manipulation of context. These slips began with a brief description of the bogus task’s purpose. The paragraph immediately following that description differed depending on the context condition to which a subject had been assigned. In the ordinarycontext conditions, the paragraph reminded subjects that they would also be completing the departmental questionnaire at the end of the session, and it described the procedures for maintaining confidentiality of the responses (i.e., the questionnaire would be answered anonymously, sealed in an envelope, and placed among similarly sealed envelopes in a box outside the experimental room). In the endorsement-context conditions, the same paragraph was used, but a sentence was added. This sentence stated that responses to the questionnaire would help decide who was to be hired, on a government grant, as a permanent research assistant in charge of running psychology experiments-and that the experimenter was one of the applicants. Once the subject had begun the task, the experimenter left the room (allegedly to obtain the departmental questionnaire from the room next door). After 2 min the experimenter returned and explained that copies of the questionnaire had run out and more would have to be obtained from the departmental office upstairs. The experimenter also mentioned being met by another experimenter while out of the room. This second experimenter’s own subject had not shown up, so arrangements had been made for the first experimenter’s subject to fill in when he or she finished the first experiment. The additional participation was highly advantageous to subjects, since they would receive 2 more units of credit (three times the amount of credit normally given for the half-hour participation) because of this one-time only opportunity. The subject was given a sealed envelope containing some preliminary questions related to the second experiment, to be filled out before continuing the first experiment. The experimenter then left to go upstairs, explaining that someone would slip the departmental questionnaire under the door so as not to disturb the subject again. When the subject had finished the questionnaire, it was to be placed in a box outside, where the second experimenter would be waiting. Inside the sealed envelope (allowing experimenters to be blind) was a sheet containing the referent outcome manipulation. In the Ion,-referent conditions, a sheet marked “Screening Form” had questions purportedly to assess eligibility for the second experiment. A handwritten note on the side of the form indicated that there was not much of a chance (approximately 6 out of 100) of being in the experiment, and that the subject would be told later if he or she qualified. In the high-referent condition, the same questions were contained on a sheet labeled “Information Form,” and eligibility was assured. The experimenter noted the subject’s progress through a one-way mirror. Just before the subject had finished all the tasks, the experimenter slipped the departmental questionnaire under the door. Attached to the questionnaire was a note containing the procedural justification manipulation. In the high-justi’carion condition, the note explained that the equipment for the second experiment had broken down, and hence the subject would not be able to participate. In the low-justiJication condition the note said that the experimenter had
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“decided not to let you do the other experiment after all” and that “the other experimenter would be informed.” The departmental questionnaire, completed after subjects had finished either the Screening Form or Information Form for the second experiment, was prefaced with the following statement: As you were told at the beginning of the semester, it is important for research purposes that as much data as possible be collected in any given experiment, and one kind of data that is sometimes useful is information about the mood subjects are in when they finish an experiment. Subjects indicated their mood in response to several questions consistent with the departmental-survey cover story (e.g., “How are you feeling right now?“). Below each question was an identical set of mood-related adjectives, which always included angry and resentful. Beside each adjective was a numbered scale ranging from 0 (not at all) to 10 (very much). The critical dependent measure was the sum of anger and resentment responses to the following question: “How do you feel as the result of the way you were treated by the experimenter?” An 1l-point response format was also used for one additional dependent measure, although it was followed by a single scale rather than a set of mood items. This hiring item had subjects indicate+given the assumption that the Psychology Department was hiring someone as a paid research assistant in charge of running experiments-the extent to which they would endorse their experimenter for such a position. The scale beneath this item was anchored by strongly recommend not hiring (0) and strongly recommend hiring (IO). No second experimenter ever actually appeared. Instead. after the subject had placed the questionnaire in the box, the original experimenter reappeared and said that there were “just a few more questions.” These questions were used to assess suspicion (no subject indicated an awareness of the experimental hypotheses or the ruses used), after which a thorough debriefing was given. All subjects were given an additional participation unit and signed a pledge of confidentiality stating that they would not reveal information about the experiment to other students.
RESULTS
The primary dependent measure was based on responses to the following question: “How do you feel as a result of the way you were treated by the experimenter?” Subjects responded to this question on mood scales that included angry and resentful, and the responses on these two scales were summed to form a composite index of expressed resentment toward the experimenter (see Fig. 1). An ANOVA on this index yielded a justification main effect and a marginally significant three-way interaction, F(1, 151) = 13.7, p < .Ol, and F(1, 151) = 2.92, p < .08, respectively. The pattern of these effects should be interpreted in the light of a priori theoretical considerations. Recall that the manipulation of referent outcome levels via prior expectations represented a departure from the social-comparison approach used in the only previous investigation of the Referent x Justification interaction (Folger et al., 1983). Thus an initial consideration was to test for a conceptual replication by seeing if similar effects would be found under the ordinary-context conditions. A preliminary sign of successful replication was that these conditions produced
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ORDINARY-CONTEXT
44 + “c 2 c 8 E
3 2 1
0 Low Referent
High Referent
ENDORSEMENT-CONTEXT 51
O/ Low Referent
High Referent
FIG. 1. Discontent as a function of referent outcomes, justification, and context (summed from two items such that higher numbers indicate greater anger and resentment).
a Referent x Justification interaction, F(l, 81) = 4.78, p < .05. Planned contrasts further supported predictions in revealing that in the highjustification cells of these ordinary-context conditions, low- and highreferent subjects did not differ in the amount of anger and resentment expressed, F < 1. The corresponding comparison within the low-justification conditions, however, showed that high-referent subjects were significantly more angry and resentful than low-referent subjects, F(1, 151) = 5.17, p < .05. The next issue of theoretical interest was whether similar effects would also emerge from the endorsement-condition data, or whether these data would instead-consistent with findings obtained by Tyler and his colleagues-manifest only a justification main effect. A 2 x 2 ANOVA did indeed yield this main effect, F(l, 76) = 7.49, p < .OOS. As can be seen in Fig. 1, greater anger and resentment were expressed by low-justification subjects than by high-justification subjects. The last questionnaire item referred to a position of “paid research assistant in charge of running experiments” and asked subjects to indicate the extent to which the experimenter was someone they would recommend hiring for such a job. Subjects in the endorsement conditions had been informed about this job in advance, of course, whereas ordinary-context subjects were answering with respect to the prefatory phrase “suppose the department were hiring someone.” The responses to this item (see Fig. 2) produced a justification main effect such that a stronger recommendation of the experimenter was given by high-justification subjects
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ORDINARY-CONTEXT
o/--
Low Referent
a x $6 r
7
.E 63
4
a &
High Referent
ENDORSEMENT-CONTEXT
5
2 1 0 ;I Low Referent
-------fl l LOW J”~tl‘bo,,on n “**II JY**lfk*,lon
High Referent
FIG. 2. Evaluation of the experimenter as a function of referent outcomes, justification, and context (reverse-scored such that higher numbers represent less favorable evaluations).
