Chapter 30

Social Justice
History, Theory, and Research

JOHN T. JOST AND AARON C. KAY

Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be
rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished
if they are unjust.
—John Rawls (1971)

The best safeguard against fascism is to establish social justice to the maximum possible extent.
—Arnold Toynbee (1976)

Social justice is a concept that originates in philosophical
discourse but is widely used in both ordinary language and
social science, often without being clearly defined. By syn-
thesizing the common elements of various philosophical
treatments (e.g., Elster, 1992; Feinberg, 1973; Frankena,
1962; Miller, 1999; Walzer, 1983), it is possible to offer
a general definition of social justice as a state of affairs
(either actual or ideal) in which (a) benefits and burdens
in society are dispersed in accordance with some alloca-
tion principle (or set of principles); (b) procedures, norms,
and rules that govern political and other forms of decision
making preserve the basic rights, liberties, and entitlements
of individuals and groups; and (c) human beings (and per-
haps other species) are treated with dignity and respect not
only by authorities but also by other relevant social actors,
including fellow citizens. The three aspects of our defini-
tion correspond, roughly, to distributive, procedural, and
interactional justice, as we use the terms in this chapter.
A theory of social justice need not address all three aspects,
but it should address at least one of them. Conceived of in
this way, social justice is a property of social systems—or
perhaps a “predicate of societies” (Frankena, 1962)—as
suggested also by Rawls (1971) and Toynbee (1976).
A just social system is to be contrasted with those systems
that foster arbitrary or unnecessary suffering, exploitation,
abuse, tyranny, oppression, prejudice, and discrimination.
The foremost problem for scholars (or would-be practition-
ers) of social justice is that considerable disagreement persists,

This chapter is dedicated to the memory of George L. Jost (1916–2002), who worked for social justice in several different contexts: first as a
communications specialist who received a Bronze Star in the U.S. military stationed in Italy during World War II; later as part of the Catholic
Workers’ anti-poverty movement led by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in New York City; and in the mid-1960s as a co-founder of the Friends
of FIGHT civil rights organization in Rochester, NY, which worked with Saul Alinsky to challenge racial discrimination (see Horwitt, 1989,
p. 486). The writing of this chapter was supported in part by research grants made available to John T. Jost by the New York University Center
for Catastrophe Preparedness and Response and the National Science Foundation (BCS-0617558) and to Aaron C. Kay by the Canadian
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. The authors wish to thank Mahzarin R. Banaji, Ramona Bobocel, Mitchell Callan,
Irina Feygina, Susan T. Fiske, Danielle Gaucher, Daniel Gilbert, Erin Godfrey, Curtis D. Hardin, Erin Hennes, György Hunyady, Orsolya
Hunyady, Lawrence J. Jost, Margarita Krochik, Ido Liviatan, Anesu Mandisodza, Gabe Mendlow, Jaime L. Napier, Tom R. Tyler, Kees
Van den Bos, and Jojanneke Van der Toorn for extremely helpful advice and commentary on the material contained herein. We also
acknowledge Tina Schweizer for her diligence in compiling the extensive bibliography. Finally, the authors would like to express their
appreciation for all of the members of the International Society for Justice Research (ISJR) and wish that they could do “justice” to all of
the many scientific and practical contributions made by the members of that society.
1122
Handbook of Social Psychology, edited by Susan T. Fiske, Daniel T. Gilbert, and Gardner Lindzey.
Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

even after centuries of debate, concerning each of the
elements incorporated in our definition (see Boucher &
Kelly, 1998; Campbell, 2001; Miller, 1999; Solomon &
Murphy, 2000). What is to be considered a truly fair prin-
ciple for distributing benefits and burdens and why? Is it
equity, equality, need, or some other principle of allocation?
Similarly, what is a reasonable or appropriate set of rights,
liberties, and entitlements? And what does it mean to treat
others with dignity and respect? These are difficult ques-
tions, to be sure, but they are not in principle unanswerable.
They have been addressed by some of the greatest minds
in Western civilization, including Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes,
Locke, Hume, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Mill, and
Rawls. In this chapter, we summarize the major scientific
contributions of social psychology to the understanding and
practice of social justice.
LEWINIAN TRADITION IN
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Social Justice as a Central Theoretical and
Practical Concern of Social Psychology
It was not long ago that questions of social justice were
at the forefront of theoretical and empirical inquiry in
social psychology. The father of modern social psychol-
ogy, Kurt Lewin, promoted the discipline as, among other
things, a scientific means of fostering democratic, egali-
tarian norms and preventing tyranny and oppression from
gaining the upper hand in society. Although he seldom (if
ever) couched these goals in the explicit language of social
justice, it is clear that his “applied” research programs on
overcoming certain forms of prejudice, outgroup hostility,
and self-hatred among Jews—to mention some of the most
salient examples—reflected a commitment to social justice
as well as a scathing critique of authoritarianism and the
fascist ideology that had seized the hearts and minds of
so many of his fellow citizens in 1930s Germany. Lewin
self-consciously strove to integrate theoretical and applied
goals, which he believed could be “accomplished in psy-
chology, as it has been accomplished in physics, if the
theorist does not look toward applied problems with high-
brow aversion or with a fear of social problems” (Lewin,
1944/1951, p. 169). It is not surprising that one of Lewin’s
doctoral students, Morton Deutsch, went on to become one
of the most illustrious contributors to the field of social
justice research (see Deutsch, 1999).
Another prominent social psychologist of the post-
war era, Gordon Allport, observed that, “Practical and
humanitarian motives have always played an important
Lewinian Tradition in Social Psychology 1123
part in the development of social psychology” (1962, p. 2).
Specifically, he wrote that:
Social psychology began to flourish soon after the First World
War. This event, followed by the spread of communism, by the
great depression of the ’30s, by the rise of Hitler, the genocide of
the Jews, race riots, the Second World War and its consequent
anomie, stimulated all branches of social science. A special chal-
lenge fell to social psychology. The question was asked: how
is it possible to preserve the values of freedom and individual
rights under conditions of mounting social strain and regimenta-
tion? Can science help provide an answer? (p. 4)
Allport’s own work on The Nature of Prejudice (1954)
as well as a predecessor, The Authoritarian Personality by
Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, and Sanford (1950),
sought to employ theories and methods in social psychology
to diagnose and ultimately defeat prejudice, intolerance, and
other apparent obstacles to social justice. It has been sug-
gested darkly on more than one occasion that the individual
who exerted the strongest influence over the development of
social psychology in the 20th century was Adolf Hitler (e.g.,
Cartwright, 1979; Jones, 1985/1998).
World War II illustrated far too vividly both the dev-
astating effects of social injustice and the human capac-
ity to overcome it. In its aftermath, issues of social justice
were central to social psychological theory and research.
Textbooks routinely covered themes such as morality, con-
science, crime and punishment, prejudice, authoritarianism,
propaganda, war and peace, and the determinants of revo-
lution (e.g., Brown, 1965; Doob, 1952; Klineberg, 1940;
Krech & Crutchfield, 1948). However, as was the case with
Lewin’s writings, such themes were often approached in the
absence of an explicit social justice framework, and terms
such as “justice” and “fairness” were not necessarily used
to illuminate them. As we shall see, it was not until decades
later that social justice research became a subfield or area of
specialization within social psychology. Before then, con-
siderations of social justice seemed to permeate the field as
a whole, albeit tacitly. None of the first three editions of The
Handbook of Social Psychology contained a chapter devoted
to studies of social justice per se (Miller, 2001, p. 528), but
several chapters covered pertinent subjects, such as preju-
dice and ethnic relations, leadership, social structure, politi-
cal behavior, international relations, collective action, and
social movements.
Social psychological research on theories of justice
(especially equity theory) began to flourish in the 1960s,
but the demarcation of social justice research as a spe-
cific subfield came years later. For instance, Social Justice
Research (a specialized interdisciplinary journal) was first
published in 1987 under the editorship of Melvin Lerner,
1124 Social Justice
and the International Society for Justice Research (ISJR),
whose members constitute the journal’s core readership,
was not officially created until a decade later. These pro-
fessional developments have allowed researchers to delve
more deeply into questions that are unique to justice-
related theories and findings, but they also reflected (and
may have even contributed to) some degree of separation
(and, therefore, marginalization) of social justice research
within the larger discipline of social psychology. By the
mid-1960s, some social psychologists had already begun
to have sober second thoughts about Lewin’s vision of
humanistic, action-oriented research aimed at human bet-
terment and social justice (Ring, 1967). McGuire (1965),
for instance, admonished his more “applied” colleagues for
being “too preoccupied with the Berlin wall, the urban
blight, the population bomb, and the plight of the Negro in
the South” and quipped that students who wished to solve
social problems should consider joining “the law or the
ministry” (pp. 138–139).
In retrospect, social psychologists’ commitment to
social justice research in the middle of the 20th cen-
tury may be attributable, at least in part, to the societal
urgency that accompanied the need to defeat fascism in
Europe and elsewhere (e.g., see Lewin, 1939/1948a). But,
one might ask, do we not face urgent problems related to
social justice even today? What, if anything, should be
done about yawning economic inequality under capital-
ism; racial disparities in criminal sentencing, including
the imposition of the death penalty; gender disparities in
hiring, salary, and promotion at work; the persistence of
prejudice; religious, ethnic, and other forms of violent
conflict, including war, terrorism, and torture; and the
problems posed by global climate change, environmental
degradation, and species extinction? One need not be a
doomsday prophet to suspect that the continued survival
of the human race depends ultimately on its capacity to
see past purely selfish, parochial sources of motivation
and to embrace what social psychologists refer to as “the
justice motive.”
