Justice Sensitivity as a Risk and Protective Factor in Social Conflicts

Abstract

Individuals differ in how readily they perceive and how strongly they react to injustice. These differences are consistent across types of injustice and are stable across time. Thus, these patterns are seen as a personality trait called justice sensitivity. This trait can be differentiated into four facets that match with corresponding roles individuals take on in a justice conflict: victim sensitivity, observer sensitivity, beneficiary sensitivity, and perpetrator sensitivity. Several studies have shown that observer, beneficiary, and perpetrator sensitivity are highly correlated with each other and only weakly correlated with victim sensitivity. Observer-, beneficiary-, and perpetrator-sensitive individuals seem to be primarily concerned with justice for others. In this sense, these sensitivities represent potential factors that help in constructive conflict resolution and in the prevention of conflict escalation. By contrast, victim-sensitive people seem to have a predominant interest in justice for themselves. Accordingly, several studies have shown that victim sensitivity promotes antisocial behavior. The antisocial behavior of victim-sensitive people seems to serve two functions: First, having suffered from innocent victimization previously, victim-sensitive individuals commit selfish behavior in order to balance their personal justice account. Second, in fear of being cheated, they engage in preventive strikes against those who might cheat them. Both of these motives and mechanisms are potential risks for social, organizational, and ecological conflicts.