The fair process effect and procedural criteria in the resolution of disputes between intimate same-sex friends

Abstract

This series of studies extended procedural justice research to the informal domain of dispute resolution in intimate same-sex friendship. The first study identified the types of disputes that occur between friends and the concerns that friends have when choosing dispute resolution procedures. Seven dispute types and 11 procedural criteria were found relevant to dispute resolution in friendship. Study 2 assessed the importance of procedural criteria for resolving several dispute scenarios. As expected, ratings of criterion importance were affected by subject and disputant sex. Females rated four criteria as more important than did males, and one criterion was rated as more important in disputes involving a male and a female than in disputes involving two females. The importance of procedural criteria was also influenced by the type of dispute, but this effect was qualified by an interaction with the dispute version. It was suggested that the importance of procedural criteria is generally defined by the context of friendship and specifically defined by the dispute topic. In Study 3, the relations among subject sex, traditional fairness variables, and criterion-based measures of process control were examined. Consistent with studies in other domains, process control predicted procedural justice, and decision control predicted distributive justive. Moreover, the hypothesized fair process effect emerged as a function of speed, a criterion-based measure of process control.