Justice Motive Research Articles

Retribution versus rehabilitation as motives for support of offender’s punishment: the moderating role of mindsets about malleability

ABSTRACT We examined whether beliefs about malleability moderate observers’ motives for justice, expressed in a desire for either retribution, in which punishment is based on what offenders deserve for their offense (past-oriented), or rehabilitation, in which punishment is intended to improve the offenders (future-oriented). The main hypothesis was that people with a fixed mindset would tend to support punishment motivated by retribution rather than rehabilitation, and the reverse was expected for those with a malleable mindset. We recruited participants (N = 432) through the platform Prolific and asked them to complete an online questionnaire. We first manipulated participants’ mindset (malleable vs. fixed) and then the salience of a specific justice motive (retribution vs. rehabilitation). Finally, participants read a vignette depicting an incident of professional misconduct and were asked to indicate their support for the punishment of the offender. Our results did not confirm our main hypothesis, but the exploratory results indicated a partial confirmation as a function of political orientation: in the malleable mindset condition, support for punishment among liberals was higher in the rehabilitation condition than in the retribution condition, whereas the reverse effect was observed among moderately conservative participants. We discuss the possible limitations of the study and future research avenues.

The Effect of Big Five Personality Traits on Leader Member Exchange and Organization Citizenship Behavior in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Universities

The Effect of Big Five Personality Traits on Leader Member Exchange and Organization Citizenship Behavior in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Universities

Imagining the Future(s) of Writing Studies through the Prism of Undergraduate Research

Abstract This article explores the future(s) of undergraduate research in writing studies through representative words of the undergraduates themselves. It reveals their social justice motives, as well as their desire to undertake research that can have real impact. It also questions whether inclusion in our disciplinary community supports—or blunts—those motives, highlighting the need to treat their work as an embodied act that may not be fully activated within traditional definitions of “contributions to knowledge.”

Testing the Applicability of the Instructional Beliefs Model across Three Countries: The Role of Culture as a Theoretical Parameter

ABSTRACT Instructional communication research is critiqued for lacking theoretical development and limited cultural understanding. This study tested the instructional beliefs model (IBM) in three countries: US, Turkey, and Finland. Participants (N = 376) reported perceptions of teacher relevance, state motivation, procedural justice, learner empowerment, and revised learning indicators. Results revealed that the IBM provided a good fit to the data in Turkey and Finland but not in the US. In all models, procedural justice and state motivation were significant predictors of learner empowerment, and learner empowerment strongly predicted revised learning indicators. However, teacher relevance only predicted learner empowerment in non-US classrooms. These results have practical implications for teaching in increasingly diverse classrooms and understanding higher education abroad. This study supports and extends IBM.

COVID-19 as Natural Intervention: Guilt and Perceived Historical Privilege Contributes to Structural Reform Under Conditions of Crisis.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been described as an unmasking of persistent racialized inequalities linked to South Africa’s oppressive past. However, such observations lack empirical support. Here we examined whether COVID-19 lockdown conditions encouraged greater perceptions of continuing structural racism together with motivational and behavioral support for social justice, and whether guilt or empathic concern undergirded such responses. A national sample of White South Africans’ data suggests that the pandemic served as a natural intervention, fostering greater acknowledgement of structural racism and support for redress through increased awareness of historical privilege and guilt in response to Black hardship. Guilt furthermore predicted a social justice motivation in relief efforts, whereas empathic concern predicted only charity motivation. These results suggest that “White guilt” is more consequential than empathic concern in contributing to structural reform but would require longer-term processes to support the translation of its motivational push into sustainable contributions to social justice.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42761-021-00073-7.