The Justice Motive in Human Behavior
Solomon Asch (1959) insisted that social psychologists
study not only the perpetration of injustice but also “the vec-
tors that make it possible for persons to think and care and
work for others” (p. 372). More specifically, he wrote that:
“It is of considerable consequence for any social psychology
to establish the grounds of concern for the welfare of other
persons or groups, and how these are related to the concern
individuals feel for their own welfare” (p. 368). Such com-
ments presage research programs on “altruism” (Krebs &
Miller, 1985), prosocial behavior (Batson, 1998), and the
so-called “justice motive,” that is, the extent to which people
are motivated to promote fair treatment of others and not
merely by considerations of self-interest (Lerner, 1977,
1980, 2003; Miller, 1977; Montada, 2002; Tyler, 1994; see
also Tyler & Smith, 1998). The point is not that justice and
self-interest are always opposed—plainly, they are not. In
fact, the sense of justice may originate in humans and other
primates in the self-protective desire to insure that they
receive what they “deserve” (Brosnan, 2006; Brosnan &
DeWaal, 2003). When members of disadvantaged groups
band together to push for civil rights or other improvements
in their quality of life, they are fighting on behalf of social
justice as well as personal and collective self-interest (e.g.,
Piven & Cloward, 1978). Nevertheless, the purest evidence
of a “justice motive” in human beings comes from cases
in which people are willing to risk or sacrifice their own
welfare to insure that others are treated fairly (e.g., Lerner,
2003; Monroe, 2004).
Rational Choice Theory and Its Discontents
Truly selfless behavior appears to violate both the norma-
tive and descriptive assumptions of rational choice the-
ory, according to which individuals should (and at least
sometimes do) act on the basis of self-interested pref-
erences to maximize benefits and minimize costs (e.g.,
Becker, 1976; Kreps, 1990). It is generally assumed that
in economic markets and other forms of social exchange,
those preferences and behaviors that maximize individ-
ual welfare will predominate (e.g., Axelrod, 2006). As a
result, rationally self-interested behavior should be more
readily observable than other forms of behavior that do
not, on average, offer equivalent benefits. Some ratio-
nal choice theorists acknowledge that certain constraints
(such as limits on the availability of information or mate-
rial resources) can lead to nonrational behavior, but as
a general rule this per-spective leaves relatively little
room for any significant drivers of behavior other than
self-interest. For this reason, rational choice theory has
been widely criticized by psychologists and other social
and behavioral scientists for being unrealistic—that
is, descriptively inaccurate (e.g., see Green & Shapiro,
1994; Kahneman, Slovic, & Tversky, 1982; Nisbett &
Ross, 1980).
One major line of attack emerged from work on
“bounded rationality” (Simon, 1957) and shortcomings in
human judgment and decision making (Kahneman et al.,
1982). Both contributions suggested that the limited cog-
nitive capacities of human beings insure major departures
from normative standards of rationality. It has been less
common to critique rational choice theory from a motiva-
tional perspective, but decades of research in social psy-
chology have demonstrated that the motivational systems

underlying human behavior are considerably more complex
than is suggested by the rational choice model (see Fiske,
2004; Higgins & Kruglanski, 2000; Shah & Gardner,
2008). If Lerner (2003) is correct that humans—and perhaps
other species as well (Brosnan, 2006; Brosnan & DeWaal,
2003)—possess a “justice motive,” then it is sure to con-
flict with the unadulterated pursuit of rational self-interest
on at least some occasions (e.g., Güth, Schmittberger, &
Schwarze, 1982; Kahneman, Knetsch, & Thaler, 1986;
Rabin, 1993). Or, to put the same point differently, the attain-
ment of social justice is constrained by the extent to which
individuals behave exclusively according to the principles of
rational choice theory, insofar as social justice requires
individuals to act on the basis of principles that sometimes
conflict with the maximization of self-interest.
Similar questions concerning the relative importance
of selfish versus prosocial motivations (including motiva-
tions for justice) have cropped up in evolutionary biology
from time to time. Some, including Darwin (1871), suggest
that evolutionary mechanisms are unlikely to privilege any
traits that are not fundamentally selfish:
It is extremely doubtful whether the offspring of the more sym-
pathetic and benevolent parents, or those who were most faith-
ful to their comrades, would be reared in greater number than
the children of selfish and treacherous parents belonging to the
same tribe. He who was ready to sacrifice his life . . . rather
than betray his comrades, would often leave no offspring to
inherit his noble nature. (Darwin, 1871, p. 475)
Several prominent evolutionary theorists have echoed
the notion that evolution favors selfish over prosocial (or
“altruistic”) behaviors (e.g., Dawkins, 1989). The basic
logic underlying such approaches is that any genes that fail
to promote their own replication (at a significantly greater
rate than they promote the replication of others’ genes) will
not survive for long.
Crucially, however, the alleged “selfishness” of genes
does not necessarily translate into selfishness at the level
of individual (or collective) behavior (e.g., Crespi, 2000;
Krebs, 2008). It is possible that prosocial behaviors that
evolved primarily to ensure the survival of genetic rela-
tives facilitate the helping of other, nonkin individuals
(Park, Schaller, & Van Vugt, 2008). Models of cultural
evolution, according to which specific behavioral char-
acteristics can be transmitted by social learning, can also
explain the propagation of traits that are other- (rather than
self-) regarding (Fehr & Fischbacher, 2003). For these rea-
sons and others, there is no reason to assume that prosocial
behavior is inconsistent with fitness or survival (especially
in the span of a single lifetime), regardless of whether it is
at odds with economic perspectives on human rationality.
Although it is beyond the scope of this chapter, empirical
Lewinian Tradition in Social Psychology 1125
research suggests that evolutionary processes did produce
justice-oriented behavior in marmosets, Capuchin mon-
keys, and other nonhuman primates (see Brosnan, 2006;
Brosnan & DeWaal, 2003; Burkart, Fehr, Efferson, & van
Schaik, 2007).
The Altruism Debate
Quite apart from considerations of gene replication, social
psychologists have debated the role of self-interest in sup-
porting versus undermining prosocial behavior. The ques-
tion, kicked around in many a dorm room over the years,
is whether bona fide altruism really exists or whether help-
ing behavior is always motivated by some form of egoism.
Batson and Shaw (1991) characterize the dispute as follows:
Advocates of universal egoism claim that everything we do,
no matter how noble and beneficial to others, is really directed
toward the ultimate goal of self-benefit. Advocates of altru-
ism do not deny that the motivation for much of what we do,
including much that we do for others, is egoistic. But they
claim that there is more. They claim that at least some of us,
to some degree, under some circumstances, are capable of a
qualitatively different form of motivation, motivation with an
ultimate goal of benefiting someone else. (p. 107)
In support of the latter conclusion, Batson and colleagues
have offered into evidence a large number of studies
addressing the “empathy–altruism hypothesis” (e.g.,
Batson, 1990; Batson et al., 1991; Batson & Shaw, 1991).
They suggest that witnessing the distress of others insti-
gates empathic emotions (such as compassion and tender-
ness) that facilitate perspective-taking and the setting of
helping goals. Although helping behavior brings certain
rewards—including the reduction of guilt and other negative
emotions—one cannot conclude that the helper was moti-
vated by those rewards. Thus, Batson (1990) sought to
determine whether “the empathically aroused helper (a)
benefits the other as an instrumental goal on the way to
reaching some self-benefit as an ultimate goal (egoism) or
(b) benefits the other as an ultimate goal, with any result-
ing self-benefits being unintended consequences (altru-
ism)” (p. 340). Although it is not possible to review the
specific details of individual studies here, Batson and col-
leagues (1991) have made a reasonably strong case for the
existence of altruistic motivation.
This is not to say that their position is bereft of detrac-
tors. Most notably, Cialdini and his coauthors have argued
that altruistic behavior, even when triggered by empathic
emotions, is never truly selfless. Rather, they propose that
the circumstances giving rise to empathic concern also
elicit other feelings, such as sadness (Cialdini et al., 1987;
Maner, Luce, Neuberg, Cialdini, Brown, & Sagarin, 2002;
Schaller & Cialdini, 1988) and perceptions of “oneness”
1126 Social Justice
or “self-other overlap” (Cialdini, Brown, Lewis, Luce, &
Neuberg, 1997; Maner et al., 2002; Neuberg et al., 1997),
and that these are capable of generating seemingly selfless
behaviors. From the standpoint of social justice, it may
not matter greatly whether the motivation to help others
(and to sustain sacrifices in doing so) stems from purely
altruistic desires or from the so-called “moral emotions”
or processes of social identification. The important point is
that human beings do appear to be capable of setting aside
narrow self-interest to make the world a “better” (i.e.,
putatively more just) place. The specific nature of these
justice-related concerns is the subject of the next section.
A TYPOLOGY OF SOCIAL
JUSTICE CONCERNS
The earliest theory-driven research in sociology and psy-
chology on the topic of social justice tackled questions of
distributive fairness, especially considerations of “equity”
and relative deprivation in the allocation of resources (e.g.,
Adams, 1965; Crosby, 1976; Lerner, 1974; Walster, Walster,
& Berscheid, 1978). Next came work on procedural jus-
tice, which addressed not only outcomes but the decision-
making rules used to determine those outcomes (Folger,
1977; Leventhal, 1980; Lind & Tyler, 1988; Thibaut &
Walker, 1975). Soon thereafter, a third type of justice was
investigated—namely, interpersonal (or interactional) jus-
tice—to incorporate concerns about informal as well as
formal treatment by others in everyday life (Bies & Moag,
1986; Colquitt, 2001; Greenberg, 1993). Finally, although
Aristotle anticipated not only distributive but also retribu-
tive and restorative justice concerns nearly 24 centuries
ago, empirical studies addressing these latter concerns
have only recently become a cottage industry in social psy-
chology and neighboring disciplines (Braithwaite, 1989;
Carlsmith, Darley, & Robinson, 2002; Vidmar, 2002). We
do our best to summarize theoretical and empirical prog-
ress on the social psychological understanding of each of
these five types of social justice concerns, with an advance
apology to our readers for the necessarily selective nature
of our review.
Distributive Justice
Aristotle and the History of the Concept
One of the earliest influential accounts of distributive
justice—that is, the issue of how to allocate scarce
resources fairly and appropriately—was Aristotle’s. In
Book V of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle (ca. 322 BCE)
observes that “we call just the things that create and pre-
serve happiness and its parts for the citizen community”
(2002, p. 159) and inquires about different types of justice
and ways of being just (or unjust). According to one promi-
nent interpretation, for Aristotle:
The hallmark of a just apportionment is equality. In distribu-
tion, this consists in maintaining the same ratio of quantified
goods or burdens to quantified merit for all recipients. In
rectification, it consists in restoring the parties to the relative
position (schematized as “equality”) they were in before one
harmed the other. (Broadie, 2002, p. 36)
Interpretational ambiguity arises from the fact that in Attic
Greek the same word (isotes) is typically used to mean both
justice and equality; the word is best translated as “geomet-
rical equality” or “proportionality” (Vlastos, 1962/1997).
