Procedural Justice and Participation

Abstract

Recent social psychological work on procedural justice suggests that people given the opportunity to participate in a decision are more likely to see that decision as just than those given no such opportunity. The operation of this “fair process effect” in legal settings contributes to the legitimacy of those settings and to the stability of their structure over time. A similar, limited opportunity for participation by experimental subjects playing the role of employee in situations designed to model hierarchical, profit-oriented business enterprises produces a similar effect in some cases, but a 'frustration” effect in others. In this latter case, limited participation leads people to see the decision as less just than when no participation is allowed. Previous interpretations of these data neglect the possibility that those in the role of employees recognize a basic conflict of interest with employers in such enterprises and see limited participation as a strategic device to induce loyalty and commitment. This paper reinterprets these data in light of that possibility and argues that various forms of participation may benefit or harm the interests of employers and employees differently.

VOICE, CONTROL, AND BELONGING: The Double-Edged Sword of Procedural Fairness

“…For many scholars, fair process effects are so robust that they raise the spectre of "false consciousness" -the Marxist notion that political and market institutions keep the proletariat ignorant of capitalism's true nature (Cohen, 1985(Cohen, , 1989Fox, 1993;Haney, 1991;Jost, 1995). This use of scare quotes is common when contemporary scholars use the term false consciousness, in part due to embarrassment about mid-twentieth century Marxist social science, which most see as discredited and all see as unfashionable.…”

“…Cohen (1985) first raised a concern with the manipulative use of procedural justice in the context of participation procedures for corporate employees. Cohen argued that because employers and employees face a conflict of interests, limited participation may be used as a "strategic device to induce loyalty and commitment.…”

The consistency rule and the voice effect: the influence of expectations on procedural fairness judgements and performance

“…179-186; cf. Cohen, 1985;Greenberg & Folger, 1983) have theorized about the frustration effect, and emphasize that two preconditions have to be met before the frustration effect might occur: according to Lind and Tyler, it is only in circumstances where (a) the decision-maker is strongly biased against them, and (b) the characteristics that give the procedure a procedural fairness advantage are relatively weak, that people might judge a voice procedure as less fair than a no-voice procedure. However, although the procedures used in our experiments may be relatively weak, our data suggest that this line of reasoning is incomplete.…”

Voice is Sometimes Enough: Voice, Influence, and the Moderating Impact of Descriptive Representation

“…Hibbing and Theiss-Morse (2002a;2002b) point to earlier evidence of a "frustration" effect (Cohen 1985), which suggests that in realworld political settings participants will likely view the process allowing only their voice to be insincere when that voice is not perceived to play an instrumental role in the final decision. Recent experimental work substantiates this claim (Gangl 2000;Hibbing and Theiss-Morse 2002b;Morrell 1999), and evidence of this effect even surfaces in some of the earlier procedural justice research (Tyler 1994;Tyler and Mitchell 1994;see Hibbing and Theiss-Morse 2002a: 198 for details).…”