548 Justice, Equity, and Fairness in Human Relations
relationships can be evaluated as just if all parties meet their
obligations.
The equity principle is less precise than it was contended
to be in more informal social exchanges, in which its assess-
ment is based on subjectively focused and subjectively
valued exchanges (of goods, services, love, respect, trust,
loyalty, harm, negligence, hostilities, etc.), and indirect and
chained exchanges (e.g., services to third parties or to the
community that are of indirect benefit to the exchange part-
ner) may or may not be included in subjective evaluations.
Nevertheless, it has been proposed as thejustice principle in
social relations, even in close personal relationships. As it is
worthwhile to have a closer look at close relationships this
issue will be taken up in a later section.
Implicit Contracts Within Social Relationships
Not every aspect of a relationship can be explicitly articu-
lated in a contract. For instance, employment contracts imply
that employees use working time for the employer and not for
private interests, that they are conscientious, that they do not
misuse the contract by spying for a competitor, and so on. In
return, the employer does not require employees to perform
inappropriate tasks (e.g., those that are below the employee’s
qualification level) and also takes care to ensure a safe work-
ing environment.
Moreover, existing, practiced relationships create new,
contract-like expectations. For instance, significant changes
in the task structure that was practiced for a long time by an
employee cannot simply be assigned by the employer to the
employee; rather, they have to be negotiated. People believe
that employers have obligations to their current employees
but not to those requesting employment (Kahneman,
Knetsch, & Thaler, 1986). There is a widespread view that se-
niority (defined here as the length of continuous employment
with an employer) is an important factor protecting against
layoff in the case of workforce reduction (Elster, 1992;
Engelstad, 1998). The period of notice that tenants must be
given is dependent on the length of the tenancy; in many
countries, this issue is regulated by law. People are expected
to keep to existing exchange relationships, even if the pre-
vailing market situation would allow one party to make more
profit elsewhere. Rousseau has investigated the implicit psy-
chological contracts (and the entitlements derived from
them) that are built up in ongoing relationships (Rousseau &
Anton, 1988; Rousseau & Parks, 1993). Respectful treat-
ment, meaningful work, and a safe working environment
constitute important parts of these implicit contracts.
It may well be that the perceived quality of an existing
relationship shapes the expectations of what would be an
appropriate reciprocal treatment. And these expectations
have a normative character; violations may be valuated as un-
deserved. One limit, however, is that people, as mentioned
previously, consider different justice rules as appropriate
depending on the kind of the relationship (e.g., equal distrib-
ution or distribution according to needs within close rela-
tionships but equitable distributions in market exchange).
Relationship issues are also an important topic of procedural
justice research (Tyler et al., 1997) and are addressed later in
this chapter. The way people are treated by authorities—as
representatives of social systems, communities, or social
groups—is informative with respect to their social status. If
the treatment is not felt to be in accordance with their subjec-
tive entitlements, it is considered unjust. These entitlements
are part of implicit psychological contracts.Entitlement to Respectful TreatmentOne aspect of social interactions has attracted much attention
in justice research—respect. Miller (2001) has recently pro-
vided an excellent review. A few examples are mentioned
here. Lind and Tyler (1988) have stressed the eminent impor-
tance of respectful and decent treatment in their group value
theory of procedural justice. Mikula (1986) studied unjust ex-
periences of students in daily life and found frequently men-
tioned unjustified accusation and blame, the giving of orders
in an inappropriate form, and ruthless misuses of status and
power (see also Clayton, 1992). Bies and Tripp (1996) found
that humiliation and wrongful accusation by superiors were
instances of reported injustices. Insult and disrespectful treat-
ment have been identified as powerful instigators of resent-
ment and aggression (R. A. Baron, 1993; Bettencourt &
Miller, 1996; Folger & Skarlicki, 1998; Heider, 1958).
People in general seem to expect respect from others in social
interactions, and they seem to feel entitled to respectful treat-
ment and interaction. The right of being treated with dignity
is the first of the human rights. However, what respectand
disrespectmean in concrete social encounters may vary a lot
between individuals, settings, kinds of relationships, social
groups, subcultures, and cultures. Nevertheless, what has
been named interactional justice(Bies & Moag, 1986) seems
to be agreed upon in psychological contracts about a code of
conduct (Robinson, Kraatz, & Rousseau, 1994; Rousseau,
1995) defining what is and what is not acceptable in a rela-
tionship. As the code of conduct frequently is neither explic-
itly articulated nor negotiated between interaction partners,
the normative expectations have to be derived from observed
resentment and reproaches, from aggressive responses, and
from further behavioral manifestations of feeling vio-
lated (e.g., withdrawal, reduced commitment, cf. Miller,