The legitimizing roles of respectful treatment and direct democracy in collective decision‐making: A school‐based study

Abstract

AbstractAccording to the procedural justice approach, people tend to view authoritative decision‐making as legitimate if it includes their voice and if they are treated with respect, even when the outcomes are unfavorable. However, previous research suggests that the application of these effects to collective decision‐making is less straightforward. Therefore, this study investigates whether people's willingness to accept a collective decision is increased by two procedural aspects: the opportunity to directly vote on the outcome and respectful treatment from peers during the decision‐making process. Moreover, we ask whether the effects are moderated by outcome favorability. A study was conducted in their classrooms on 395 Czech high school students (aged 18–20, 60% females) who used a randomly prescribed procedure (direct vote, or expert decision) to decide on the use of a sum of money. Respectful treatment was measured through students’ perceptions during the decision‐making process. Results showed that while direct voting did not increase participants’ willingness to accept the outcome, perceived respectful treatment did. However, the positive effect of respectful treatment was present only among participants who were clearly dissatisfied with the outcome (i.e., it compensated for the lack of outcome favorability). Participants who perceived the outcome as favorable or had no clear preference between the alternatives were willing to accept the outcome despite the perception of not having been treated respectfully.