Thus, Aristotle says that a just distribution is one that is
impartial in the sense of “treating equals as equals” (see
also Feinberg, 1973; Frankena, 1962; Mansbridge, 2005),
but his conception of distributive justice emphasizes what
social scientists today would call principles of equity, pro-
portionality, or merit (Deutsch, 1975; Lerner, 1974; Walster,
Walster, & Berscheid, 1978).
Aristotle appreciated one of the chief difficulties of jus-
tice theories based exclusively on equity or proportionality
principles—namely, that decision makers disagree about
which “inputs” (or merits) should be utilized in determin-
ing proportional outcomes (or rewards):
The matter of distribution “according to merit” also makes this
clear, since everybody agrees that what is just in distributions
must accord with some kind of merit, but everybody is not
talking about the same kind of merit: for democrats merit lies
in being born a free person, for oligarchs in wealth or, for some
of them, in noble descent, for aristocrats in excellence. (2002,
p. 162, lines 1131a24–29)
Indeed, the notion that political or ideological factors influ-
ence one’s conception of social justice is a central theme of
this chapter, and we will return to it in our review of the
research literature.
A few other aspects of Aristotle’s theory of justice
deserve mention, insofar as they, too, anticipate important
social scientific contributions and controversies. For one
thing, Aristotle addresses the relationship between what is
legal and what is just, and he clearly sees a close relation-
ship between them. He writes, for instance, that
People regard as “unjust” both the person who breaks the law
and the grasping (i.e., unequal-minded) one; hence, clearly,
both the law-abiding person and the equal-minded one are just.
In that case, the just is what is lawful and what is equal, while
the unjust is what is unlawful and what is unequal. (p. 159)
Aristotle’s discussion of the individual who is “grasping”
or “unequal-minded” (pleonexia: the tendency to “get more

for oneself ”; Broadie, 2002, p. 36) presages research on
dispositional or individual differences in selfishness (i.e.,
a “proself ” orientation in the language of De Cremer &
Van Vugt, 1999) and its consequences for justice-related
outcomes. Aristotle also observes that, “The worst sort of
person . . . is the one whose badness extends even to his
treatment of himself and of those close to him, but the best
sort is not the one whose excellence extends to his treat-
ment of himself, but to his treatment of another; for it is
this that is a difficult task” (2002, p. 160). This discussion
foreshadows the social psychological distinction between
“justice for oneself” and “justice for the other” (e.g.,
Gollwitzer, Schmitt, Schalke, Maes, & Baer, 2005; Sutton
et al., 2008), as well as Lerner’s (2003) more general
thesis that, in its purest form, justice motivation opposes
self-interest.
Although Aristotle equated justice with acting in an
egalitarian (non-selfish), law-abiding manner, he recog-
nized that the degree of impartiality (or perhaps universality)
required by the law can lead to perverse outcomes if one
ignores the particulars of a given case or situation. He
argues that a reasonable person may (on occasion) depart
from adhering to what is legal (and therefore what is just)
to arrive at a superior outcome (or decree):
It is clear, then, what the reasonable is; and that it is just, and
better than just in one sense. From this it is also evident who
the reasonable person is: the sort who decides on and does
things of this kind, and who is not a stickler for justice in the
bad sense but rather tends to take a less strict view of things,
even though he has the law to back him up—this is the reason-
able person. (2002, p. 175, lines 1137b33–1138a3)
Thus, justice may be the “mightiest of the excellences”
(p. 160, lines 1129b27-8), but it is not the only excellence
(see also Rawls, 1971). Courage, wisdom, and self-control
were also cardinal virtues, along with justice (Adelson,
1995). John Stuart Mill (1869) likewise distinguished
between justice and other moral principles, such as generos-
ity and beneficence (see Frankena, 1962). Finally, it should
be noted that Aristotle recognized the need for retributive (or
rectificatory) justice, but by aligning his conception of jus-
tice with what is “law-abiding,” he ruled out the possibility
that certain acts of vengeance (or “vigilante justice”) could
be considered just, even if they are seemingly motivated by
a desire for justice.
Marxian Tradition
The writings of Karl Marx have probably inspired more
social justice movements than any other piece of litera-
ture, with the possible exceptions of religious texts (see
Adelson, 1995; Solomon & Murphy, 2000). It is ironic,
then, that Marx himself was notoriously suspicious about
A Typology of Social Justice Concerns 1127
the meaning and use of the term “justice,” which (having
studied law) he equated with the concept of jurisprudence.
Marx saw justice as an inherently bourgeois concern akin
to noblesse oblige, and he expressed disdain for the “vulgar
socialists” of his era who, in his view, championed empty
slogans such as “a fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work.” He
was also skeptical about philosophical attempts to develop
abstract or universal conceptions of justice that would
transcend specific social and historical circumstances,
such as those proffered by Kant or Hegel (see L. J. Jost &
J. T. Jost, 2007). Thus, most scholars agree that Marx gen-
erally eschewed justice-based arguments in making the
case for revolution and the overthrow of the capitalist sys-
tem (see Tucker, 1969; Wood, 1972/1980). Instead, Marx
appealed to collective self-interest, as in the famous line
from The Communist Manifesto: “Workers of the world
unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains!” That is, he
saw it as obviously in the objective interests of the working
class to overthrow the capitalist system, and he assumed
that their material life circumstances would (eventually)
lead them to this realization.
Even if Marx himself saw little revolutionary potential
in appeals to social justice, many of his followers have dis-
cerned in his writings the seeds of a powerful justice-based
critique of capitalism (e.g., Campbell, 2001; Husami,
1978/1980). For instance, Marx argued that capitalism
depends for its very existence on “surplus value” being
created through the labor process. The basic idea is that no
worker is ever paid what his or her work is actually worth
(to the employer; that is, the value of what is produced);
otherwise, there would be no profit (or profit motive). But
the worker who wants to survive and provide for his or her
family has no real choice in a capitalist society but to pro-
duce wealth for those capitalists who happen to control the
means of production. Marx clearly denounced this situation
as a form of “exploitation,” and it is one of the reasons that
he predicted (and longed for) the transition from capitalism
to socialism and communism, which he believed would
finally put an end to class-based oppression. Thus, Marx
objected to the stark economic inequality between social
classes that characterizes the capitalist mode of produc-
tion on grounds that are basically indistinguishable from
considerations of social justice (see also Campbell, 2001;
Husami, 1978/1980; Konow, 2003). At the same time, he
worried that certain conceptions of justice would be used
to provide ideological cover for the status quo.
There is also Marx’s normative claim, in his Critique of
the Gotha Program, that under socialism, the appropriate
principle of distribution should be “from each according to
their ability, to each according to their needs” (see Miller,
1999). As Lerner (1974) and Deutsch (1975) point out,
taking into account the needs of individuals is a principle
1128 Social Justice
of distributive justice that is not necessarily incorporated
in other theories of social justice, including Aristotle’s. But
“need considerations are more than a reaction to actual
deficiencies of resources” (Schwinger, 1986, p. 223), and
they function much like other distributive justice principles,
especially in relationships built on trust. Similarly, value
is often attached to the principle of equality of outcomes (as
well as opportunities) across individuals and social classes,
and many interpret Marx’s demand for a “classless society”
as a call for thoroughgoing egalitarianism with respect to
distributive outcomes (e.g., see Campbell, 2001).
It is possible that as a practical matter Marx’s condem-
nation of “utopian socialists” led him to underestimate
the extent to which perceptions of social injustice based
on principles of equality or need (and the accompanying
sense of moral outrage that accompanies them) contain
revolutionary potential. Research throughout the social and
behavioral sciences reveals that anger in response to felt
injustice—that is, moral outrage—is one of the most robust
predictors of participation in collective action and motiva-
tion for social change (e.g., Gurr, 1970; Martin, Scully, &
Levitt, 1990; Montada & Schneider, 1989; Moore, 1978;
Tyler & Smith, 1998; Van Zomeren, Postmes, & Spears,
2008; Wakslak, Jost, Tyler, & Chen, 2007). Although Marx
himself was deeply angered by the exploitation of work-
ers in capitalist society, he sought to develop a dispassion-
ate historical analysis and therefore said much less about
social justice than he might otherwise have done.
Liberal-Progressive Tradition
Due in part to Marx’s skepticism, the concept of “‘social
justice’ was more readily embraced by liberals and pro-
gressives than by socialists proper,” (Miller, 1999, p. 3).
There are two major Western liberal traditions that are
most responsible for scholarly and practical interest in
questions of social justice. Sandel (1998) sums up these
traditions succinctly in posing the following question:
“Should justice be founded on utility, as Jeremy Bentham
and John Stuart Mill argue, or does respect for individual
rights require a basis for justice independent of utilitarian
considerations, as Kant and Rawls maintain?” (p. 184).
These two possibilities are generally referred to as the util-
itarian and deontological perspectives, respectively, and
each is considered in turn.
Utilitarianism Utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory
of justice, insofar as it assumes that the most just outcome or
procedure is whatever results in the “greatest happiness of
the greatest number.” Of course, utilitarian philosophers
disagree about how to gauge “happiness” and related con-
structs, such as “well-being,” “public interest,” and “gen-
eral good” (see Bowie & Simon, 2007). Nevertheless,
support for the welfare state, which redistributes wealth
and other valued resources in such a way as to reduce the
misery of those who are worst off without extracting an
equivalent amount of suffering from those who are better
off, is justified or—in the language of Frankena (1962) and
Feinberg (1973)—“justicized”, that is, shown to be just, on
largely utilitarian grounds (e.g., Campbell, 2001; Konow,
2003; Sen, 1979).
