544 Justice, Equity, and Fairness in Human Relations
contributions as the allocation principle (because this kind of
allocation can be expected to motivate recipients to give their
best), whereas people trying to foster enjoyable and harmo-
nious social relationships should use the equality principle,
and those aiming to foster personal growth and welfare may
well consider the need principle to be appropriate.
However, as is discussed later in greater detail, these
goals per se have little to do with justice. Justice as a set of
social norms creates entitlements and duties (cf. Lerner,
1987). Which goals allocators pursue has nothing to do with
justice unless they are actively trying to discharge their own
duty to observe rules of justice, to observe the entitlements
of recipients, or—in the case that they have to impose tasks,
loads, and risks—the legal and moral obligations of the ad-
dressees. The relevant question, which was also posed by
Deutsch (1975), is not what choice is functional for which
goal, but whatoughtto be chosen for the reason of justice.
Although equality, equity, and need are principles of dis-
tributive justice, not every allocation according to one
of these criteria is for doing justice. In many empirical stud-
ies the aim of applying a specific principle of distribution—
doing justice or pursuing another goal—is not adequately
assessed.
For instance, Barrett-Howard and Tyler (1986) found that
proportionality to contributions is more likely to be used as
an allocation principle when productivity is the goal,
whereas the equality and the need principles are preferred
when harmony and welfare are the goals. In experimental
studies, Mikula and Schwinger observed that most partici-
pants are polite when asked to propose a way of distributing
joint earnings. Those who (were made believe to) have con-
tributed more to the joint undertaking tended to propose
equal shares, and those who (were made believe to) have
contributed less propose that the earnings should be allocated
according to the respective contributions (Schwinger, 1980).
It is open to question, however, whether the participants in
these studies considered their allocation proposals to be ajust
solution or to be functional for some other goal like social
harmony.
It may well be that justice counts less in some social con-
texts (e.g., in intimate relationships) and situations (e.g., in
emergencies) than in others. But it should be assessed
whether justice is at stake or some other goal. When respon-
dents are explicitly asked to rate several alternative criteria
for allocations with respect to their justice, it emerges that
the equality and the need principles are more frequently ap-
plied within close relationships (e.g., between friends or
within stable cooperative working groups), the need princi-
ple is more frequently applied in health care and welfare
contexts, and the contribution principle is more often used in
economic contexts (e.g., Schmitt & Montada, 1981).Social Comparisons as a Basis for Justice AppraisalsEquity TheoryMuch attention has been paid to theequity theoryof distribu-
tive justice—equity as a criterion in the valuation of social
exchange relationships is tackled later in this chapter—which
was originally developed in the context of work organiza-
tions to explore employees’ reactions to their wages and
promotions (Adams, 1965). The basic components are
(a) proportionality of contributions (performance, effort, in-
vested time, expertise, etc.) and outcomes (benefits, grades,
acknowledgements etc.), and (b) equal ratios of contributions
and outcomes for similar actors.
Later on, the concept of equity was used in an inflationary
manner and was taken as a synonym for what people sub-
jectively considered to be just or fair, regardless of the crite-
rion they may apply to judge whether their outcomes were
equitable: contributions, status, membership, need, or others.
The assumption was that equity is in the eye of the beholder
(Walster & Walster, 1975). Used this broadly, equity is no
longer conceived as one justice criterion or principle among
others, but rather is synonymous with the justice of out-
comes. The criteria used by the beholders were not assessed,
probably because the authors were only interested in the pre-
diction and explanation of the emotional and behavioral con-
sequences of the experience of injustice, and not in the
prediction of experienced injustice on the basis of specific
criteria (Mikula, 1980).
Equity theory predicts that people will be satisfied when
they consider their outcomes (e.g., their wages) to be equi-
table. They resent receiving too little and feel uneasy about
receiving too much. Many studies have supported the basic
assumptions of equity theory. People feel satisfied with
equitable outcomes and those who feel underbenefited are
angry—but also those who feel overbenefited feel uneasy
(for a review, see Tyler et al., 1997). This has been demon-
strated by subjects’ self reports, by physiological measures of
the emotional arousal (Markowski, 1988), and by observa-
tion of behaviors aimed at restoring justice (e.g., adjusting
one’s job performance, cf. Greenberg, 1988). The first finding
that people are dissatisfied when receiving less than would be
equitable does not allow any discrimination between a justice
motive and self-interest. The second finding, that people feel
distressed when overbenefited, is stronger evidence for the
justice motive, which is discussed in the next section.