A Theory of Attribution Profiles and Employee (Dis)trust Reactions to Supervisor Justice Enactment

Although they value fair treatment, employees may not react in an equally favorable manner when experiencing the same justice from their supervisors. Prior research has suggested that employees tend to reason why their supervisors acted fairly and their attributions lead to cognitive, affective, and behavioral consequences. However, this research stream overlooks the reality of employee-supervisor power dependence, thus providing an oversimplified theory of employee attributions to supervisor justice motives. Drawing on power-dependence theory, we develop a theoretical framework delineating how the different forms of power dependence within the employee-supervisor dyad shape distinct patterns of employee attributions of supervisor justice motives, and how the combinations of motive attributions affect employee (dis)trust reactions to supervisor justice. Challenging the assumption that there is homogeneity in employee attributions of supervisor justice motives, our research conceptualizes heterogeneous groups of employees when making justice motive attributions, advances the understanding of employee reactions to justice, and has important implications for research on interpersonal relationships.

Corporate Samaritans: The Role of Situation Strength & Moral Maturation in Deontic Justice Enactment

The burgeoning yet fragmented literature on organizational justice enactment has so far paid limited attention to the deontic justice motive, even though research assumes the existence of innate morality in humans and moral virtues provide a critical account of why people care about fairness. Nevertheless, behavior is influenced by strong organizational norms and managers – albeit motivated – not always able to act upon their motive. While a plethora of research investigates those who lack or are able to appease their moral concerns, often called Corporate Psychopaths, only few studies have examined individuals who are able to break through the blinders imposed on them and enact justice for deontic reasons – even in the face of adversity. To shed light on the etiology of those who we name Corporate Samaritans, we draw on two important yet to date overlooked concepts in the justice enactment literature: situation strength and moral maturation – and their interaction. We argue that moral maturation predicts deontic justice enactment even in strong situations. We also further extend the term deontic justice enactment as mere compliance, “requirement-based moral rule-following” by two distinct behavioral categories that go beyond the call of duty: humanistic and supererogatory behaviors.

The Influence of Transformational Leadership, Distributive Justice, and Intrinsic Motivation on Innovative Work Behaviour

This study aims to examine the influence of transformational leadership, distributive justice, and intrinsic motivation. The sampling method used in this study was non-probability sampling with purposive sampling technique. The population in this study were teachers of SMAN 1 Pangkalan Banteng and SMKN 1 Pangkalan Banteng. The number of samples used in this study amounted to 93 respondents who have worked for at least one year, and are permanent teachers at SMAN 1 Pangkalan Banteng and SMKN 1 Pangkalan Banteng. Data was collected through a survey method using a questionnaire that was distributed directly. The quantitative data analysis technique in this study uses multiple linear regression with the help of IBM SPSS 26 software. The results of this study prove that Transformational Leadership has a positive and significant effect on Innovation Work Behavior, Distributive Justice has no effect on Innovation Work Behavior, and Intrinsic Motivation has a positive effect and significant to Innovation Work Behavior. but together, Transformational Leadership, Distributive Justice, and Intrinsic Motivation have a positive and significant influence on Innovation Work Behavior.

Confronted with Bullying when You Believe in a Just World

Bullying has been recognized as a phenomenon that detrimentally affects the lives of many, and researchers continue to explore its various influences and correlates. We examined the relationship between the global belief in a just world (BJW; a person’s tendency to believe that life is fair and people get what they deserve) and reactions to bullying. Although BJW is undergirded by a justice motive, and although previous research found that global BJW is associated with more negative explicit attitudes toward bullying in the abstract, we hypothesized that strong global BJW beliefs would instead predict more tolerance and less condemnation when participants were presented with specific behaviors that could be construed as bullying. In two vignette-based experiments, global BJW (but not personal BJW), predicted less negative reactions to bullying, and did so regardless of whether the behavior was explicitly labeled as being a case of bullying. Implications of these results are discussed.

Casting Doubt: Image Concerns and the Communication of Social Impact

AbstractWe investigate strategic communication about the social impact of costly prosocial actions. A ‘sender’ with noisy information about impact sends a cheap-talk message to a ‘receiver’, upon which both agents choose whether to act. In the presence of social preferences and image concerns, the sender trades off persuasion, exaggerating impact to induce receiver action, and justification, downplaying impact to cast doubt on the effectiveness of action and excuse her own passivity. In an experiment on charitable giving we find evidence for both motives. In line with our theory and a justification motive, increasing image concerns reduces communication of positive impact.