Although philosophical utilitarianism is quite clearly
a normative theory about how people ought to behave,
descriptive research in psychology suggests that in many
situations people are indeed highly sensitive to the per-
ceived consequences of an action (e.g., the degree of harm
that results from it) when evaluating its moral soundness
(e.g., Cushman, Young, & Hauser, 2006; Haidt & Graham,
2007; Kohlberg, 1978). In a series of experiments involving
the well-known “trolley problem,” which requires decision-
makers to make hypothetical but morally troubling life-and-
death decisions about appropriate and inappropriate ways
of minimizing harm to innocent bystanders, research par-
ticipants do make cost–benefit calculations and favor utili-
tarian solutions (e.g., taking action so that one bystander
is killed while five others are spared)—as long as the
emotional salience of the costs is relatively low for either
situational or dispositional reasons (Greene, Sommerville,
Nystrom, Darley, & Cohen, 2001; Koenigs, et al., 2007).
Interestingly, cognitive load manipulations interfere with
the type of moral reasoning that gives rise to utilitarian
solutions (Greene, Morelli, Lowenberg, Nystrom, & Cohen,
2008). When emotional processing predominates, people
look much more like “deontological” theorists adhering to
moral absolutes than utilitarians making complex calcula-
tions (see also Baron, 1993).
Deontological Approaches Deontologists hold that
determinations of right and wrong depend not only on the
consequences of human action but also on other consid-
erations, including transcendent justice principles, such
as the assumption that it is wrong to kill an innocent,
healthy person under any circumstances. One of the most
famous proponents of a deontological approach to justice,
Immanuel Kant (1785/1993), proposed that a “categorical
imperative” exists to “[a]ct only according to that maxim
whereby you can at the same time will that it should
become a universal law” (p. 30). In other words, justice
requires us to do only those things that it would make
rational sense to universalize. Lying to gain personal
advantage, for instance, would violate the categorical imper-
ative, because if everyone lied for personal gain it would
be impossible to maintain trust and cooperation in society.
Although some reject the notion that universal principles
of justice could work in highly dissimilar cultures and

societies, others find promise in the Kantian aspiration to
develop an objective conception of justice—as embodied,
for instance, in the work of John Rawls.
Rawls (1971) famously proposed that the most just
social system is the one that would be chosen by rational
decision makers under a “veil of ignorance,” that is, in the
absence of any specific knowledge of their own status or
position within the adopted system. Drawing in part on
psychological theory and research, including the work
of Piaget (1932/1965) and Kohlberg (1969), Rawls con-
cluded that under these circumstances rational individuals
ought to (and in fact would) select a system that would,
ceteris paribus: (a) minimize the degree of inequality
in social and economic outcomes, and (b) maximize the
outcomes of those who would occupy the worst position
in the system. Taken together, these principles imply that
some degree of inequality in society is tolerable, but only to
the extent that it benefits even those who are relatively dis-
advantaged, for example, by creating enough wealth that
everyone truly benefits. Rawls’ work constitutes, among
other things, a normative theory of justice that is meant to
be “consistent with the laws of psychology,” and, ultimately,
a complex philosophical defense of political liberalism in
the Kantian tradition of developing and enforcing a rational
“social contract,” that is, the consent of the individual to
participate in society (see also Rawls, 1993).
Empirical studies cannot determine what Rawls’ hypo-
thetical decision makers would or should choose under the
constraints he envisioned. This is because, as a practical
matter, it is impossible to divorce actual decision mak-
ers from their own personal characteristics, experiences,
beliefs, and opinions. Some philosophers have suggested
that this impossibility represents a fatal flaw in Rawls’ the-
ory (rendering it, if not incoherent, useless for determining
what justice principles real people would or should pre-
fer). Nonetheless, the purpose of the “veil of ignorance”
was to imagine the possibility of developing an objective
conception of social justice by insuring decision-making
impartiality and eliminating all potential sources of bias.
Empirical studies can address the question of what distribu-
tive justice principles people generally prefer when per-
sonal sources of bias are at least muted (though not entirely
removed).
The research literature provides mixed evidence
for the notion that actual decision makers would favor
Rawls’ justice principles over attractive alternatives, such
as sheer wealth maximization. In some studies, research
participants who lack information that would enable them
to act on the basis of self-interested motives do indeed eval-
uate the fairness of various distributional schemes in ways
that are at least somewhat similar to how Rawls theorized
they should behave (Bond & Park, 1991; Brickman, 1977;
A Typology of Social Justice Concerns 1129
Michelbach, Scott, Matland, & Bornstein, 2003; Schulz &
May, 1989). For instance, Mitchell, Tetlock, Mellers, and
Ordóñez (1993) found that most people sought to maxi-
mize the minimum standard of living in their society.
However, there are studies showing clear departures from
what Rawls would have expected (e.g., Curtis, 1979). Most
damningly, a research program summarized by Frohlich
and Oppenheimer (1992) revealed that most of the partici-
pants in their experiments, which were conducted in the
United States, Canada, and Poland, opted for a “floor con-
straint” (some safety net) but without any “ceiling” (i.e.,
limitation on maximum income). Their preferences, in
other words, included social systems that contained more
inequality than Rawls’ theory would allow. Although this
evidence does not disconfirm Rawls’ (1971) theory of
what is objectively just, it does suggest that actual decision
makers find it challenging to leave behind their own personal
experiences and cultural baggage in placing themselves behind
a “veil of ignorance.” The fact that social group and ideo-
logical differences are frequently observed in experiments
involving “hypothetical societies” suggests that people are
anchored to a considerable extent by the economic realities
and justice beliefs that operate in their own societies, even
when they are explicitly instructed to ignore them (Bond &
Park, 1991; Mitchell, Tetlock, Mellers, & Ordóňez, 1993;
Mitchell, Tetlock, Newman, & Lerner, 2003; Scott,
Matland, Michelbach, & Bornstein, 2001).
Conservative Critique of the Liberal–Socialist
Tradition
It should be clear from the foregoing that most philo-
sophical conceptions of social justice, especially those
that emphasize egalitarian and welfare (i.e., need-based)
principles, were developed by liberals or socialists who
were critical of traditional social, economic, or political
arrangements (e.g., see Barry, 2005). Miller (1999) notes,
for example, that “social justice has always been, and must
always be, a critical idea, one that challenges us to reform
our institutions and practices in the name of greater fair-
ness” (p. x). This explains why the concept of social jus-
tice is sometimes denounced by political conservatives and
others on the political right who seek to vindicate existing
institutions that they regard as—if not always perfectly
just—at least necessary, efficient, or otherwise defensible
(e.g., Hayek, 1976).
Historians often trace the origins of modern political
conservatism to Edmund Burke, an Irish-born member of
Parliament in England who famously opposed the French
Revolution and encouraged his fellow citizens to “look
backward to [the authority of] their ancestors” rather than
turning to revolution (Burke, 1790/1987, p. 30; see also
Viereck, 1956; White, 1950). Burke and his followers thus
1130 Social Justice
rejected liberal and socialist ideas as well as the broader
intellectual context of the Scientific Enlightenment in
which those ideas were developed (Jost, 2009), express-
ing “contempt for all forms of egalitarianism, which struck
[Burke] as a doctrine that is profoundly at odds with all the
evidence of nature and history” (Shapiro, 2003, p. 152).
Burke also emphasized the importance of tradition and
favored gradual, incremental reforms over more radical
social change, because he believed that “conserving an
imperfect inherited world from the worse imperfections
that human beings are capable of contriving is the busi-
ness of political leadership” (p. 152). To this day, political
conservatism can be characterized in terms of two major
principles, namely traditionalism (or resistance to change)
and, relatedly, the justification of inequality or hierarchy
(Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003).
To the extent that conservatives (and libertarians) have
offered new theories of social justice, they have tended
not to dismiss principles of need and equality outright but
rather to subordinate them (at least on occasion) to other
principles, such as merit, prosperity, and personal freedom
(e.g., Nozick, 1974; Smith, 1776; Solomon & Murphy,
2000). It has been suggested that conservatives possess
unique “moral intuitions” and that they place a higher pre-
mium on loyalty to the ingroup, obedience to authority,
and attaining purity (Haidt & Graham, 2007). However,
the glorification of ingroup, authority, and purity concerns
have (in a number of historical cases) been associated
with authoritarianism and even genocide (e.g., Altemeyer,
1996; Kelman & Hamilton, 1989; Rummel, 1997; Staub,
1992). This makes them unlikely candidates (on norma-
tive grounds) to be considered general moral or justice
principles. A stronger case can be made for moderate
conservative principles such as desert, merit, prosperity,
and personal freedom (e.g., Mitchell et al., 2003; Nozick,
1974; Smith, 1776; Solomon & Murphy, 2000). Some
interpret the fact that political orientation is correlated with
justice beliefs to mean that disagreements over what is just
are ultimately ideological and therefore intractable; others
aspire to elevate the terms of debate by bringing scientific
evidence to bear on the selection and application of vari-
ous justice principles in resource allocation.
Social Psychological Theories and Evidence
Equity Theory No theory has been more broadly influen-
tial to the empirical study of social justice than the one that
arguably came first: equity theory. Aristotle (384–322 BCE)
argued that justice requires proportionality, that is, “equal-
ity of ratios” (2002, p. 163; line 1131a31). This insight
provides the starting point for equity theory, as developed
by Homans (1961); Adams (1965); Blau (1968); Walster,
Berscheid, & Walster (1973); and Walster, Walster, &
Berscheid (1978). The theory holds that in rendering
judgments about distributive justice, people seek to deter-
mine whether there is a proportional relationship between
their inputs (e.g., degree of effort, ability, time, training,
etc.) and the outcomes they receive (e.g., payments and
other rewards as well as costs or punishments). To make
this determination in practice, people typically draw inter-
personal comparisons involving similar or relevant oth-
ers (e.g., Festinger, 1954) or intrapersonal comparisons
based on their own prior experiences and expectations
(Adams, 1965).