than by low-justification subjects F(1, 152) = 7.90, p < -01. No other questionnaire items had revealed experimenter effects, but this item yielded an Experimenter x Referent x Context interaction, an Experimenter x Justification x Context interaction, and an Experimenter x Referent x Justification interaction, F(3, 128) = 2.76, p < .05, F(3, 128) = 2.80, p < .05, and F(3, 128) = 3.04, p < .05, respectively. (These interactions are theoretically uninteresting and serve mainly to show that subjects took their job seriously-they responded to the personal idiosyncracies of each experimenter, resulting in slightly different patterns for each. None of these interactions, however, qualified the tendency for low justification to produce harsher ratings than did high justification.) DISCUSSION The results displayed in Fig. 1 show that the impact of outcome and procedure (the referent and justification manipulations) varied depending on the purpose described for the questionnaire (the context manipulation). First consider the effects under the ordinary-context instructions. Here the Referent x Justification interaction predicted by RCT was clearly in evidence. Subjects whose experimenter followed an acceptable procedure (high-justification conditions) showed a level of discontent that was equally minimal regardless of whether actual outcomes were concordant or disconcordant with previous expectations (low- vs high-referent conditions).
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In contrast, subjects whose experimenter acted in a procedurally arbitrary fashion (low-justification conditions) expressed different levels of discontent as a function of referent outcomes: Significantly more anger and resentment was expressed by high-referent, low-justification subjects than by lowreferent, low-justification subjects. The pattern of mood data within the ordinary-context conditions, therefore, provides a conceptual replication of the Folger et al. (1983) results via a very different operationalization of referent outcomes (i.e., based on previous expectations rather than social comparison). A different pattern of mood data emerged within the endorsement conditions. No interaction was present; instead, a justification main effect was the only significant finding. Regardless of referent outcomes, lowjustification subjects expressed greater anger and resentment than highjustification subjects. This overriding impact of procedural justifications, given that the responses represented degrees of endorsement for someone vis-&vis a position of enduring responsibility, is consistent with Tyler’s conclusions about the importance of procedural justice for leadership endorsement. Our generalization from Tyler’s work to the context manipulation of the present study was based on a presumed parallel between leadership in natural settings and the special hiring decision described to subjects in the endorsement conditions. Further support for this generalization can be seen in the pattern of responses to the hiring item that concluded the questionnaire (see Fig. 2). Recall that the wording of the hiring item was designed to make ordinary-context subjects consider the position of experimenter as one that potentially might involve enduring responsibilities (“research assistant in charge of running experiments”). Despite the otherwise hypothetical nature of the sentence introducing that item (“Suppose the department were hiring someone . . .“), the endorsement implications of procedural improprieties were apparently made salient for ordinary-context subjects. That is, they responded to the hiring itemas did their endorsement-context counterparts-exclusively on the basis of the procedural justification manipulation. We conclude that an endorsement context can give procedural considerations special importance, and that this context can be introduced either via general instructions (the context manipulation describing different purposes of the questionnaire) or via item content (the endorsement implications of the hiring item). Our data do not bear directly on the psychological mechanism underlying differences between the ordinary- and endorsement-context conditions. It is also true that work by Tyler and his colleagues has not included a manipulation of context; hence the psychological mediator of effects unique to an endorsement context has not received attention. Nevertheless, Tyler (1984a) has recently offered some speculations that are relevant. These speculations pertain to citizens’ concerns in two areas of their
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lives, the “personal” and “political.” The former involve individualistic concerns regarding one’s own well-being, whereas the latter involve the public domain-and perhaps, therefore, greater concern for the collective good. Tyler (1984a) has argued that there is “a recognition among citizens that they should be pursuing different goals within the two areas of their lives” (p. 36). His reasoning is that recognition of the need to put aside self-interest can account for the tendency of procedural considerations to dominate leadership endorsement, because the actions of leaders affect the lives of a great many people. This argument is buttressed by unpublished data, cited by Tyler, indicating that “heightened concerns about positive social relations and others’ welfare, issues likely to be important in political judgments, increase both the general role of fairness in allocation decisions and the importance placed upon procedural justice” (p. 37). Is it possible that subjects in the endorsement conditions might have been sensitized to others’ welfare-namely, the welfare of students who would become subjects in studies conducted by the person hired as a research assistant? To investigate this possibility, we collected data from a survey administered in introductory psychology classes during a semester when an announcement of a “departmental questionnaire” regarding experiments had not been made. Rather, the instrument administered in the classes (entitled “Survey Regarding a Departmental Questionnaire for Psychology Experiments”) made it appear that such an experimental questionnaire was being considered. The instructions read by all students said that if a standardized questionnaire were administered, it would provide data useful for describing students’ reactions to experiments. Half the students, however, read an additional sentence describing one example as an illustration of ways such data might be used. The example was that they could be used to help determine whether an experimenter was hired as a research assistant in charge of conducting experiments for the department. Given these contrasting instructions (presence vs absence of hiring example), students were asked to indicate the extent to which each of several features of experiments “represents an important consideration affecting your responses to such a questionnaire.” Imbedded among filler items was the following key feature that served as the dependent measure: “the welfare of other subjects who will have the same experimenter.” Consistent with the interpretation of a hiring decision as a context that makes collective concerns salient, the instructions produced a significant main effect on this item, F( I, 79) = 5.7, p < .02. Students whose instructions contained the hiring example rated other subjects’ welfare as being an important consideration more than did students whose instructions had not contained that example.