Attitudes toward the Punishment of Juvenile and Adult Sexual Offenders in Canada: The Roles of Sentencing Goals and Criminal Justice Motivations

ABSTRACT There has long been concern among academics and those in criminal justice professions regarding the public’s seemingly enthusiastic support for punitive responses to sexual offenders, such as long sentences, residency restrictions, registration, and community notification. Yet there has been little research to date on what motives may be driving the endorsement of these policies, particularly registration. Our understanding is further muddled by conflicting research on punitive attitudes in general, with some suggesting that retributive motives are behind such attitudes while others report the efficacy of utilitarian motives. Using a sample of 376 university students, the current study sought to determine whether retributive, utilitarian, or other motives drove support for longer sentences and registration for juvenile and adult sexual offenders. Results indicated that motives largely differed between the two sanctions as well as the two age groups of offenders. Both retributive and utilitarian motives contributed to support for policies, suggesting that these motives work in congruence with one another. This has clear implications for policy discussions, as advocates for criminal justice reform should be appealing to both motives to change societal attitudes.

THE EFFECT OF JOB SATISFACTION, PROCEDURAL FAIRNESS AND WORK MOTIVATION ON TEACHER PERFORMANCE IN SMA YUPPENTEK 1 TANGERANG MUNICIPALITY

This study aims to prove the influence of job satisfaction, procedural fairness and work motivation on teacher performance at Yuppentek 1 High School in Tangerang Municipality. By using 100% of a sample of 71 teachers, the main instrument was in the form of a questionnaire. Data in this study were analysed using (1) descriptive analysis of respondent characteristics (2) descriptive analysis of research variables and (3) analysis of Partial Least Square (PLS)-Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) with smartly 3.0. The results indicated that based on the results of data testing, the evaluation of the measurement model was valid and reliable and could be received substantially. Partial Least Square application test results showed that 73.3% of teacher performance variance is influenced by teacher job satisfaction. While 56.9% of the variance in teacher performance is influenced by procedural fairness in schools and 53.1% of the variance in teacher performance is influenced by teacher work motivation. Interpretation of the results of R Square and R Square Adjusted resulted that 48.6% of teacher performance is influenced by job satisfaction, procedural justices and teacher work motivation. However, 51.4% of teacher performance variance is influenced by other factors out of job satisfaction, procedural justice and teacher work motivation

People You Care about in and out of the System: The Impact of Arrest on Criminal Justice Views, Choice of Major, and Career Motivations

Borrowing from intersectionality theory, this study aims to understand how experiences of arrest – alone or in combination with victimization and criminal justice ties – inform students’ attitudes towards systems of justice, the major, and career motivations. Using a survey of 80 questions on a sample of students from urban colleges with large minority representation, the authors rely on ordered logit regressions to find: students with experiences of arrest hold more negative attitudes towards systems of justice; find the CJ major a more relevant subject matter; and are more motivated to make a community difference than students with no experiences of arrest. Differences are enhanced for students with experiences of arrest and victimization but reduced for students who know someone working in CJ fields. Experiences of arrest remain largely unvaried by demographic indicators. Results suggest student experiences of trauma are important dimensions of students’ decisions about the major and profession.

Reframing first-generation entry: how the familial habitus shapes aspirations for higher education among prospective first-generation students

ABSTRACT Despite the shift from elite to mass education, the odds of accessing university remain stacked in favour of those with a university-educated parent. Not only are first-generation students less likely to engage in higher education, but the dominant narrative surrounding their enrolment emphasises cultural deficiency, constructing individuals as ‘too different’ to succeed. Drawing on data from focus groups with 198 school-aged students in Australia, this paper reframes this narrative by using the concept of familial habitus to examine how aspirations for higher education are shaped and nurtured by the home lives of prospective first-generation entrants. We develop three characterisations of familial habitus – ‘projected’, ‘meritocratic’, and ‘supportive’ – each of which demonstrates the inventive and transformative power of habitus. Cautioning against pathologising accounts of first-generation entry, we argue that the social justice motives of widening participation will be thwarted unless first-generation students are repositioned as legitimate participants in higher education.