If an individual concludes that the ratio of inputs to out-
puts in a given case is disproportionate, psychological dis-
tress is theorized to ensue; such distress, in turn, is expected
to motivate the individual to restore equity (Walster,
Berscheid, & Walster, 1973; but see Greenberg, 1984). An
important aspect of equity theory—an aspect that arguably
is what makes it a theory of justice rather than simply a
theory of attribution, social judgment, or preference—is
that people are hypothesized to dislike being overbene-
fited (i.e., rewarded in a disproportionately favorable man-
ner) as well as being underbenefited. However, the latter
is especially aversive because it violates both justice and
self-interest (Walster, Walster, & Berscheid, 1978; see also
Boll, Ferring, & Filipp, 2005; Loewenstein, Thompson, &
Bazerman, 1989; Peters, Van den Bos, & Bobocel, 2004).
In terms of emotional responses, those who are underbene-
fited are assumed to feel angry and resentful, whereas those
who are overbenefited are assumed to feel guilty (e.g.,
Hegtvedt, 1990; Homans, 1961/1974; Jost, Wakslak, &
Tyler, 2008; Schmitt, Behner, Montada, Müller, & Müller-
Fohrbrodt, 2000). Anger, which is an approach-oriented,
outward-directed emotion, is generally associated with
protest, whereas guilt is not (e.g., Wakslak, Jost, Tyler, &
Chen, 2007). According to equity theory, it is distressing
to observe inequity in the relationships of others as well as
in one’s own relationships. There are two ways in which
people can cope with aversive reactions engendered by the
presence of inequity: (a) they can restore equity in actuality
(i.e., objectively), by increasing or decreasing inputs (e.g.,
by working harder or withholding effort) or outputs (e.g., by
giving or taking more or less in terms of benefits or bur-
dens); or (b) they can restore equity psychologically (i.e.,
subjectively), by rationalizing or otherwise reconstruing
the nature or relative evaluation of inputs and outputs so
as to make the situation or relationship seem equitable
(Hatfield & Sprecher, 1984).
The evidence has supported the basic tenets of equity
theory to an impressive degree (Ambrose & Kulik,
1999; Greenberg, 1993; Mowday, 1991). Consequently,
it has influenced several areas of social science, rang-
ing from the study of close relationships (Utne, Hatfield,

Traupmann, & Greenberger, 1984; Van Yperen & Buunk,
1990) to organizational behavior (Ambrose & Kulik, 1999;
Bolino & Turney, 2008). Inequity produces physiological
arousal (Markowski, 1988), and the desire to establish (or
restore) equity appears to be an important factor in children’s
resource allocations (Leventhal & Anderson, 1970; but see
Lerner, 1974). Participants are especially likely to follow
the equity norm when distributing rewards between them-
selves and a competitor in the presence of a mirror, presum-
ably because the mirror increases adherence to salient social
norms (Greenberg, 1980). Perceptions of equity are related
to perceptions of stability and contentment in new marriages
and other close relationships (Utne, Hatfield, Traupmann, &
Greenberger, 1984; Van Yperen & Buunk, 1990; but see
Montada, 2003; Sprecher & Schwartz, 1994), and percep-
tions of inequity (i.e., feeling overbenefited) can also help
to explain negative reactions that are (ironically) caused
by high levels of social support (Gleason, Iida, Bolger, &
Shrout, 2003). Perceptions of inequity also explain seem-
ingly anomalous behavior in workplace settings, including
employee theft of property belonging to an organization
that is seen as underrewarding its employees (Greenberg,
1993). A key contributor to “social loafing” (i.e., the ten-
dency for people to exert less effort in the presence of
others) is the assumption by some group members that
their co-workers will do less than their share (Jackson &
Harking, 1985); this assumption apparently causes people
to diminish their own involvement to maintain the balance
of equity. In one study, participants who were led to commit
a transgression and then forgiven for it were more likely
than others to comply with a subsequent request, presum-
ably because “forgiveness . . . represent[s] a type of aid,
or gift, that upsets the balance of a relationship” (Kelln &
Ellard, 1999, p. 864) and creates a psychological need to
reestablish balance (or equity).
Austin and Walster (1974) proposed that, when comput-
ing their equity ratios, people do not simply compare them-
selves with specific referents but also form perceptions of
“transrelational” equity or equity with the world (EwW),
which refers to the overall degree of equity (or inequity)
that is present in the totality of a person’s relationships. If a
person is frequently manipulated or taken advantage of by
others (e.g., the proverbial “sucker”), he or she falls well
short of maintaining EwW. Similarly, if a person routinely
exploits others (e.g., a racketeer, an unethical business
person), he or she is generally aware of holding an ineq-
uitable position relative to “others in general.” People also
use stereotypes and social judgments to subjectively estab-
lish equity, balance, complementarity, and the “illusion of
equality” with respect to the social system as a whole (Kay,
Jost, & Young, 2005). Taken in conjunction, this work
suggests that people not only monitor the degree of equity
A Typology of Social Justice Concerns 1131
that characterizes their own dealings with others but also
the degree of equity in society at large.
Criticisms and Limitations Despite the consider-
able evidence marshaled in support of equity theory,
several limitations—both theoretical and empirical—
have been noted. For one thing, cultural differences
exist in the extent to which people prefer equity over
other allocation principles, such as equality (Bolino &
Turnley, 2008; Chen, 1995; Fischer & Smith, 2003).
Furthermore, the original formulation of the theory does
not specify whether people will respond to inequity by
actively changing the circumstances to restore equity in
objective terms or by engaging in subjective processes
of reconstrual. Feelings of power or efficacy may play a
large (and, on the basis of equity theory, unanticipated)
role in determining which route will be pursued (Cook &
Hegtvedt, 1986; Mowday, 1991; Weick, Bougan, &
Maruyama, 1976). Those who are especially interested in
preserving social harmony tend to restore equity through
subjective, rather than objective, means (Bierhoff, Buck, &
Klein, 1986).
Equity theory is noticeably silent about the specific
social comparison standards (e.g., friends, siblings, cowork-
ers, or bosses) that people invoke in determining whether
their ratio of inputs to outputs is equitable. Although the
referent may be obvious in the context of a dyadic rela-
tionship, it may not be so clear in many other real-world
situations. It is assumed that people generally determine
whether their rewards are equitable based on comparisons
involving their own prior experiences, those of similar oth-
ers (e.g., coworkers), and those based on system-specific
expectations, such as organizational policies or promises
(Goodman, 1977). The availability and relevance of specific
referents likely dictate which ones are selected (Kulik &
Ambrose, 1992; Levine & Moreland, 1987). Choices of
referent type should also depend on individual differences
in levels of “equity sensitivity” (e.g., Miles, Hatfield, &
Huseman, 1994); people are expected to seek out those
referents that best allow them to minimize psychological
distress (O’Neill & Mone, 1998).
Another oft-cited limitation of equity theory is its
apparent insensitivity to procedural justice concerns (e.g.,
Folger, 1986; Lind & Tyler, 1988; Thibaut & Walker,
1975). For instance, fairness judgments are not driven
solely by input–output ratios but are also affected by pro-
cedural factors that interact with those ratios. Specifically,
people react unfavorably to a state of inequity only if (a)
it results from a decision that was made by another person
(as opposed to oneself), and (b) they believe that a different
decision could have reasonably been made (Cropanzano &
Folger, 1989). If a situation of inequity is perceived as
1132 Social Justice
occurring because of one’s own choices or because of
unimpeachable decisions made by others (i.e., decisions
made as a result of fair procedures), negative reactions do
not generally ensue.
Principles of Equality and Need A number of authors
have pointed out that equity is by no means the only
appropriate principle of distributive justice (e.g., Clark &
Mills, 1979; Deutsch, 1975; Elster, 1992; Feinberg, 1973;
Konow, 2003; Jost & Azzi, 1996; Leventhal, 1980; Miller,
1999; Walzer, 1983). They take what is sometimes referred
to as a pluralistic or “multidimensional” approach to jus-
tice norms (Cohen & Greenberg, 1982; Mikula, 1984;
Reis, 1984). Along these lines, Lerner (1974) observed
that people’s conceptions of justice can take various forms,
and that different situations call for different justice prin-
ciples (see also Lerner & Whitehead, 1980; Törnblom &
Foa, 1983). When recipients share a common “identity,”
as in the case of families, the Marxian principle of allo-
cation based on need is much more likely to be adopted
than when no such identity or affiliation exists (see also
Deutsch, 1975; Lamm & Schwinger, 1980; Lerner, 1974).
The idea of dishing out relative dinner portions to one’s
children on the basis of their report cards (e.g., merit)—
regardless of their ages, sizes, or appetites—strikes one as
inherently unjust if not downright absurd. Rather, a need-
based allocation seems far more appropriate. Similarly,
members of close-knit groups may prefer norms of equal-
ity (or parity) in dispersing benefits and burdens, presum-
ably because of the value placed upon the maintenance of
harmonious social relations (Deutsch, 1975; Konow, 2003;
Wenzel, 2000).
Of all of the putative justice principles, equality has
received far and away the most philosophical attention
(e.g., Frankena, 1962; Miller, 1999; Nagel, 1991; Pojman &
Westmoreland, 1997; Rawls, 1971; Solomon & Murphy,
2000; Vlastos, 1962/1997; Walzer, 1983). Demands for
equal rights and equal treatment under the law have been
fundamental causes of political revolution and constitution-
building in Europe and the Americas since the time of the
Enlightenment. Equality is central to the liberal–socialist
tradition, and leftists today are distinguished largely by
their advocacy for greater social, economic, and political
equality (e.g., Nielsen, 1985). Although previous gen-
erations of conservatives, including Burke (1790/1987),
objected to egalitarianism in various guises, most con-
servatives today endorse political equality (e.g., one
person, one vote) and equality of opportunity in educa-
tion and economic domains. But, as Parfit (1998) notes,
to subscribe to egalitarianism as a justice principle also
requires being “concerned with people’s being equally
well off;” that is, to believe that, “It is in itself bad if some
people are worse off than others” (p. 3; see also Williams,
1976/2000). Egalitarians assume, in other words, that the
“demand for equality is built into the very concept of jus-
tice” (Frankena, 1962, p. 20), but they do not necessarily
assume that justice always requires perfect equality or that
equality is the only relevant principle of social justice.
Arbitrary inequality, in which goods or access to goods are
meted out capriciously, haphazardly, or in direct violation
of notions of deservingness, is particularly objectionable
to most people, including philosophers (Feinberg, 1973).
