Fairness Rules Research Articles

Fairness v Privacy: Disclosure of Documents by Guardianship Tribunals

This article examines the procedural fairness rules relevant to the disclosure of documents in the jurisdictional context of guardianship tribunal hearings. The article identifies the relevant procedural rules, assesses the practice in the various jurisdictions and in particular addresses the obvious tension that exists between the obligation to accord procedural fairness and the need to protect the privacy of the person with a disability or prevent the unnecessary disclosure of personal, sensitive and often confidential information. The article concludes that the relevant legal principles relating to disclosure of information are now well settled; however, it is the application of those rules in the guardianship context that remains problematic. Despite the fact that some jurisdictions have legislation dealing with disclosure of information and others have developed quite comprehensive policy documents to the same effect, neither goes far enough. The article recommends the development of clear and settled criteria for determining when it is appropriate to refuse access to documents and, if access is refused, whether the essential matters contained in the document can otherwise be disclosed.

Why inconsistent leadership is regarded as procedurally unfair: the importance of social self‐esteem concerns

AbstractThree experimental studies examined to what extent leader's consistent use of procedures constitutes an important procedural fairness rule and influences people's reactions as a function of social self‐esteem. In line with a recent claim that more attention should be devoted to different procedural fairness rules (Brockner, Ackerman, & Fairchild, 2001), the findings of Study 1 demonstrated that inconsistent leaders were evaluated as less procedurally fair and influenced feelings of uncertainty about oneself in ongoing interpersonal interactions. Study 2 showed that manipulating leader's consistency influenced people's procedural fairness judgments and willingness to replace the leader, but only among those low in social self‐esteem (SSE). Finally, Study 3, using another consistency manipulation, demonstrated that variations in consistency made participants feel bad about themselves, particularly when they were low in SSE. These findings are discussed in light of research on relational models of justice and sociometer theory. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Can we improve on how we select medical students?

Getting the right policy for admission to medical school is a balancing act: be fair to society by choosing people with the potential to be good doctors; and be fair to the applicants—that diverse group of people who for many reasons want to set out on the long road to a medical career. Selection is not an exact science but we must use what evidence we have to ensure that we do our best by all concerned. There is widespread agreement that we should select future doctors on wider criteria than scores of academic success1,2, though in practice many medical schools have valued pre-admission academic scores at the expense of other considerations3. There are recognized drawbacks to the use of school exam performance even as a measure of intellectual competence. One study has shown that a major causal determinant of A level results is social class, independent of ability4, and some would-be medical students elect to focus on sciences for their school leaving exams because very high marks are more easily achieved in the physical sciences than in the humanities5. The conviction that only exam results give valid and reliable data has been trenchantly dismissed as a ‘seductive but fallacious’ belief in the precision of quantitative tests6. We are reminded that all selective instruments depend on subjective judgments and each must be accountable to the rules of reason, fairness and public scrutiny7. However, if we decide to consider non-cognitive criteria, a legitimate concern is that the many specialties of medicine need diverse skills and they must not be too narrow. We also want to be reassured, if we include noncognitive characteristics, that we can assess them reliably and that such evaluation can predict personal character over years of practice. While we need to maintain diversity of skills and personality, there are some characteristics which we demand in any doctor. Enough intellectual ability to do the job, plus honesty, integrity and conscientiousness, must be at the heart of good practice8. Helpfulness and willingness to cooperate come close behind8, while patients give high priority to interpersonal skills and empathy2. The personal welfare of the profession is another consideration9. Doctors are more vulnerable than comparable professional groups to alcoholism, drug abuse and suicide10,11. Burnout is well recognized, and has a high cost for the individual, for colleagues and for the quality of service that patients get12. One answer may be better support for psychologically vulnerable doctors12,13 (together with improved working conditions for all doctors), but perhaps we should try to evaluate ability to deal with stress right from the start.

Provision of Step-Level Public Goods with Uncertain Provision Threshold and Continuous Contribution

Common to most theoretical and empirical research on public goods is the assumption that the parameters of the game are common knowledge. Recent theoretical and empirical studies have questioned this assumption by arguing that many public goods situations are characterized by uncertainty regarding various aspects of the situation. In particular, Suleiman (1997) argued that members of production groups of step-level public goods are often uncertain about the value of the provision threshold. For this type of uncertainty he proposed three distinct models to account for the individual's contribution. The present study reports the results of an experiment designed primarily to test and contrast the predictions derived from two of these models – a subjective expected utility model and a cooperative model – regarding the effects of threshold uncertainty on contribution for the provision of step-level public goods. Other goals of the study were to test the joint effect of the threshold uncertainty level, and its mean (low vs. high), on contribution, and to examine the effect of threshold uncertainty on the individuals' estimates regarding the contributions of other group members. The results show that the effect of threshold uncertainty is moderated by the threshold mean: Contribution to the public good increased as a function of uncertainty for the lower threshold mean, and decreased (though not significantly) for the higher threshold mean. In contrast, for the two threshold means the subjects' estimates of the mean and variability of others' contribution increased with threshold uncertainty.The models' comparison revealed that the cooperative model was superior to the subjective expected utility model. This result adds to a substantial body of research on social dilemmas showing that under conditions of social (strategic) uncertainty, group members tacitly coordinate their choice behavior by anchoring their decisions on rules of fairness.