South Korean Consumers’ Attitudes toward Small Business Owners Participating in the 2019 Anti-Japan Boycott

This study investigated consumer attitudes and the motivation of small business owners who participated in the 2019 anti-Japan boycott in South Korea (hereafter, Korea). The main areas of inquiry involved self-expression, the realization of justice, and consumer attitudes as elements of patriotic consumption. A seven-day survey was conducted among 500 adult consumers aged 18 years and older in Korea. The retrieved data were subjected to frequency analyses, reliability analyses, factor analyses, paired t-tests, and regressions. Declining Japanese product sales indicated high levels of a consumer boycott. The analyses demonstrated that consumers held positive attitudes toward small business owners who shared their boycotting beliefs and goals. Second, self-expression and the realization of justice motivation were relatively high, as were attitudes toward the participation message and small business owners who were participating in the boycott. Korean consumers had relatively high intentions to visit the stores of small business owners who were participating in the boycott. Lastly, self-expression motivations, motivations to realize justice, consumer attitudes toward the boycott participation messages of small business owners, and consumer attitudes toward the small business owners themselves had statistically significant positive effects. Small business owners holding general consumer beliefs about boycott participation should actively spread their support messages, and this would provide an excellent opportunity to create positive long-term awareness. This study provided a unique insight into Korean consumer behaviors when patriotism was considered. The findings have significant implications for small business owners looking to sustain themselves during product boycotts.

Robust effect of justice for others: Evidence from word embedding association test

Maintenance of control and non-randomness is the fundamental need of human beings, and people are motivated to see social and physical environments as stable and orderly, so that the belief about the controlled and nonrandom world is protected. According to just motive theory, people tend to believe in a just world, in which good deeds get rewarded and bad evils get punished, and this belief helps individuals get the sense of control. Otherwise, it is difficult for individuals to pursuit long-term goals and obey social rules in ordinary lives. Recent evidence shows that there are self-others’ distinctions regarding belief in a just world (BJW). In particular, BJW for others is found to be processed more primitively and influenced more possibly by cultural norms, whereas BJW for the self is processed more elaborately and influenced more possibly by personal experiences. And BJW for others is more related to the indicators of human values and social attitudes, such as world assumption and justice restoration, whereas BJW for the self is more related to the indicators of personal wellness, such as self-esteem and mental health. More important, justice motive is an implicit process, and in particular justice motive for others (vs. for the self) plays a critical role in shaping human values and social attitudes, which is often hidden in the explicit measurement because of social desirability and sample bias. However, it is difficult for researchers to measure the implicit process of justice motive, especially for others’ lives and the whole society. Many studies, especially those conducted among college students and middle class populations, yielded that BJW for others was endorsed lower than BJW for the self. Therefore, more and more researchers recommend that BJW(s) should be measured through implicit tests and large-scale samples. Based on machine learning and Word Embedding Association Test (WEAT), the present research was to test the robust effect of justice for others in terms of the word or sentence vector similarity, with a greater similarity indicating a higher level of semantic association. First, in the word vector model of the Sina Weibo corpus, the word vector similarity of “others” and “justice” was significantly greater than that of “self” and “justice”, and this pattern was replicated through the word vector model of a comprehensive Weibo corpus. Further, we calculated the sentence vector through the Google BERT model, and found that the sentence vector similarity of “others” and “justice” was also significantly greater than that of “self” and “justice”. In conclusion, both results via word vector and sentence vector demonstrate the robust effect of others regarding implicit just-world beliefs, in that as compared with one’s own experiences, people are more likely to believe that others’ world or the whole society is a just place. Furthermore, this study also suggests that internet users’ fundamental need for social order is automatically embedded in the cyberspace which is seemingly random and disordered, and the WEAT provides a new method to measure human’s social attitude behind the unstructured texts.

Not all fairness is created equal: A study of employee attributions of supervisor justice motives.