In other cases, what really bothers egalitarians is not that
some have less than others but that some simply do not
have enough to meet their basic needs (Frankfurt, 1987).
This may explain why principles of equality and need are
frequently bundled together in liberal–socialist conceptions
of social justice.
When individuals hold conflicting or competing goals,
people tend to rely on formal rules—such as those codi-
fied by the legal system—to arrive at the fairest allocation
of resources (Lerner, 1974). Equity is deemed most fair
in situations in which people feel both dependent on and
nonequivalent to other social actors, as in marketplace envi-
ronments (Deutsch, 1975; Lerner, 1974). Thus, the impor-
tance of equity considerations (relative to other justice
norms) depends upon perceptions of social relations; that
is, the ways in which people see themselves as connected to
others (or not) when it comes to sharing resources (Clayton &
Opotow, 2003; Huo, 2002; Wenzel, 2001, 2002). Often
what looks like the application of (or preference for) an
equality principle is really the application of an equity
principle under circumstances in which “the scrutineer per-
ceived the relevant inputs to be equal” (Reis, 1984, p. 39).
This returns us to the Aristotelian injunction to “treat
equals as equals” (and to treat unequally those who are
unalike in a relevant, that is, nonarbitrary way; Feinberg,
1973, pp. 100–101).
The most popular equity principle in common circu-
lation is the principle of merit; that is, the rewarding of
individuals on the basis of contributions or entitlements,
such as ability, effort, motivation, and achievement
(e.g., Frankena, 1962; Hayek, 1976; Nozick, 1974).
Justifications for this principle are frequently utilitarian in
nature, insofar as they suggest that a meritocratic system
creates incentives for productivity that are beneficial to
society as a whole. Miller (1999) has suggested that prin-
ciples of equality and merit are compatible in certain ways
and that social justice may require an integration of the
two. For one thing, both equality and merit “stand opposed
to a distribution of advantages on the basis of luck”
(p. 201); this suggests that the extent to which the capitalist
system may be considered just by egalitarians and meri-
tarians alike depends upon the extent to which outcomes

are not attributable to chance (or nepotism or simply being in
the right place at the right time). Furthermore, Miller argues,
on normative grounds, that the principle of merit should
never be used to allocate “those goods and services that
people regard as necessities, such as health care” (p. 200).
On this point, there is general agreement between subjec-
tive and objective conceptions (see also Lupfer, Weeks,
Doan, & Houston, 2000). Research participants do feel
that different types of resources should be allocated on the
basis of different justice principles (Fiske & Tetlock, 1997;
Törnblom & Foa, 1983), and that burdens and necessities
should be distributed with regard to considerations of need
and equality rather than merit (e.g., Gamliel & Peer, 2006;
Matania & Yaniv, 2007; but see Törnblom, Mühlhausen, &
Jonsson, 1991).
Cooperative Versus Competitive Social Systems
Deutsch (1975) offered an analysis that was highly com-
patible with that of Lerner (1974) but differed in two sig-
nificant ways. First, whereas Lerner focused on the forms
of distribution that would be seen as most just in various
social contexts, Deutsch (building on his earlier work in
Lewin’s Group Dynamics laboratory) addressed the related
but distinct issue of which forms of distribution would be
most effective at helping a group to reach a given goal.
Second, Deutsch outlined three, rather than four, primary
types of distributive justice, dropping the conception of jus-
tice as law-abidingness, possibly in recognition of the fact
that the “laws of the state . . . may be themselves unjust”
(Frankena, 1962, p. 3). Hence, Deutsch’s taxonomy is a
little less Aristotelian and a little more Marxian. The sig-
nificance of overarching social systems is emphasized in
Deutsch’s (1985) “crude law of social relations,” by which
“the characteristic processes and effects elicited by a given
type of social relationship also tend to elicit that type of
social relationship” (p. 69); that is, competitively structured
social systems beget competitive behavior, and coopera-
tively structured systems beget cooperation.
According to Deutsch (1975), the equity principle should
be emphasized only in those situations in which “economic
productivity is a primary goal” (p. 143), insofar as it breeds
competition and even conflict as social by-products. By
contrast, in the context of social systems that prioritize
personal development, communal welfare, and cooperation,
the most constructive method of distributing resources is
on the basis of need and equality, consistent with Marxian
social theory. Failing to consider the needs of its mem-
bers, Deutsch argued, would “obviously be disruptive of
any group that has a primary concern for the development
and welfare of its members” (p. 147). Furthermore, if the
goal is to maximize the harmoniousness of social relations,
equality should be the distributive principle of choice.
A Typology of Social Justice Concerns 1133
According to Deutsch, distributing resources purely based
on equity would disrupt the mutual respect required for
fostering “enjoyable” social relationships. Deutsch (1985)
reviewed several studies contradicting the commonly held
notion that distributing rewards (and punishments) on the
basis of the equality principle necessarily results in a loss
of efficiency or productivity. He found that egalitarianism
enhanced cooperation and, therefore, group performance.
Research has generally supported Deutsch’s conten-
tion that the three principles of equity, equality, and need
tend to vary in their applicability, and so are differentially
valued as a function of situational and dispositional factors
(e.g., Barrett-Howard & Tyler, 1986; Bolino & Turnley,
2008; Clark & Mills, 1979; Deutsch, 1985; Reis, 1984).
However, it is not always clear whether this variability in
allocation preferences is due to justice-related or instru-
mental concerns; that is, people might prefer one principle
over another for reasons that have little to do with justice
(Montada, 2003). People’s allocations of resources appear
to reflect a blend or combination of different justice prin-
ciples along with considerations of self-interest (e.g., Jost &
Azzi, 1996; Konow, 2003; Mikula, 1984), and they may
engage in post hoc rationalizations of certain distributive prin-
ciples and outcomes that they would not necessarily choose
ex ante (Diekmann, Samuels, Ross, & Bazerman, 1997).
Do Liberals and Conservatives Prefer Different Justice
Principles? Given that one of the core ideological differ-
ences between political liberals and conservatives concerns
the value that is placed on equality of outcomes (e.g., Jost,
Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003), it is not too sur-
prising that justice preferences and judgments covary with
political orientation (e.g., Bartels, 2008; Christiansen &
Lavine, 1997; Emler, 2002; Furgeson, Babcock, & Shane,
2008; Rossi & Berk, 1997; Skitka & Tetlock, 1993). In
so-called “hypothetical society” paradigms, for instance,
liberals generally prefer more egalitarian distributions of
wealth that also offer protections for those who are in great-
est need, whereas conservatives are more likely to prioritize
equity, efficiency, and individual merit (Mitchell, Tetlock,
Mellers, Ordóñez, 1993; Mitchell, Tetlock, Newman, &
Lerner, 2003). These differences in justice preferences are
clearly consistent with philosophical differences among
socialists, liberals, and conservatives that go back several
centuries (Jost, 2009).
Mitchell and colleagues (1993) observed that ideologi-
cal polarization was greatest for judgments of hypothetical
societies containing moderate degrees of meritocracy.
Presumably, this is because liberals see the justice glass
as half-empty under such circumstances (emphasizing the
role of chance), whereas conservatives see it as half-full
(emphasizing ability and effort). Napier and Jost (2008a)
1134 Social Justice
found that economic inequality is differentially related to
self-reported happiness levels for liberals and conserva-
tives. Specifically, increasing economic inequality in U.S.
society from 1974 to 2004 (measured in terms of various
macro-economic indices) was associated with decreased
subjective well-being in general, but liberals were more
strongly affected than were conservatives, apparently
because the conservative belief that inequality is often
legitimate and meritorious provides a kind of “ideological
buffer” against the negative hedonic effects of inequality.
Relative Deprivation and Social Comparison Unlike
the preceding accounts, relative deprivation theory does not
specify which principles of distributive justice people will
prefer under specific circumstances. Rather, it addresses a
more general question about the social and psychological
processes leading to the appraisal of a given situation as
either just or unjust (Davies, 1962; Gurr, 1970). In essence,
the theory holds that people will experience moral out-
rage and engage in collective action aimed at changing an
unjust status quo if and only if they perceive themselves to
be relatively deprived (Tyler & Smith, 1998). Theories that
pivot on the concept of relative deprivation are not theories
about how to recognize or implement social justice per se;
rather they seek to understand when people will and will
not perceive social injustice, and the question of whether
such perceptions are accurate or inaccurate is largely unad-
dressed (e.g., see Walker & Smith, 2002). In other words, it
is not specified and does not matter—from the perspective
of relative deprivation approaches—whether people appeal
to equity, equality, or need principles (or no justice prin-
ciples at all) in formulating and acting upon perceptions of
relative deprivation. What matters is simply whether or not
they are aggrieved.
Origins of Relative Deprivation Theory Relative depriva-
tion theory began with a relatively simple empirical obser-
vation: when asked about their degree of satisfaction with
the promotion system in the U.S. army, soldiers’ judgments
had little to do with current rank, promotion rates, or their
actual likelihood of promotion. Instead, judgments were based
largely on where the soldiers felt they stood in comparison
with fellow soldiers of similar rank. If they were worse
off than the other soldiers around them, they felt deprived
(Stouffer, Suchman, DeVinney, Star, & Williams, 1949).
Thus, soldiers’ feelings of satisfaction (or dissatisfaction)
were not due to a careful analysis of the characteristics of the
system itself, but rather depended upon social comparison
processes (Festinger, 1954; see also Brickman, Coates, &
Janoff-Bulman, 1978; Olson & Hazlewood, 1986).
This initial observation inspired a slew of kindred theo-
ries addressing the phenomenon of relative deprivation
(e.g., Crosby, 1976; Davis, 1959; Gurr, 1970; Pettigrew,
1967; Runciman, 1966). The central insight for theories
of social justice is that judgments of fairness and satisfac-
tion (or, conversely, unfairness and dissatisfaction) are
often derived not on the basis of some abstract or absolute
standard. Rather, they are the result of an inherently com-
parative process in which one’s own situation is contrasted
with that of others—or, as with regard to equity compari-
sons, on the basis of intrapersonal comparisons involving
one’s own prior states and expectations (e.g., Albert, 1977;
Davies, 1962; Guimond & Dambrun, 2002; Zagefka &
Brown, 2005).