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Because a Referent x Justification interaction is the basic pattern of resentment predicted by the “would/should” RCT analysis, and because Tyler’s data as well as our own have revealed that this interaction tendency is not manifested in all settings, an important task for future theory and research is to explore the relationship between outcome concerns and procedural concerns in producing resentment. The findings of our experiment (along with the ancillary data just described) suggest that settings may vary in the extent to which they make consequences for others’ outcomes salient. Such variations can in turn affect the relative impact of procedural concerns. When others’ welfare is at stake because decisions are made by someone in a position of enduring responsibility and authority, that is, procedural improprieties are of overriding concern because such evidence regarding the decision-maker’s conduct has broad-ranging implications for the outcomes of others. Similarly, there are at least two reasons why procedural concerns may become paramount in the context of an ongoing relationship between allocator and recipient-another context not ordinarily well suited to laboratory investigation. First, the prospect of receiving outcomes over time from the same person allows procedures to be evaluated in terms of their “expected value” (estimated average consequence)-their projected long-term or typical impact (cf. Folger, in press). Second, evidence of an allocator’s procedural impropriety undermines trust in that person’s decision-making abilities (cf. Tyler, 1984b; Tyler & Caine, 1981). Even when an impropriety seems to have had no immediately evident adverse consequences because the procedures on that occasion made “no difference , ” the recipient may express resentment if the allocator’s judgment cannot be trusted and hence disadvantageous consequences are expected to result eventually. The Impact of Procedures in Everyday Life
The “would/should” phenomenological account of RCT implies that except in the special contextual circumstances outlined above, an outcome factor (the favorability of salient outcomes not received) and a procedural factor (the justifiability of decision-making practices actually implemented) interact to determine the expression of resentment. It is important, however, to note the unique features of laboratory experimentation that permit the conceptual validity of this Referent x Justification interaction to be demonstrated. Laboratory conditions can impose constraints not always present in everyday life. Specifically, it is possible in the lab to manipulate the level of referent outcomes independently of the justifications given for procedures. In delivering bogus feedback that makes a given level of referent outcomes salient, an experimenter provides subjects with direct evidence of what would have happened if some other procedure had been followed. It is thereby possible even in the case of a low-
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justification procedure to convince some subjects (those in low-referent conditions) that the violation of procedural fairness did not have an effect on their outcomes. But will people in everyday life similarly assume that an improper procedure made no difference? Often people in real-world situations do not know from direct evidence what the consequences of using alternative procedures might have been; instead they are forced to rely on their own imaginations in speculating. Kahneman and Tversky (1982) have suggested that imagination generally follows well-worn paths. In their terminology, mental habits (proclivities governing what gets imagined) are said to comprise a simulation heuristic for “undoing” or reconstructing reality. They have argued that the most fundamental principle such simulation tendencies follow is the replacement of surprising or unusual elements with normative ones (elaborated by Kahneman & Miller, 1986, into a theory of norms called to mind for evaluating deviations). Hence when people encounter a deviation from accepted ways of doing things, they are prone to “run a simulation” of what might have resulted if standard practice had been followed. Similarly, when people encounter the use of an improper or poorly justified procedure, their belief about whether it made a difference in outcomes will be guided by considering what might have happened if a fair procedure had been used instead. What should people expect to have obtained from a fair procedure? The most reasonable expectation, and hence the result most apt to have been simulated, is that it would have produced fair outcomes. Indeed, the normatively acceptable procedurewhose consequences are being simulated because it comes to mind so readily-would probably not have been deemed fair in the first place unless its general tendency was to produce fair outcomes (perceptions regarding the fairness of a given procedure are influenced by the typical consequences that procedure entails-cf. Folger, in press-b). In short, a poorly justified procedure often brings high-referent outcomes readily to mind; actual outcomes will be presumed inferior to what a fair procedure would have yielded. This tendency to simulate high-referent outcomes is precisely what a laboratory manipulation can reduce or eliminate in the low-justification, low-referent cell of a factorial design. Because such a cell may not have a naturally occurring counterpart in ordinary perceptual tendencies, decision-makers in the real world may often use special “social account-giving” tactics (e.g., excuses, forms of apology) to short-circuit or modify simulations that would otherwise generate resentment, hostility, and possible retaliation (Bies, in press). Unless such tactics are used or other special circumstances operate to make low-referent outcomes salient, then typically the perceptions that an allocator should have acted otherwise (a low-justification procedure was implemented) will engender accompanying perceptions that the recipient would have been better off (more favorable outcomes would have
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resulted, if only proper actions had been taken). It is, therefore, very reasonable to harmonize the “would/should” phenomenological account of RCT with the possibility that procedural concerns might have a predominant impact in everyday life. We conclude on this note so that the present results will not seem a novel exception to a more general rule. The thrust of our remarks has been to imply that rather than indicating anything unusual, the main effect of justification produced in the endorsement-context conditions illustrates what may well be a common occurrence. And although the procedural justice literature served to identify conditions under which this effect was especially likely to occur, the RCT analysis also helps to explain why it may be prevalent under a variety of other conditions as well. Coupled with work on the simulation heuristic (Kahneman & Tversky, 1982) and a theory of norms (Kahneman & Miller, 1986), the RCT framework thus offers a promising approach for future research on relative deprivation and perceived injustice. REFERENCES Bies, R. J. (in press). The predicament of injustice: The management of moral outrage. In L. L. Cummings and B. M. Staw (Eds.). Reseurch in organizational behavior (Vol. 9). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Folger, R. (1986). A referent cognitions theory of relative deprivation. In J. M. Olson, C. P. Herman, & M. P. Zanna (Eds.), Relative deprivution und social comparison: The Onfario symposium (Vol. 4, pp. 33-55). Folger, R. (in press). Distributive and procedural justice in the workplace. Social Justice Review.
Folger, R., & Cropanzano. R. (1985). [Referent cognitions and procedural injustice]. Unpublished raw data. Folger, R., Rosenfield, D., & Rheaume, K. (1983). Role playing effects of likelihood and referent outcomes on relative deprivation. Representative Research in Social Psychology, 13, 2-10.
Folger, R., Rosenfield, D., Rheaume, K., & Martin, C. (1983). Relative deprivation and referent cognitions. Journal of Experimenral Social Psychology, 19, 172-184. Folger, R., Rosenfield, D.. & Robinson, T. (1983). Relative deprivation and procedural justifications. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 268-273. Kahneman, D., & Miller, D. T. (1986). Norm theory: Comparing reality to its alternatives. Psychological Review, 93, 136-153. Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1982). Availability and the simulation heuristic. In D. Kahneman, P. Slavic, & A. Tversky (Eds.), Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristic and biases (pp. 201-208). New York: Cambridge Univ. Press. Stouffer, S. A., Suchman, E. A., DeVinney, L. C., Star, S. A., & Williams, R. M., Jr. (1949). The American soldier: Vol. I. Adjustment during army life. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press. Tyler, T. R. (1984a). Justice and leadership endorsement. Paper presented at the CarnegieMellon Symposium on “Cognitive Processes in Political Behavior,” Pittsburgh, PA. Tyler, T. R. (1984b). The role of perceived injustice in defendants’ evaluations of their courtroom experience. Law and Society Review, 66, 541-566.
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Tyler, T. with Tyler, T. with Social
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R., & Caine, A. (1981). The influence of outcomes and procedures on satisfaction formal leaders. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 41, 642-655. R., Rasinski, K., 62 Spodick, N. (1985). The influence of voice on satisfaction leaders: Exploring the meaning of process control. Journal of Personabty and Psychology,
48. 72-8 1.