Sibling Relationships, Fairness, and Conflict Over Transfer of the Farm

Fairness and conflict over the transfer of the family farm were examined from the perspective of the younger generation. Thirty‐six farm successors and one of his or her off‐farm siblings completed measures on conflict over transfer, fairness of transfer, rules of fairness, and family warmth. Strong support was found for the hypothesis that lower scores on family warmth, disagreement on fairness, and disagreement on rules of fairness were predictive of conflict over transfer. Implications are discussed in terms of interventions with farm families.

Generalised Rules of Fairness in Evidence Law

The Modern Law ReviewVolume 63, Issue 1 p. 104-112 Generalised Rules of Fairness in Evidence Law Jonathan Auburn, Jonathan Auburn Pupil BarristerSearch for more papers by this author Jonathan Auburn, Jonathan Auburn Pupil BarristerSearch for more papers by this author First published: 17 February 2003 https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.00252AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume63, Issue1January 2000Pages 104-112 RelatedInformation

Dictator game giving: Rules of fairness versus acts of kindness

In both dictator and impunity games, one player, the dictator, divides a fixed amount of money between himself and one other, the recipient. Recent lab studies of these games have produced seemingly inconsistent results, re- porting substantially divergent amounts of dictator giving. Also, one prom- inent explanation for some of these dierences, the impact of experimenter observation, displayed weak explanatory power in a dierent but related lab game. Data from the new experiment reported here oers some explanations. We find that dictators determine how much they will give on the basis of the total money available for the entire experimental session, not on the basis of what is available per game. This explains the reported dierences between impunity and dictator studies. When distributing a gift among several recipi- ents, individual dictators show little tendency towards equal treatment. Also, we find no evidence for the experimenter observation eect. Comparison with earlier experiments suggests that dierences in the context of the game, aected by dierences in written directions and independent of experimenter obser- vation, account for dierences across dictator studies. We propose a hypo- thetical decision procedure, based on the notion that dictator giving originates with personal and social rules that eectively constrain self-interested behavior. The procedure provides a link between dictator behavior and a broader class of laboratory phenomena.

Adjudication Culture in Flat Hierarchies

The article studies the relationship between hierarchical and lateral control of team cooperation in organizations which rely on self-organizational team-work (flat hierarchies). The focus is on control which is provided by the organization's adjudication culture which is defined as the set of homogeneous ex-ante believes of all members of the organization concerning the rules a superior body with discretionary power will apply when brought in to resolve team-internal conflict. The article investigates the mechanism how adjudication culture affects transaction costs which arise from the multiplicity of solution problem under Folk-Theorem conditions. The main conclusion of the example investigated is that these transaction costs which burden flat hierarchies to a greater extent than more steeply organized hierarchies can be entirely eliminated if adjudication culture heeds well-specified fairness rules and if the organization is only moderately demanding on teams in terms of ability and willingness to cooperate.

The market as an instituted realm of social action

The economy of modern societies is a market economy and will remain a market economy in the future. We have to live with the market and hence we have to construct a market we can live with. Such a market should be guided by rules of fairness and caring for people and for nature. This transformation of the market, however, will only be possible if we look at the economy as a part of society and at the market as a realm of social action. In such a concept, economic rationality includes communicative rationality; economic action includes action oriented to reaching understanding. These actions are coordinated not only by money but also by discourse. This paper presents the concept of the market as a realm of social action. It discusses topics such as communicative rationality, a manifold action model, the principle of discourse and the role of gender-relations. Some examples will also be given to make clear that the above mentioned transformation of the market is already in progress. Finally, elements of an economic policy are discussed which will help to institute and reinforce such new market principles.

Impact of procedural factors on perceived justice in divorce settlements

We used a decision-making conceptual framework from family resource management combined with procedural justice frameworks from social psychology to (i) articulate the elements and rules of procedural fairness, (ii) develop a theoretical organization and code to include procedural fairness principles as applied to legal decision processes in divorce, and (iii) describe the perceptions of divorcing parties about the violations of procedural fairness principles in their own divorce process. Procedural fairness principles included accuracy, consistency, ethicality, bias suppression, correctability, and representativeness. Results of qualitative data analyses were consistent with experimental studies in that divorced people were concerned with fair procedures and particularly with violations of the principles of ethicality, consistency, accuracy, and representativeness.