Davies (1962) proposed an influential theory of revolu-
tion in which he argued that social and political unrest is
most likely to occur when a prolonged period of improve-
ment in living conditions is followed by a brief but pain-
ful period of decline, such that the gap between people’s
subjectively rising expectations and their objectively wors-
ening circumstances becomes intolerable. This argument
sought to reconcile (a) Marx’s claim that abject depriva-
tion would lead members of underprivileged groups (such
as the working class) to realize that they have “nothing to
lose but their chains” and therefore rebel against the status
quo, and (b) Tocqueville’s historical observation that “the
most overwhelming oppression often burst[s] into rebel-
lion against the yoke the moment it begins to grow lighter.”
Several historical cases—including Dorr’s Rebellion of
1842 and the Russian Revolution of 1917—seem to fit
Davies’ account, which is sometimes referred to as “pro-
gressive” relative deprivation theory. Building on this
work, Gurr (1970) proposed that a significant gap between
people’s expectations and their capabilities creates “the
necessary precondition for civil strife in any kind.” In a
series of cross-national studies, he found that both short-
term economic deprivation and long-term strains (i.e., dis-
crimination) tend to magnify frustration and the eventual
likelihood of political rebellion.
The Distinction Between Individual and Group
Deprivation Runciman’s (1966) well-known distinction
between egoistic (individual) and fraternal (group) forms of
relative deprivation has proven especially useful in social
psychological research (e.g., Crosby, 1976; Walker &
Smith, 2002). Studies show, for example, that relative depri-
vation at the group (but not individual) level of analysis is
a powerful determinant of prejudice and outgroup hostil-
ity (e.g., Dubé & Guimond, 1986; Guimond & Dambrun,
2002; Fiske, 1998; Hafer & Olson, 1993; Pettigrew et al.,
2008; Tyler & Smith, 1998; Walker & Pettigrew, 1984).
Given the consistency of this result, it seems worthwhile
to ask whether the converse—feeling that one’s group
is relatively gratified in comparison with another group—is

associated with decreased hostility. Unfortunately, the
answer is no; rather, group-based feelings of relative grati-
fication (or perhaps superiority) are also associated with
outgroup hostility (Dambrun, Taylor, McDonald, Crush, &
Meot, 2006; Guimond & Dambrun, 2002). Perceptions of
relative deprivation (and the anger elicited by such per-
ceptions) may explain action taken by advantaged groups
to stop government programs designed to help members
of disadvantaged groups (Leach, Iyer, & Pederson, 2007;
Pettigrew & Meertens, 1995). When those at the top claim
injustice and discrimination from below (e.g., Major et al.,
2002), it is difficult to know whether such claims are based
sincerely on fairness concerns or are simply strategic ploys
to maintain their own advantage, but the difference seems
important.
Several studies have investigated the extent to which per-
ceptions of relative deprivation motivate the disadvantaged
to improve their own or their group’s position—or to par-
ticipate in collective action more generally (see Walker &
Smith, 2002). Group deprivation contributes more strongly
than individual deprivation to collective action, possibly
because perceptions of group deprivation are more likely to
elicit negative, outward-directed emotions, such as anger
(Leach, Iyer, & Pedersen, 2007; Walker & Smith, 2002),
whereas perceptions of individual deprivation may be asso-
ciated with more inward-directed emotions, such as depres-
sion and anxiety (Hafer & Olson, 2003; Walker & Mann,
1987). Although most studies link group (rather than individ-
ual) relative deprivation to participation in collective action
(Dion, 1986; Dubé & Guimond, 1986; Guimond & Dubé-
Simard, 1983; Kessler & Mummendey, 2001; Walker &
Mann, 1987), some evidence suggests that collective action
is most likely to result when both forms of deprivation are
experienced (Foster & Matheson, 1995).
Crosby (1976) originally proposed that five conditions
must be met for feelings of individual (or egoistic) relative
deprivation to ensue: (1) a person must notice that another
possesses more than s/he does, (2) s/he must desire what
the other person has, (3) s/he must feel entitled to it for
some reason, (4) s/he must think that it can be realistically
attained, and (5) s/he must not feel personally responsi-
ble for the state of deprivation. Reflecting on the results
of survey research, Crosby, Muehrer, and Loewenstein
(1986) trimmed the list of preconditions to two—wanting
something and feeling that one deserves it. The other three
factors, they concluded, were more distal causes of rela-
tive deprivation, and their effects were hypothesized to be
mediated by the two more proximal states of wanting and
deserving. The extent to which various preconditions are
necessary and/or sufficient to engender feelings of relative
deprivation is still largely unknown (but see Bernstein &
Crosby, 1980; Olson & Hazlewood, 1986; Olson, Roese,
A Typology of Social Justice Concerns 1135
Meen, & Robertson, 1995). Nevertheless, feelings of personal
deprivation have been linked to a number of consequential
outcomes, including women’s dissatisfaction with house-
hold divisions of labor (Freudenthaler & Mikula, 1998;
but see Biernat & Wortman, 1991); career disengagement
(Tougas, Rinfret, Beaton, & de la Sablonnière, 2005); and
symptoms of stress among the unemployed (Walker &
Mann, 1987).
Criticisms and Limitations Relative deprivation theo-
rists tend to assume, often tacitly, that members of disad-
vantaged groups are “revolutionaries-in-waiting,” and that
they will fight against the status quo as soon as the full
and frustrating extent of their deprivation is made obvious
through direct social comparison with others (or with what
might have been). Members of advantaged groups, too, are
hypothesized to feel relatively deprived when actual out-
comes fall short of (even lofty, unrealistic) expectations.
Thus, Gurr (1970) concluded that, “men are quick to aspire
beyond their social means and quick to anger when those
means prove inadequate, but slow to accept their limita-
tions” (p. 58). The problem is that too many data sets fail
to corroborate these strong claims (e.g., Gurney & Tierney,
1982; McPhail, 1971; Thompson, 1989; see also Kinder &
Sears, 1985, pp. 701–702). The perception of relative
deprivation in and of itself does not seem to be a sufficient
cause of anger, protest behavior, or participation in collec-
tive action, as Crosby’s (1976) original list of precondi-
tions suggested (see also Klandermans, Van der Toorn, &
Van Stekelenburg, 2008; Van Zomeren, Postmes, & Spears,
2008).
At the least, people must perceive the status quo as ille-
gitimate to challenge it, but perceptions of illegitimacy are
highly contingent on ideological and other factors (e.g.,
see Jost & Major, 2001; Tyler, 2006). As a result, rebellion
is much rarer than relative deprivation and related theo-
retical perspectives would imply (Jost, Banaji, & Nosek,
2004). Contrary to Gurr’s (1970) supposition that “men are
quick to aspire” beyond their means, social psychologi-
cal research reveals that “social comparison biases tend to
prevent awareness of disadvantage, and attribution biases
tend to legitimize disadvantage” (Major, 1994, p. 294; see
also Crocker & Major, 1989; Jost, 1997). Thus, despite the
fact that women are dramatically underpaid compared with
men and suffer various other forms of discrimination,
women generally show little discontent or resentment con-
cerning their payment and employment status (Crosby,
1982) and no overall deficit in terms of satisfaction when
compared with men (Diener, 1984; but see Fujita, Diener, &
Sandvik, 1991).
It is telling that Pettigrew (2002) ultimately regarded the
relative deprivation perspective “not [as] a fully developed
1136 Social Justice
theory itself,” but rather “a key construct that can link
different levels of analysis” (p. 353). Neither Stouffer and col-
leagues (1949) nor their many accomplished successors—
including Davis (1959), Davies (1962), Runciman (1966),
Pettigrew (1967), Gurr (1970), and Crosby (1976)—were
able to specify the precise circumstances under which draw-
ing upward social comparisons would consistently lead
the disadvantaged to participate in collective action aimed
at social change. As Kinder and Sears (1985) noted: “the
deepest puzzle here is not occasional protest but pervasive
tranquility—why, in Moore’s (1978) words ‘people so often
put up with being the victims of their societies’ ” (p. 702).
Collective action does not result simply from the perception
that one’s aspirations have been violated; rather, collective
action most likely requires the dynamic interplay of a com-
plicated set of social, psychological, and political variables.
Belief in a Just World In seeking to establish a theoreti-
cal foundation in developmental psychology for his theory
of the justice motive and belief in a just world, Lerner
(1975) proposed that:
“[T]he child (in order to gain better, more secure outcomes)
develops a personal contract with the self. The terms of this
contract are simply that he/she is willing to do certain things,
give up certain things, on the assumption that a particular
desired outcome will ensue. The child designs the child’s
goal-seeking, the adult patterns his/her life around this per-
sonal contract, mainly because it is to the person’s benefit
to develop the psychology of entitlement. People want to
deserve their outcomes, get what they are entitled to receive.
The concern with one’s own deserving, or personal contract,
gets linked to the commitment to justice—to an insistence
that others get what they deserve—in various ways. . . . This
psychology of entitlement provides the inevitable basis of the
concern with justice for others.” (p. 13)
On this view, human beings want adamantly to believe
that their efforts and investments will be reciprocated; that
is, that they will be rewarded for delaying personal gratifi-
cation and participating in civilized society (Lerner, 1975,
1980). A natural extension of this “personal contract” is the
motivated belief that people’s outcomes (i.e., rewards or pun-
ishments) are caused by “who they are or what they have
done” (Lerner, 1987, p. 108). According to Lerner (1980),
people cling so strongly to this “fundamental delusion” that
any information contradicting it—such as children suffering
from terminal illness or innocent persons being victimized—
causes psychological distress. To cope with distress, people
convince themselves that the social world operates according
to rules of deservingness, namely that people “get what they
deserve and deserve what they get.” The desire (or motive)
to attain justice—both for oneself and for others—is thus
linked to the human need to commit to long-term goal pur-
suit (Hafer, Bègue, Choma, & Dempsey, 2005; Lerner, 1977,
1980; Lerner, Miller, & Holmes, 1976).