OF EXPERIMENTAL
SOCIAL
22, 531-546 (1986)
PSYCHOLOGY
Relative Deprivation and Referent Cognitions: Distributive and Procedural Justice Effects FOLGER
ROBERT A. B. Freeman
School
of Business,
Tulane
Uni,*ersiiy
AND
CHRIS Georgia
MARTIN
Institute
of Technology
Received June 19, 1984 In the terms of referent cognitions theory, high-justification procedures are those sufficiently appropriate to inhibit resentment regardless of the outcomes they produce. With low-justification procedures, however, resentment is predicted to increase the more unfavorably actual outcomes compare with those that would have resulted from using other procedures instead. The ordinary-context conditions of an experiment in which subjects had been instructed that their responses were used merely to index typical reactions to experiments produced such results. But within endorsement-context conditions in which subjects thought their responses were used to determine whether their experimenter would be hired as someone placed in charge of conducting research subjects expressed uniformly greater resentment in the low-justification conditions than in the high-justification conditions regardless of how favorable their outcomes might have been otherwise. The results are discussed in terms of reasons why the appropriateness of procedures sometimes becomes a predominant concern. 0 1986 Academic Press, Inc.
As articulated by Stouffer and his colleagues (1949), the concept of relative deprivation provided a post hoc explanation for anomalous findings: When differences in felt deprivation were expressed by two people whose objective conditions were identical, for example, these people were assumed to have used different evaluative standards. Folger (1985) has recently developed a referent cognitions theory (RCT) that conceptualizes such standards as alternatively imaginable states of affairs (cf. Kahneman & Preparation of this article was supported in part by National Science Foundation Grant BNS 8511677 to Robert Folger. Requests for reprints should be sent to him at the A. B. Freeman School of Business, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118. 531 0022-1031/86 $3.00 Copyright 0 1986 by Academic Press, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
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Tversky, 1982). Relations among elements of this framework have been stated in an a priori fashion, and its predictions have been confirmed in a series of empirical investigations (Folger & Cropanzano, 1985; Folger, Rosenfield, & Rheaume, 1983; Folger, Rosenfield, Rheaume, & Martin, 1983; Folger, Rosenfield, & Robinson, 1983). RCT predicts resentment as a form of hostile feelings toward someone responsible for one’s own unfavorable outcomes-someone whose wrongdoing was instrumental in bringing about such outcomes. Thus part of the basis for resentment is a belief that someone acted inappropriately; they should have behaved otherwise. On the other hand, some improprieties may appear relatively inconsequential and provide comparatively little basis for resentment. The difference in this latter case is that the wrongdoing is perceived as having produced no detrimental change in outcomes (“no harm done”). To assume that adverse consequences have indeed resulted from a person’s actions, it must be possible to believe that the outcomes would have been more favorable if the person had acted otherwise. The RCT research has operationally defined these two resentment producing ingredients-the “would” and “should” components-by manipulating levels of salient referent outcomes (outcomes with which subjects compare their own outcomes) independently of the justification for the experimenter’s procedures or actions. Some subjects have had a high referent outcome made salient by bogus information that they would have experienced more favorable consequences if, for example, another procedure had been used; whereas others have had a low (or “no difference”) referent outcome made salient by information that the consequences would have been the same no matter what procedure had been used. (Typically both sets of subjects are led to believe that they have lost a chance for a desirable reward or opportunity, but only the high-referent subjects believe they would have won under other circumstances.) Cross-cutting this manipulation, other information has provided either high justification for the experimenter’s actions (e.g., a good reason or excuse for a sudden change in procedures) or low justification (a poor reason or none at all-leaving the impression that the experimenter should have behaved differently). RCT specifies that a particular combination of “would” and “should” maximizes resentment; the theory also predicts the relative magnitude of resentment under other combinations as well. One prediction is that equally minimal resentment will be expressed by the high-justification, low-referent and the high-justification, high-referent subjects of a 2 X 2 design. RCT further predicts that under low justification, on the other hand, high-referent subjects will express significantly more resentment than will low-referent subjects. Results confirming the Referent X Jus-
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tification interaction that these predictions Folger, Rosenfield, and Robinson (1983).
533 entail have been obtained by
Situational Context as a Qualifying Condition We designed the present experiment to investigate a possible qualification of this Referent x Justification interaction, namely, that it might be obtained only under one level of a higher order factor involving the situational context. Our arguments center on the reactions of subjects in the low-justification, low-referent cell of the Folger et al. study. These subjects expressed significantly less resentment than their high-referent counterparts-as predicted-but they also failed to express any more resentment than either set of high-justification subjects. This relative lack of negative responses to a procedural injustice (in this case, low justification for sudden procedural change) is surprising. Perhaps people sometimes simply overlook procedural improprieties so long as their own outcomes are not adversely affected. But will they always be so forgiving about a procedural impropriety when it has not worked against their own current self-interests? Will an authority figure whose procedural decision making style is arbitrary and autocratic, for example, be tolerated and allowed to act with impugnity-sans complaint-simply because “[slhe hasn’t yet done anything to hurt me personally”? We think not-at least not always. An ordinary laboratory experiment, however, may not be the ideal staging ground for testing this proposition. Again consider the low-justification, low-referent subjects of the Folger et al. experiment. They received a single, one-time outcome which was the same as what they would have received if the alternative (more justifiable) procedure had been implemented instead. In the context of a brief laboratory encounter, the experimenter’s failure to use the more justifiable procedure had no further implications of any consequence. The same might not be the case in other contexts, however, as is suggested by evidence from the study of social institutions. Evidence from the Context of Social Institutions How might this situational context be modified to imply broader-and graver-implications of a procedural impropriety by an experimenter? One such modification would be to portray the role of experimenter as a position that entailed enduring responsibilities, so that it more nearly paralleled the nature of positions occupied by authority figures in actual social institutions. How do constituents respond to the actions of such authorities? Tyler and Caine (1981) reviewed research by political scientists and reached the following conclusion: “This literature suggests that citizen support for authorities is more strongly dependent on acceptance of the belief that government leaders and institutions function according to fair and impartial procedures than upon outcomes received from the political
