560 Justice, Equity, and Fairness in Human Relations
Referring to Shweder and Haidt (1993), who have distin-
guished between two categories of moral judgments, those
based on cognitive intuitions and those based on reasoning,
Lerner (1998) has distinguished between preconscious expe-
riential processes and rational processes in coming to conclu-
sions about justice and injustice. The moral emotions of
resentment and guilt are mostly based on preconscious expe-
riential processes. The belief in a just world (BJW) is a
“fundamental delusion” (Lerner, 1980) that is preconscious
in character and motivated by the desire for a trustworthy, re-
liable world. When adult people answer questionnaire items
regarding whether the world is basically a just place where
everybody gets what he or she deserves, most respondents
hesitate to agree with such a statement. The rational system is
activated, and too many instances of undeserved victimiza-
tion and discrimination begin to surface. But even if this ma-
jority of respondents do not concede that the world is really a
just place, there remain significant interindividual differences
in their ratings to test hypotheses derived from BJW theory.
In the large majority of questionnaire studies, the theoreti-
cally expected pattern of results was found to corroborate
BJW theory (cf. Furnham, 1998; Maes, 1998; Montada,
1998b).
Like the frequently preconscious cognitions implied in
emotions (e.g., Epstein, 1984), intuitions of justice and injus-
tice are often preconscious—not reflected, well articulated,
or well reasoned. Nevertheless, they are cognitions that can
be modeled as personal or social constructions (Cohen, 1989)
of an idea about what is or what would be just in a category
of cases or in specific cases. The large variety of criteria or
standards of justice defining entitlements and obligations has
already been depicted here. Some process of selection must
be assumed—whether it occurs spontaneously, habitually, or
done after thoughtful personal deliberation, or done by for-
malized decision making as in court trials. Even if an indi-
vidual person’s sense of justice was shaped by socializing
agents and socializing experiences, the internalization of nor-
mative standards can be understood as a personal choice
(Montada, 1993). Moreover, entitlements and obligations
have to be attributed in concrete cases (e.g., on the basis of
some principle of justice). The appraisal of an injustice im-
plies that a subject’s entitlements have been neglected by
some agent or agency who is considered responsible.
Looking at unreflected or reflected appraisals of justice
and injustices as a process of selection and construction open
the eyes for the spectrum of options given to evaluate a case.
Psychological research has tried to identify factors that have
impact on this process of construction. To illustrate, a couple
of research lines shall be mentioned, beginning with dis-
positional factors that influence the fabrication of justice
judgment, and ending with coping processes of victims
who try to reduce their aversive feelings of being unjustly
victimized.Dispositional Factors in Appraisals of JusticeVarious dispositions have been conceived and operationalized
that have an impact on the appraisal of justice and injustice. A
couple of them are mentioned in this section. There are indi-
vidualpreferences for specific principles of distributive justice
that have characteristic consequences for the appraisal of the
reality and for the motivation of activities. Those who prefer
theneed principletend to resent, for instance, gross social in-
equalities more and are more ready to support socially disad-
vantaged people than are those who prefer themerit principle.
In contrast, the latter tend more to blame the disadvantaged for
lacking efforts to improve their life situation and for having
self-inflicted their problems (e.g., Montada et al., 1988).
Those preferring the merit principle tend, for instance, to
oppose assertive action policies that use preferential treatment
(at least, if the unfairness of the status quo is not made salient;
cf. Bobocel et al., 2002).
As the justice motive may compete with self-interests, the
centrality of justicein one’s life was measured and found to
predict voluntary prosocial commitments (e.g., Moschner,
1998).
People vary in their sensitivity to befallen injustice; those
who score high on this trait measure perceive themselves
more frequently unfairly disadvantaged (Schmitt &
Mohiyeddini, 1996).
Belief in a just world is challenged by observed injustices.
Those scoring high on BJW scales tend more to blame
socially disadvantaged people for having self-inflicted their
situation problems. They do this because they want to protect
their view of a just world in cases in which equalizing unjust
social inequalities would be very costly or even impossible
(Lerner 1977; Reichle, Schneider, & Montada, 1998).
As mentioned before, people with high self-esteemseem
to feel more entitled to have a voice in decision procedures
than do those with low self-esteem (Brockner et al., 1998;
Heuer et al., 1999).
A case can be viewed from the victim’s perspective, the
observer’s perspective and the offender’s perspective. Sup-
posingself-serving biases,one might expect that the victim is
attributing more responsibility and blameworthiness to the
offender than the offender is ready to concede, while the ob-
servers’ appraisals may depend on their attitudes toward the
victim, the offender, and the experienced threat of their BJW.
However, the self-serving bias was not observed in harmo-
nious intimate relationships:Questioning couples separately