Does Fairness Prevent Market Clearing? An Experimental Investigation

This paper reports the results of an experiment that was designed to test the impact of fairness on market prices. Prices were determined in a one-sided oral auction, with buyers as price-makers. Upon acceptance of an offer, sellers determined the quality of the good. Buyers offered prices that were substantially above the market-clearing level and expected sellers to respond with high quality levels. This expectation was, on average, confirmed by the behavior of sellers. These results provide, therefore, experimental support for the fair wage-effort theory of involuntary unemployment. I. INTRODUCTION Fairness is an elusive term. Yet, in actual business practice the parties involved in a transaction seem to refer quite frequently to the notion of fairness. This observation had already been made by Marshall [1925], who wrote: . . the phrase is constantly used in the market place; it is frequent in the mouths both of employers and the employed; and almost every phrase in common use has a real meaning, though it may be difficult to get at. In a recent study Blinder and Choi [1990] asked nineteen managers whether they and their workers would perceive a wage reduction to take advantage of labor market slack as (a) completely fair, (b) acceptable, (c) unfair, or (d) very unfair. While three managers considered this as an irrelevant question, all but one of the remaining sixteen said that such a wage cut is unfair or very unfair. Moreover, all but one believed that their workers would consider this wage cut as unfair or very unfair. In their study of community standards of fairness for the setting of prices and wages, Kahneman, Knetsch, and Thaler [1986] infer rules of fairness for conduct in the market from their interviewees' answers to hypothetical questions. Their empirical findings confirm the existence of such rules. However, what people say is one thing, but what they actually do may be quite a different thing. The possible divergence between

Social contract, taxation and the standing of deadweight loss

This paper develops the proposition that the normative design of a good tax system depends on the ethical premise or social contract on which society is taken to operate. This thesis is applied to Lockean entitlement to earnings with its corollary of benefit taxation and to the utilitarian model with its counterpart of maximum welfare or least total sacrifice. Fairness rules including maximin are also noted. For each case the role of tax avoidance and resulting deadweight loss is examined and found of questionable standing. In concluding, a parallel is drawn with the role of punishement in jurisprudence.

Intertemporal electricity exchange through barter

Electric utilities can reduce the cost of generating electricity by coordinating the production and transmission of electric power. For this purpose, utilities have organized power pools. This paper proposes an approach to determine the cooperative production and transmission policies for intertemporal electricity barter. The approach is based on the theory of cooperative games. Transformation of the bargaining game into its normal form requires the generation of the Pareto optimal outcomes which may be computationally impossible in real life problems. On the other hand, direct application of fairness rules for the division of the cost savings results in conditions which are nonseparable with respect to time and this problem is thus also computationally complex. The paper proposes a hierarchical approach to solve these nonseparable bargaining problems.

Intergroup fairness and bias in children

AbstractIn recent years in research on intergroup relationships, the assumption has increasingly been made that discrimination dominates decisions when individuals allocate resources between (members of) own and other group. Conversely, in empirical studies of interpersonal decision‐making, including an extensive literature on the development of children's allocation rules within dyadic relationships, it has been repeatedly observed that in dyadic relationships choices though responsive to various changes in the environment, are more strongly governed by fairness rules. The present research extends the interpersonal fairness paradigm to the intergroup case, and examines the effects of some of those variables, namely, children's age, input and attitudes toward other, that have been observed to influence choice behaviour within interpersonal relationships. The findings indicate that as children are socialized, fairness rules also play an increasing dominant role in intergroup allocation decisions, and that both relative input and the language of the outgroup influence such decisions. At the same time, there is some preliminary evidence to indicate that the relative strength of self‐interest may be somewhat stronger in intergroup than in interpersonal relationships. Finally, a number of the issues that must be confronted in comparing the two more important forms of human social choices, interpersonal and intergroup decision‐making, are considered.

Fairness and the Assumptions of Economics

The advantages and disadvantages of expanding the standard economic model by more realistic behavioral assumptions have received much attention. The issue raised in this article is whether it is useful to complicate-or perhaps to enrichthe model of the profit-seeking firm by considering the preferences that people have for being treated fairly and for treating others fairly. The absence of considerations of fairness and loyalty from standard economic theory is one of the most striking contrasts between this body of theory and other social sciences-and also between economic theory and lay intuitions about human behavior. Actions in many domains commonly conform to standards of decency that are more restrictive than the legal ones: the institutions of tipping and lost-and-found offices rest on expectations of such actions. Nevertheless, the standard microeconomic model of the profitmaximizing firm assigns essentially no role to The traditional assumption that fairness is irrelevant to economic analysis is questioned. Even profit-maximizing firms will have an incentive to act in a manner that is perceived as fair if the individuals with whom they deal are willing to resist unfair transactions and punish unfair firms at some cost to themselves. Three experiments demonstrated that willingness to enforce fairness is common. Community standards for actions affecting customers, tenants, and employees were studied in telephone surveys. The rules of fairness, some of which are not obvious, help explain some anomalous market phenomena. * The research for this paper was supported by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada. Kahneman and Thaler were also supported, respectively, by the U.S. Office of Naval Research and by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Conversations with J. Brander, R. Frank, and A. Tversky were very helpful. We also thank Leslie McPherson and Daniel Treisman for their assistance. The paper presented at the conference and commented on by the discussants included a detailed report of study 3, which is only summarized here. It did not contain study 1, which was incomplete at the time. Daniel Kahneman is now in the Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley 94720.

The measurement of gastrointestinal protein loss by a new method.

This paper reports a new method of estimating protein loss from the alimentary tract using radio-iodinated human serum albumin (RIHSA). This has advantages over the use of (131)I-PVP.