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system or specific government decisions” (p. 643). Research conducted by Tyler and his colleagues (e.g., Tyler, 1984a; 1984b; Tyler & Caine, 1981; Tyler, Rasinski, & Spodick, 1985) also supports that conclusion and extends it beyond the political realm to the endorsement of “leaders” in positions of authority generally (e.g., teachers, judges). An examination of teacher ratings, for example, was summarized as follows: “These results strongly suggest that in natural settings [emphasis added] procedural considerations are important in leadership endorsement but variations in outcome level and outcome fairness are not” (Tyler & Caine, 1981, p. 648; the emphasis added indicates the basis for our reservation about obtaining similar effects under ordinary laboratory conditions). We must note, however, the nature of the dependent variables in these investigations. Tyler and his colleagues were interested in the degree of support accorded authorities, and their measures of “leadership endorsement” have represented global evaluations of the authorities in question. There is some evidence that an item’s globality can affect responses. For example, one investigation used a vignette describing a vote by ‘Councilman Jones” on a specific issue that a city council had to resolve (Tyler & Caine, 1981, Study 3). The dependent measures were described as follows: “Subjects were then asked [a] how satisfied they were with the performance of Councilman Jones and [b] how they would rate Jones’ performance as a councilman” (p. 650). These two assessments-(a) a satisfaction measure, and (b) a performance rating-appear to differ in the globality of their implications. The former could be considered less global because it assessed respondents’ feelings about the immediate and personally relevant consequences of a specific action taken by the councilman. The latter seems more global in that it pertains to endorsement of a leader qua someone in a position of enduring responsibility. These measures did indeed produce different patterns of results in response to manipulations of outcome favorability (Jones’ vote being consistent vs inconsistent with the respondents’ views) and procedural fairness (Jones’ vote being based on consultation with constituents vs no consultation). Specifically, the outcome and procedure factors either did or did not interact, depending on the item. On the satisfaction item, there was both a main effect of procedure and an interaction of the outcome and procedure factors. The latter corresponds to the Referent x Justification interaction of Folger et al. (1983) because respondents expressed the greatest dissatisfaction “when poor outcomes resulted from unfair procedures” (Tyler & Caine, 1981, p. 650~that is, when they would have done better if others had used procedures that should have been implemented (the RCT model). In contrast, the performance ratings also yielded a significant procedure main effect but did not yield an interaction, F < 1. We suspect that an interaction is unlikely to emerge, and that a main effect of procedure
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is more likely to emerge instead, whenever evaluations are global in nature. We believe the enduring implications of endorsement were more salient in the task of rating Jones’ performance “as a councilman,” whereas these implications were less salient in the task of expressing satisfaction about his performance per se. Research Strategy This interpretation is admittedly speculative, but it suggests an investigative strategy. If the context inherent in wording differences between questionnaire items (mere expression of feelings vs endorsement for a leadership position) can produce different patterns of response to those items, then it should be possible to obtain different response patterns to the same item if the context is manipulated. We adopted this strategy in the present investigation by giving subjects different instructional contexts regarding the purpose of a “departmental questionnaire” administered at the end of an experiment in which referent outcomes and procedural justifications had been manipulated. Half the subjects were told the questionnaire was intended merely for the purpose of obtaining an indication of psychology students’ feelings about experiments (ordinav-context conditions). The remaining subjects were told their experimenter had applied for the position of research assistant in charge of running experiments for the Psychology Department, and that their questionnaire responses would influence the hiring decision (endorsement-context conditions). Two types of dependent measures were included on this questionnaire. The first consisted of mood-related scales (e.g., angry, resentful). Responses to the angry and resentful scales have been the primary dependent measure in previous RCT experiments. Within the ordinary-context conditions, RCT predicts a Referent x Justification interaction (cf. Folger et al. 1983) on these mood items. If Tyler’s work and our arguments correctly imply the overriding importance of procedures when enduring positions are at stake, then this interaction should be replaced by a justification main effect when the same mood ratings are said to help determine a hiring decision (i.e., this main effect alone should emerge within the endorsement-context conditions). Overall, these effects should tend to produce a three-way interaction from the mood data. A second type of measure was included to provide supplemental information. At the end of the questionnaire, subjects read the following sentences: “Suppose the department were hiring someone as a paid research assistant in charge of running experiments. Is your experimenter someone you would recommend for hiring, under those circumstances?” Subjects in the endorsement conditions knew that “those circumstances” did indeed apply in the present case, so again their responses should produce a justification main effect. Of primary interest was the response
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of ordinary-context subjects for whom the experimenter role as a position of enduring responsibility had not been raised prior to that point. Would raising this issue at that point of the questionnaire suddenly highlight the importance of procedures ? If so, ordinary-context subjects would not be expected to respond to this hypothetical hiring question with the same Referent x Justification pattern that was predicted for their moodrelated responses. Rather, their responses to this hiring item should produce a justification main effect comparable to that obtained from responses of the endorsement-context subjects to both the mood items and the hiring item. That is, the hiring item should yield an overall main effect for justification and no interaction. Although mood data within the ordinary-context conditions should produce the Referent x Justification interaction obtained by Folger et al., the present investigation used a different paradigm. That earlier study involved competing pairs of subjects and hence allowed for social comparison. The present study assessed whether these results can be generalized to a situation in which social comparison is not available, and referent outcomes are established on the basis of subjects’ previous expectations. Specifically, subjects were led to anticipate an opportunity for obtaining a desirable reward, but they differed (by referent outcome condition) in the estimate of what their chances would be to obtain that reward. The opportunity was later canceled (on the basis of either a lowjustification or a high-justification procedure), at which point the referent outcome consisted of what the subject thought would have happened if the opportunity had not been canceled. After the cancelation, in other words, subjects with high previous expectations had a high-referent outcome made salient, whereas subjects with low previous expectations had a low-referent outcome made salient. METHOD Subjects. The subjects, randomly assigned to conditions, were 80 male and 80 female undergraduates taking introductory psychology classes. Participation in the experiment entitled students to “units” of credit, which were converted into points later added to final course grades. The standard rate of compensation was one unit for every half-hour of participation. Only one subject participated in a given session. An experimenter of the same gender as the subject conducted the session. At the start of the semester, an announcement was made to all classes about this system of units. The announcement also contained information about a “departmental questionnaire” to be administered at the conclusion of each experiment that semester. Students were informed that the Department of Psychology wanted to obtain descriptive information about students’ reactions to experiments in general, and that the questionnaire would contain such things as mood-related items. Procedure. Each subject was escorted into a room where the experimenter tone of two males or two females) opened a sealed envelope containing credit slips, a description of the experiment, and experimental materials. The experimenter “discovered,” upon opening the envelope, that the departmental questionnaire had not been included in the materials.