A large body of research demonstrates that employee perceptions of fair treatment matter. The overwhelming focus of these investigations has been on how employees react to whether or not they perceive their supervisor behaved in a fair manner. We contend, however, that employees not only question and react to whether they are treated fairly, but also to why they believe their supervisor acted fairly in the first place. To do so, we consider how employee attributions of supervisor motives for fair treatment influence the cognitive and affective mechanisms by which fair treatment influences employee reactions to fairness. Drawing from the justice actor model, we focus on both cognitive (establishing fairness, identity maintenance, and effecting compliance) and affective (positive affect) motives underlying supervisors' fair treatment. Relying on theory and research on motive attribution and leader affect, we develop predictions for how employees' perceptions of these motives as a result of short-term exchanges over time influence supervisor-directed citizenship behavior through both cognitive (trust in the supervisor) and affective (positive affect) mechanisms. Our experience sampling study of 613 weekly fair events (from 171 employees) largely supported our predictions, demonstrating that attribution of supervisor motives is a meaningful component of an employee's justice experience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Justice in performance appraisal

Performance appraisal serve different functions within a university. It helps to identify and evaluate the performance of individual faculty members. The purpose is to explore justices, that is satisfaction with, professional learning from and work motivation generated by performance appraisals. A quantitative research study with a survey in four universities in the west of Norway, 103 employees answered the questionnaire. Employees in universities are satisfied with and experience fair performance appraisal. They experience professional learning from fair performance appraisal, but not work motivation by fair performance appraisal. We found a weak correlation in the group of professors/researchers and administrative staff. There is a significant relationship between procedural justice and satisfaction with the performance appraisal system, and between procedural justice and professional learning. There is no significant relationship between procedural justice and work motivation generated by the performance appraisal system, only small significant relationship for managers and professors.

Justice motivation theory in sustainable home purchases

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the understudied topic of sustainability as a factor in the Canadian residential real estate purchase decision using the unique lens of justice motivation theory.Design/methodology/approachUsing a qualitative approach, the study draws on transcripts from 14 interviews with realtors and residential buyers in three different Ontario cities. This paper adopts an exploratory perspective to investigate justice-based motivations related to sustainability in the real estate decision process.FindingsThe research finds that the three requirements of justice motivation are satisfied in the context of a broad understanding of sustainability that includes social, economic and environmental dimensions. The residential real estate decision offers opportunities for sellers to appeal to those motivated by justice.Practical implicationsPolicymakers should consider ways of easing these barriers for those consumers who a financially unable to satisfy their justice motivation when purchasing a home as well as bolstering regulatory enforcement. Sellers should clearly articulate functional explanations of features as well as benefits to enhance the cognitive processing of the sustainable home as a choice alternative.Originality/valueThis paper makes a unique contribution by arguing that the social psychology theory of justice motivation helps explain the role of sustainability in the residential real estate purchase decision-making process.

Conflicting influences of justice motivations on moral judgments

ABSTRACT Humans are motivated by justice concerns, yet vary in their reactions to observing or experiencing injustice. At a proximate level, approach and avoidance represent core fundamental motivational systems which have been proposed to be involved in two independent moral systems: a prescriptive system responsive to obligations (“shoulds”) and a proscriptive system concerned with prohibitions (“should nots”). It is unclear whether these motivational systems or personal involvement better explain the influence of justice dispositions on moral judgments. To clarify this theoretical argument, two experiments examined how dispositional self-oriented and other-oriented justice sensitivity influence condemnation of prescriptive and proscriptive violations while manipulating perspective between-subject or within-subject. Participants rated the permissibility of everyday moral transgressions, from the perspective of the victim or a neutral observer. In Study 1 (n = 235), self-oriented dispositions increased and other-oriented dispositions decreased the probability of rating prescriptive violations as permissible. Study 2 (n = 468) replicated the effect of other-oriented justice sensitivity. Overall, these results bridge the gap between motivational systems and self-other processing. They suggest that justice sensitivity is better conceptualised as distinct motivations which can exert opposing influences on moral decision-making. Moreover, personal involvement may not be as important as individual justice motivations for explaining everyday moral decision-making.