Life Satisfaction Predicts Perceived Social Justice: The Lower Your Life Satisfaction, the Less Just You Perceive Society to Be.

Qifan Jia,Jie Zhou,Mingquan Huang

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.540835

Abstract

It has been well established that life satisfaction is related to perceived social justice. However, current theories provide contrary assumptions on the direction of the influence. In this research, we use data from two longitudinal surveys collected in China to test the reciprocal relations between life satisfaction and perceived social justice over time. With a random intercept cross-lagged panel model, we disaggregate the between-person effect and the within-person effect of the relationship. To specify the conditions of the effect, we consider income levels as the moderator. Study 1 (N = 119) showed that on the between-person level, life satisfaction, and perceived social justice are positively correlated. On the within-person level, cross-lagged effect results showed that an individuals’ deviations from their expected score in life satisfaction predict deviations from their expected perceived social justice at the next time point, while deviations from expected perceived social justice does not predict subsequent deviations from expected life satisfaction. In study 2 (N = 637), we divided participants into three groups based on their household income and conducted a multiple group analysis to test its moderation effect. We found that the between-person correlation of life satisfaction and perceived social justice is not moderated by income level, and it is significant in all the three groups. However, the within-person cross-lagged effect is moderated by income level, and the effect of life satisfaction on perceived social justice only exists in the low income group. This research confirms the unidirectional relationship between life satisfaction and perceived social justice across time, and clarifies the effect in different levels and income groups, providing new insights on the formation of justice perception. It is recommended that future studies apply experimental designs to reach causal effects and explore more possible moderators and mediators.

Highlights

There is a great deal of evidence showing that inequality decreases happiness, subjective well-being, or life satisfaction (Schwarze and Härpfer, 2007; Wu and Li, 2013; Oishi and Kesebir, 2015)
In terms of within-person cross-lagged effect, we found that life satisfaction T1 significantly predicted perceived social justice T2 (β = 0.28, p < 0.05), indicating that individuals that deviated from their expected perceived social justice at T2 were predicted by deviations from their expected score in life satisfaction at T1
We found that life satisfaction and perceived social justice were positively correlated on the between-person level

Summary

Introduction

There is a great deal of evidence showing that inequality decreases happiness, subjective well-being, or life satisfaction (Schwarze and Härpfer, 2007; Wu and Li, 2013; Oishi and Kesebir, 2015). Life satisfaction is a cognitive judgmental process that assesses a person’s life qualities according to the criteria the person selects on their own (Diener et al, 1985). Perceived social justice refers to people’s general appraisal of social justice. It contains both distributive justice, which is the fairness of allocation results (Deutsch, 1985), and procedural justice, which is concerned with the fairness of the allocation process (Thibaut and Walker, 1975). It has been suggested that justice judgments are the result of a rational-cognitive process whereby one person compares an outcome-to-input ratio to that of another (Adams, 1965), or by observing the process of distribution (Thibaut and Walker, 1975). Subjectiveaffective elements play an important role in forming justice judgment (Van Den Bos, 2003)

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