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Before leaving to obtain a copy, the experimenter started the subject on a bogus task. This task was an adaptation of one actually used in a previous semester by another investigator, whose experiences with it helped us to gauge the amount of time required and to be confident that the subject would feel comfortable working on it alone while the experimenter was gone. The alleged purpose of this task was to collect some preliminary data for a later set of studies on memory. The instructions said that these data would be used to determine how well people could remember the names of objects by looking at the objects’ shapes. The task consisted of several pages on which the shapes of various American states (e.g., Iowa) had been drawn; the subjects was asked to write the name of the state on a line below each drawing. The credit slips for the experiment, which were filled out prior to the work on the bogus task, contained the manipulation of context. These slips began with a brief description of the bogus task’s purpose. The paragraph immediately following that description differed depending on the context condition to which a subject had been assigned. In the ordinarycontext conditions, the paragraph reminded subjects that they would also be completing the departmental questionnaire at the end of the session, and it described the procedures for maintaining confidentiality of the responses (i.e., the questionnaire would be answered anonymously, sealed in an envelope, and placed among similarly sealed envelopes in a box outside the experimental room). In the endorsement-context conditions, the same paragraph was used, but a sentence was added. This sentence stated that responses to the questionnaire would help decide who was to be hired, on a government grant, as a permanent research assistant in charge of running psychology experiments-and that the experimenter was one of the applicants. Once the subject had begun the task, the experimenter left the room (allegedly to obtain the departmental questionnaire from the room next door). After 2 min the experimenter returned and explained that copies of the questionnaire had run out and more would have to be obtained from the departmental office upstairs. The experimenter also mentioned being met by another experimenter while out of the room. This second experimenter’s own subject had not shown up, so arrangements had been made for the first experimenter’s subject to fill in when he or she finished the first experiment. The additional participation was highly advantageous to subjects, since they would receive 2 more units of credit (three times the amount of credit normally given for the half-hour participation) because of this one-time only opportunity. The subject was given a sealed envelope containing some preliminary questions related to the second experiment, to be filled out before continuing the first experiment. The experimenter then left to go upstairs, explaining that someone would slip the departmental questionnaire under the door so as not to disturb the subject again. When the subject had finished the questionnaire, it was to be placed in a box outside, where the second experimenter would be waiting. Inside the sealed envelope (allowing experimenters to be blind) was a sheet containing the referent outcome manipulation. In the Ion,-referent conditions, a sheet marked “Screening Form” had questions purportedly to assess eligibility for the second experiment. A handwritten note on the side of the form indicated that there was not much of a chance (approximately 6 out of 100) of being in the experiment, and that the subject would be told later if he or she qualified. In the high-referent condition, the same questions were contained on a sheet labeled “Information Form,” and eligibility was assured. The experimenter noted the subject’s progress through a one-way mirror. Just before the subject had finished all the tasks, the experimenter slipped the departmental questionnaire under the door. Attached to the questionnaire was a note containing the procedural justification manipulation. In the high-justi’carion condition, the note explained that the equipment for the second experiment had broken down, and hence the subject would not be able to participate. In the low-justiJication condition the note said that the experimenter had
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“decided not to let you do the other experiment after all” and that “the other experimenter would be informed.” The departmental questionnaire, completed after subjects had finished either the Screening Form or Information Form for the second experiment, was prefaced with the following statement: As you were told at the beginning of the semester, it is important for research purposes that as much data as possible be collected in any given experiment, and one kind of data that is sometimes useful is information about the mood subjects are in when they finish an experiment. Subjects indicated their mood in response to several questions consistent with the departmental-survey cover story (e.g., “How are you feeling right now?“). Below each question was an identical set of mood-related adjectives, which always included angry and resentful. Beside each adjective was a numbered scale ranging from 0 (not at all) to 10 (very much). The critical dependent measure was the sum of anger and resentment responses to the following question: “How do you feel as the result of the way you were treated by the experimenter?” An 1l-point response format was also used for one additional dependent measure, although it was followed by a single scale rather than a set of mood items. This hiring item had subjects indicate+given the assumption that the Psychology Department was hiring someone as a paid research assistant in charge of running experiments-the extent to which they would endorse their experimenter for such a position. The scale beneath this item was anchored by strongly recommend not hiring (0) and strongly recommend hiring (IO). No second experimenter ever actually appeared. Instead. after the subject had placed the questionnaire in the box, the original experimenter reappeared and said that there were “just a few more questions.” These questions were used to assess suspicion (no subject indicated an awareness of the experimental hypotheses or the ruses used), after which a thorough debriefing was given. All subjects were given an additional participation unit and signed a pledge of confidentiality stating that they would not reveal information about the experiment to other students.
RESULTS
The primary dependent measure was based on responses to the following question: “How do you feel as a result of the way you were treated by the experimenter?” Subjects responded to this question on mood scales that included angry and resentful, and the responses on these two scales were summed to form a composite index of expressed resentment toward the experimenter (see Fig. 1). An ANOVA on this index yielded a justification main effect and a marginally significant three-way interaction, F(1, 151) = 13.7, p < .Ol, and F(1, 151) = 2.92, p < .08, respectively. The pattern of these effects should be interpreted in the light of a priori theoretical considerations. Recall that the manipulation of referent outcome levels via prior expectations represented a departure from the social-comparison approach used in the only previous investigation of the Referent x Justification interaction (Folger et al., 1983). Thus an initial consideration was to test for a conceptual replication by seeing if similar effects would be found under the ordinary-context conditions. A preliminary sign of successful replication was that these conditions produced
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ORDINARY-CONTEXT
44 + “c 2 c 8 E
3 2 1
0 Low Referent
High Referent
ENDORSEMENT-CONTEXT 51
O/ Low Referent
High Referent
FIG. 1. Discontent as a function of referent outcomes, justification, and context (summed from two items such that higher numbers indicate greater anger and resentment).
a Referent x Justification interaction, F(l, 81) = 4.78, p < .05. Planned contrasts further supported predictions in revealing that in the highjustification cells of these ordinary-context conditions, low- and highreferent subjects did not differ in the amount of anger and resentment expressed, F < 1. The corresponding comparison within the low-justification conditions, however, showed that high-referent subjects were significantly more angry and resentful than low-referent subjects, F(1, 151) = 5.17, p < .05. The next issue of theoretical interest was whether similar effects would also emerge from the endorsement-condition data, or whether these data would instead-consistent with findings obtained by Tyler and his colleagues-manifest only a justification main effect. A 2 x 2 ANOVA did indeed yield this main effect, F(l, 76) = 7.49, p < .OOS. As can be seen in Fig. 1, greater anger and resentment were expressed by low-justification subjects than by high-justification subjects. The last questionnaire item referred to a position of “paid research assistant in charge of running experiments” and asked subjects to indicate the extent to which the experimenter was someone they would recommend hiring for such a job. Subjects in the endorsement conditions had been informed about this job in advance, of course, whereas ordinary-context subjects were answering with respect to the prefatory phrase “suppose the department were hiring someone.” The responses to this item (see Fig. 2) produced a justification main effect such that a stronger recommendation of the experimenter was given by high-justification subjects
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ORDINARY-CONTEXT
o/--
Low Referent
a x $6 r
7
.E 63
4
a &
High Referent
ENDORSEMENT-CONTEXT
5
2 1 0 ;I Low Referent
-------fl l LOW J”~tl‘bo,,on n “**II JY**lfk*,lon
High Referent
FIG. 2. Evaluation of the experimenter as a function of referent outcomes, justification, and context (reverse-scored such that higher numbers represent less favorable evaluations).
