The Relationship between Major Depression and Perceptions of Organizational Justice

Abstract

The aim of the study is to examine the idea that depressed and non-depressed employees hold different perceptions regarding the justice of their organizations, and that depressed employees are more sensitive to unfairness than fairness. The study used comparative design. All participants were employees participated voluntarily in this study. They were divided evenly into two groups, diagnosed depression outpatients (n = 60) referred by their physician in one of Kuwaiti mental health center, and nondepressed participants (n = 60) visited during their work period. Both sexes were distributed evenly within these two groups. The participants completed three measures: organizational justice, organizational injustice, and the Beck Depression Inventory. Using justice and injustice measures with depressed and non-depressed employees is a new approach that could clarify the role of depression in the perception of the organizational justice. The results shows that the differences between the two groups in all justice and injustice subscales are significant at .001. The depressed group had higher injustice means; and the non-depressed group had higher justice means. The two groups separately do differentiate between justice and injustice events, especially for non-depressed group where injustice means tend to be significantly higher than the justice mean. The study concluded that the emotional state of the depressed patient might affect how he/she perceive justice and injustice events, but the opposite remains possible. Individuals estimate injustice events more than counterpart justice events, regardless of depression.