than by low-justification subjects F(1, 152) = 7.90, p < -01. No other questionnaire items had revealed experimenter effects, but this item yielded an Experimenter x Referent x Context interaction, an Experimenter x Justification x Context interaction, and an Experimenter x Referent x Justification interaction, F(3, 128) = 2.76, p < .05, F(3, 128) = 2.80, p < .05, and F(3, 128) = 3.04, p < .05, respectively. (These interactions are theoretically uninteresting and serve mainly to show that subjects took their job seriously-they responded to the personal idiosyncracies of each experimenter, resulting in slightly different patterns for each. None of these interactions, however, qualified the tendency for low justification to produce harsher ratings than did high justification.) DISCUSSION The results displayed in Fig. 1 show that the impact of outcome and procedure (the referent and justification manipulations) varied depending on the purpose described for the questionnaire (the context manipulation). First consider the effects under the ordinary-context instructions. Here the Referent x Justification interaction predicted by RCT was clearly in evidence. Subjects whose experimenter followed an acceptable procedure (high-justification conditions) showed a level of discontent that was equally minimal regardless of whether actual outcomes were concordant or disconcordant with previous expectations (low- vs high-referent conditions).
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In contrast, subjects whose experimenter acted in a procedurally arbitrary fashion (low-justification conditions) expressed different levels of discontent as a function of referent outcomes: Significantly more anger and resentment was expressed by high-referent, low-justification subjects than by lowreferent, low-justification subjects. The pattern of mood data within the ordinary-context conditions, therefore, provides a conceptual replication of the Folger et al. (1983) results via a very different operationalization of referent outcomes (i.e., based on previous expectations rather than social comparison). A different pattern of mood data emerged within the endorsement conditions. No interaction was present; instead, a justification main effect was the only significant finding. Regardless of referent outcomes, lowjustification subjects expressed greater anger and resentment than highjustification subjects. This overriding impact of procedural justifications, given that the responses represented degrees of endorsement for someone vis-&vis a position of enduring responsibility, is consistent with Tyler’s conclusions about the importance of procedural justice for leadership endorsement. Our generalization from Tyler’s work to the context manipulation of the present study was based on a presumed parallel between leadership in natural settings and the special hiring decision described to subjects in the endorsement conditions. Further support for this generalization can be seen in the pattern of responses to the hiring item that concluded the questionnaire (see Fig. 2). Recall that the wording of the hiring item was designed to make ordinary-context subjects consider the position of experimenter as one that potentially might involve enduring responsibilities (“research assistant in charge of running experiments”). Despite the otherwise hypothetical nature of the sentence introducing that item (“Suppose the department were hiring someone . . .“), the endorsement implications of procedural improprieties were apparently made salient for ordinary-context subjects. That is, they responded to the hiring itemas did their endorsement-context counterparts-exclusively on the basis of the procedural justification manipulation. We conclude that an endorsement context can give procedural considerations special importance, and that this context can be introduced either via general instructions (the context manipulation describing different purposes of the questionnaire) or via item content (the endorsement implications of the hiring item). Our data do not bear directly on the psychological mechanism underlying differences between the ordinary- and endorsement-context conditions. It is also true that work by Tyler and his colleagues has not included a manipulation of context; hence the psychological mediator of effects unique to an endorsement context has not received attention. Nevertheless, Tyler (1984a) has recently offered some speculations that are relevant. These speculations pertain to citizens’ concerns in two areas of their
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lives, the “personal” and “political.” The former involve individualistic concerns regarding one’s own well-being, whereas the latter involve the public domain-and perhaps, therefore, greater concern for the collective good. Tyler (1984a) has argued that there is “a recognition among citizens that they should be pursuing different goals within the two areas of their lives” (p. 36). His reasoning is that recognition of the need to put aside self-interest can account for the tendency of procedural considerations to dominate leadership endorsement, because the actions of leaders affect the lives of a great many people. This argument is buttressed by unpublished data, cited by Tyler, indicating that “heightened concerns about positive social relations and others’ welfare, issues likely to be important in political judgments, increase both the general role of fairness in allocation decisions and the importance placed upon procedural justice” (p. 37). Is it possible that subjects in the endorsement conditions might have been sensitized to others’ welfare-namely, the welfare of students who would become subjects in studies conducted by the person hired as a research assistant? To investigate this possibility, we collected data from a survey administered in introductory psychology classes during a semester when an announcement of a “departmental questionnaire” regarding experiments had not been made. Rather, the instrument administered in the classes (entitled “Survey Regarding a Departmental Questionnaire for Psychology Experiments”) made it appear that such an experimental questionnaire was being considered. The instructions read by all students said that if a standardized questionnaire were administered, it would provide data useful for describing students’ reactions to experiments. Half the students, however, read an additional sentence describing one example as an illustration of ways such data might be used. The example was that they could be used to help determine whether an experimenter was hired as a research assistant in charge of conducting experiments for the department. Given these contrasting instructions (presence vs absence of hiring example), students were asked to indicate the extent to which each of several features of experiments “represents an important consideration affecting your responses to such a questionnaire.” Imbedded among filler items was the following key feature that served as the dependent measure: “the welfare of other subjects who will have the same experimenter.” Consistent with the interpretation of a hiring decision as a context that makes collective concerns salient, the instructions produced a significant main effect on this item, F( I, 79) = 5.7, p < .02. Students whose instructions contained the hiring example rated other subjects’ welfare as being an important consideration more than did students whose instructions had not contained that example.
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Because a Referent x Justification interaction is the basic pattern of resentment predicted by the “would/should” RCT analysis, and because Tyler’s data as well as our own have revealed that this interaction tendency is not manifested in all settings, an important task for future theory and research is to explore the relationship between outcome concerns and procedural concerns in producing resentment. The findings of our experiment (along with the ancillary data just described) suggest that settings may vary in the extent to which they make consequences for others’ outcomes salient. Such variations can in turn affect the relative impact of procedural concerns. When others’ welfare is at stake because decisions are made by someone in a position of enduring responsibility and authority, that is, procedural improprieties are of overriding concern because such evidence regarding the decision-maker’s conduct has broad-ranging implications for the outcomes of others. Similarly, there are at least two reasons why procedural concerns may become paramount in the context of an ongoing relationship between allocator and recipient-another context not ordinarily well suited to laboratory investigation. First, the prospect of receiving outcomes over time from the same person allows procedures to be evaluated in terms of their “expected value” (estimated average consequence)-their projected long-term or typical impact (cf. Folger, in press). Second, evidence of an allocator’s procedural impropriety undermines trust in that person’s decision-making abilities (cf. Tyler, 1984b; Tyler & Caine, 1981). Even when an impropriety seems to have had no immediately evident adverse consequences because the procedures on that occasion made “no difference , ” the recipient may express resentment if the allocator’s judgment cannot be trusted and hence disadvantageous consequences are expected to result eventually. The Impact of Procedures in Everyday Life
The “would/should” phenomenological account of RCT implies that except in the special contextual circumstances outlined above, an outcome factor (the favorability of salient outcomes not received) and a procedural factor (the justifiability of decision-making practices actually implemented) interact to determine the expression of resentment. It is important, however, to note the unique features of laboratory experimentation that permit the conceptual validity of this Referent x Justification interaction to be demonstrated. Laboratory conditions can impose constraints not always present in everyday life. Specifically, it is possible in the lab to manipulate the level of referent outcomes independently of the justifications given for procedures. In delivering bogus feedback that makes a given level of referent outcomes salient, an experimenter provides subjects with direct evidence of what would have happened if some other procedure had been followed. It is thereby possible even in the case of a low-
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justification procedure to convince some subjects (those in low-referent conditions) that the violation of procedural fairness did not have an effect on their outcomes. But will people in everyday life similarly assume that an improper procedure made no difference? Often people in real-world situations do not know from direct evidence what the consequences of using alternative procedures might have been; instead they are forced to rely on their own imaginations in speculating. Kahneman and Tversky (1982) have suggested that imagination generally follows well-worn paths. In their terminology, mental habits (proclivities governing what gets imagined) are said to comprise a simulation heuristic for “undoing” or reconstructing reality. They have argued that the most fundamental principle such simulation tendencies follow is the replacement of surprising or unusual elements with normative ones (elaborated by Kahneman & Miller, 1986, into a theory of norms called to mind for evaluating deviations). Hence when people encounter a deviation from accepted ways of doing things, they are prone to “run a simulation” of what might have resulted if standard practice had been followed. Similarly, when people encounter the use of an improper or poorly justified procedure, their belief about whether it made a difference in outcomes will be guided by considering what might have happened if a fair procedure had been used instead. What should people expect to have obtained from a fair procedure? The most reasonable expectation, and hence the result most apt to have been simulated, is that it would have produced fair outcomes. Indeed, the normatively acceptable procedurewhose consequences are being simulated because it comes to mind so readily-would probably not have been deemed fair in the first place unless its general tendency was to produce fair outcomes (perceptions regarding the fairness of a given procedure are influenced by the typical consequences that procedure entails-cf. Folger, in press-b). In short, a poorly justified procedure often brings high-referent outcomes readily to mind; actual outcomes will be presumed inferior to what a fair procedure would have yielded. This tendency to simulate high-referent outcomes is precisely what a laboratory manipulation can reduce or eliminate in the low-justification, low-referent cell of a factorial design. Because such a cell may not have a naturally occurring counterpart in ordinary perceptual tendencies, decision-makers in the real world may often use special “social account-giving” tactics (e.g., excuses, forms of apology) to short-circuit or modify simulations that would otherwise generate resentment, hostility, and possible retaliation (Bies, in press). Unless such tactics are used or other special circumstances operate to make low-referent outcomes salient, then typically the perceptions that an allocator should have acted otherwise (a low-justification procedure was implemented) will engender accompanying perceptions that the recipient would have been better off (more favorable outcomes would have
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resulted, if only proper actions had been taken). It is, therefore, very reasonable to harmonize the “would/should” phenomenological account of RCT with the possibility that procedural concerns might have a predominant impact in everyday life. We conclude on this note so that the present results will not seem a novel exception to a more general rule. The thrust of our remarks has been to imply that rather than indicating anything unusual, the main effect of justification produced in the endorsement-context conditions illustrates what may well be a common occurrence. And although the procedural justice literature served to identify conditions under which this effect was especially likely to occur, the RCT analysis also helps to explain why it may be prevalent under a variety of other conditions as well. Coupled with work on the simulation heuristic (Kahneman & Tversky, 1982) and a theory of norms (Kahneman & Miller, 1986), the RCT framework thus offers a promising approach for future research on relative deprivation and perceived injustice. REFERENCES Bies, R. J. (in press). The predicament of injustice: The management of moral outrage. In L. L. Cummings and B. M. Staw (Eds.). Reseurch in organizational behavior (Vol. 9). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Folger, R. (1986). A referent cognitions theory of relative deprivation. In J. M. Olson, C. P. Herman, & M. P. Zanna (Eds.), Relative deprivution und social comparison: The Onfario symposium (Vol. 4, pp. 33-55). Folger, R. (in press). Distributive and procedural justice in the workplace. Social Justice Review.
Folger, R., & Cropanzano. R. (1985). [Referent cognitions and procedural injustice]. Unpublished raw data. Folger, R., Rosenfield, D., & Rheaume, K. (1983). Role playing effects of likelihood and referent outcomes on relative deprivation. Representative Research in Social Psychology, 13, 2-10.
Folger, R., Rosenfield, D., Rheaume, K., & Martin, C. (1983). Relative deprivation and referent cognitions. Journal of Experimenral Social Psychology, 19, 172-184. Folger, R., Rosenfield, D.. & Robinson, T. (1983). Relative deprivation and procedural justifications. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 268-273. Kahneman, D., & Miller, D. T. (1986). Norm theory: Comparing reality to its alternatives. Psychological Review, 93, 136-153. Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1982). Availability and the simulation heuristic. In D. Kahneman, P. Slavic, & A. Tversky (Eds.), Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristic and biases (pp. 201-208). New York: Cambridge Univ. Press. Stouffer, S. A., Suchman, E. A., DeVinney, L. C., Star, S. A., & Williams, R. M., Jr. (1949). The American soldier: Vol. I. Adjustment during army life. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press. Tyler, T. R. (1984a). Justice and leadership endorsement. Paper presented at the CarnegieMellon Symposium on “Cognitive Processes in Political Behavior,” Pittsburgh, PA. Tyler, T. R. (1984b). The role of perceived injustice in defendants’ evaluations of their courtroom experience. Law and Society Review, 66, 541-566.
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