More than 40 years of empirical research has supported
specific hypotheses derived from just world theorizing
(Furnham, 2003; Hafer & Bègue, 2005; Lerner, 1980;
Lerner & Miller, 1978). Much of this work has addressed
psychological processes associated with victim derogation
(see also Napier, Mandisodza, Andersen, & Jost, 2006;
Ryan, 1971). For instance, research participants who learn
about a woman’s suffering and are denied the opportunity
to help her directly are more likely to defame her char-
acter than are participants who are able to compensate
her in some way (Lerner & Simmons, 1966). Studies of
this type suggest that people are generally threatened by
the presence of injustice and are therefore motivated to
restore justice (i.e., through reparations); however, if they
are prevented from doing so, they will engage in mental
gymnastics (such as rationalization) to deny or minimize
the unjust event (e.g., Reichle & Schmitt, 2002). Research
reveals that (when opportunities to help are blocked) many
people derogate those who are impoverished, unlucky, and
unemployed; those who are sick with cancer, pneumonia,
and HIV; and victims of sexual assault, spousal abuse,
and electric shock (Hafer & Bègue, 2005). The desire to
maintain the belief in a just world apparently even leads
people to derogate themselves for their own misfortune
(Olson & Hafer, 2001). It also encourages them to lionize
those who are the beneficiaries of luck and good fortune,
including those who are powerful and/or physically attrac-
tive (Callan, Powell, & Ellard, 2007; Dion & Dion, 1987;
Ellard & Bates, 1990; Kay, Jost, & Young, 2005).
Experimental research on the belief in a just world has
focused on victim-blaming as the most common behavioral
outcome (Hafer & Bègue, 2005), possibly because it seems
so paradoxical that the desire for justice would lead people
to treat others so unjustly. Relatively little has been done to
experimentally test other theoretical assumptions of the
original theory, to pinpoint the psychological mechanisms
involved, or to explore other possible means of satisfying
the justice motive. But, there are exceptions to this general-
ization, including the demonstration that denial, avoidance,
and distancing are effective means of coping with the threat
posed by innocent victims (Drout & Gaertner, 1994; Hafer,
2000a, 2000b; Pancer, 1988). Exposure to complementary
stereotypes in which an “illusion of equality” is created by
ascribing positive, redeeming characteristics to members
of disadvantaged groups and negative, offsetting char-
acteristics to members of advantaged groups also helps to
sustain the belief that societal arrangements are just (Jost &
Kay, 2005; Kay & Jost, 2003; Kay, Jost, et al., 2007; see
also Gaucher, Hafer, Kay, & Davidenko, in press).

To maintain the belief in a just world, people may recon-
struct (or selectively recall) details of the past, such as mis-
remembering that a smaller lottery prize was awarded to
a “bad” person than was actually the case (Callan, Kay,
Davidenko, & Ellard, in press; Haines & Jost, 2000).
Reaction-time paradigms reveal that exposure to information
that threatens (vs. satisfies) the belief in a just world (e.g.,
a criminal “getting away with it” vs. being apprehended)
produces an automatic preoccupation with justice-related
constructs (Hafer, 2000a; Kay & Jost, 2003). Knowledge of
a victim’s innocence (Correia, Vala, & Aguiar, 2007), pro-
longed suffering (Callan, Ellard, & Nicol, 2006), or status
as an ingroup member (Aguiar, Vala, Correia, & Pereira,
2008) exacerbates justice concerns at an implicit as well as
explicit level of awareness. Dalbert’s (1998, 2001, 2002)
work suggests that the belief in a just world serves an addi-
tional function that was not outlined in Lerner’s original for-
mulation of just world theory; specifically, it operates as a
personal resource that helps people cope with unjust events
that occur in their daily lives (see also Lipkus & Bissonnete,
1996; Lipkus, Dalbert, & Siegler, 1996; Schmitt & Dörfel,
1999; Tomaka & Blascovich, 1994; Vermunt, 2007). This
may help to explain its prevalence and even its high degree
of social desirability (Alves & Correia, 2008).
Research on dispositional measures of the belief in the
just world, which was initiated by Rubin and Peplau (1975)
and summarized first by Lerner and Miller (1978), has
continued more or less unabated (Furnham, 2003). Some
authors have questioned whether measuring the belief
in a just world as a relatively stable personality variable
(using explicit, self-report techniques) really captures the
motivational construct as originally described in just world
theorizing (Hafer & Bègue, 2005; Lerner, 1977, 1980), but
there is little doubt that the individual differences approach
has significantly shaped research agendas.1 Studies show
that those who score highly on the belief in a just world
are more likely to engage in victim derogation (inter
alia, Anderson, 1992; Braman & Lambert, 2001; Carr &
MacLachlan, 1998; Crandall & Martinez, 1996; Dalbert,
2002; De Judicibus & McCabe, 2001; Furnham, 1995;
Jost & Burgess, 2000; Kristiansen & Giuletti, 1990). Thus,
1
There may be more than one type of belief in a just world
(Furnham, 2003). Distinctions have been proposed, for example,
between beliefs in a just vs. unjust world (Furnham, 1985), beliefs
in a just world for the self vs. others (Bègue & Bastounis, 2003;
Lipkus, Dalbert, & Siegler, 1996; Sutton et al., 2008), and beliefs
in immanent vs. ultimate justice (Maes, 1998). Factor analyses
confirm that a multidimensional factor structure exists, but the
theoretical significance of such findings is not always entirely
clear (Hafer & Bègue, 2005).
A Typology of Social Justice Concerns 1137
as with many other variables in social and personality
psychology, there are both dispositional and situational
sources of variability in the justice motive and the need to
believe in a just world.
Deservingness and Entitlement There may be no single
theme more commonly enshrined in Western ideology than
that of individual deservingness (Kluegel & Smith, 1986;
Wegener & Liebig, 2000). It figures prominently in charac-
terizations of the Protestant work ethic (Jones, 1997; Katz &
Hass, 1988; Weber, 1958), culturally prevalent conceptions
of personal control and causation (Nisbett & Ross, 1980),
the belief in a just world (Lerner, 1980), and various system-
justifying belief systems, including meritocratic ideology
and faith in the American dream (Jost & Hunyady, 2005;
McCoy & Major, 2007). The take-home message from
empirical inquiry is that people are far more likely to feel
that the existing social, economic, or political system is fair
and just to the extent that they see recipients of various dis-
tributive outcomes (e.g., wealth and poverty) as personally
deserving of those outcomes (e.g., Jost, Blount, Pfeffer, &
Hunyady, 2003). People seem to feel more justified in dis-
criminating against those who are stigmatized on the basis
of characteristics that are seen as personally controllable,
such as obesity (e.g., Crandall, & Martinez, 1996; Puhl &
Brownell, 2003; Quinn & Crocker, 1999).
Social psychologists have devoted considerable research
attention to understanding how notions of deservingness (and
entitlement)2 are related to processes of attribution, stereo-
typing and prejudice, perceptions of discrimination, political
ideology, and appraisals of the legitimacy of social systems
(e.g., Jost & Banaji, 1994; Jost & Major, 2001; Major, 1994).
Studies show that perceptions of personal causation and
2
Feather (1994) has distinguished crisply between concepts of
deservingness and entitlement, noting that “whereas deserving-
ness pertains more to the evaluative structure of actions and their
outcomes . . . entitlement pertains more to an external, consensu-
ally based framework of laws, rights, and social norms that may
be tacitly acknowledged or more formally prescribed” (p. 368;
see also Feather, 1999). Major’s (1994) account of entitlement,
however, blurs the distinction: “If an individual fulfills certain
preconditions, he or she will feel entitled to certain outcomes.
These preconditions may be either ascribed (e.g., she is of a par-
ticular race or sex) or earned (e.g., he has made particular contri-
butions)” (p. 299). Lerner’s (1987) definition of entitlement-“a
sense of requiredness between the actor’s perceived outcomes
and attributes or acts”-similarly amalgamates the two constructs.
The important point is that symbolic and material resources are
frequently allocated on the basis of who the recipient is and what
he or she has done and that both of these are generally accepted
as fair and legitimate (see Feather, 2008).
1138 Social Justice
deservingness lead people to hold more and less favorable
attitudes toward high and low status targets, respectively
(e.g., Weiner, Perry, & Magnuson, 1988). Endorsement
of just world beliefs and system-justifying ideologies that
emphasize deservingness are associated with increased prej-
udice toward African Americans and obese people, among
other stigmatized groups (Crandall & Martinez, 1996; Rim,
1988). Attributions of deservingness act not only as causes
but also as releasers of prejudice (Crandall & Eshleman,
2003), insofar as they seem to justify the expression of
preexisting negative attitudes toward certain social groups
(Allport, 1954; Jost & Banaji, 1994). Espousing political
conservatism, which often leans heavily on the assumption
of personal deservingness (or individual responsibility), also
predicts both implicit and explicit devaluation of those who
are disadvantaged in society, including African Americans
(e.g., Crandall, 1994; Jost, Banaji, & Nosek, 2004; Jost,
Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003; Nosek, Banaji, &
Jost, 2009; Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth, & Malle, 1994;
Sears, van Laar, Carrillo, & Kosterman, 1997; Sidanius,
Pratto, & Bobo, 1996).
The concept of deservingness is useful for understanding
resentment directed at people who are extremely successful
(i.e., “tall poppies”). According to Feather (1994), people
first try to determine whether an individual is personally
responsible for their outcome; that is, the extent to which
“the outcome is assumed to be produced by the person and
related to the person’s intentions” (p. 13). Next, they con-
sider the values of the behavior and the outcome. When a
positively valued behavior is seen as leading to a positively
valued outcome (e.g., training hard to win a competitive
race) or a negatively valued behavior is seen as leading to
a negatively valued outcome (e.g., cheating and losing the
race), the perceiver will experience the outcome as deserved.
By contrast, valence mismatches between the behavior and
outcome (e.g., cheating and winning the race or training
hard and losing it) lead to perceptions that the outcomes are
undeserved. Thus, people tend to react negatively to success
that is seen as undeserved and are eager to see “tall poppies”
fall under such circumstances (Feather, 1994, 1999).
Much research, including studies of relative depriva-
tion and social comparison processes mentioned previ-
ously, has explored the ways in which people’s perceptions
of entitlement relate to issues of social justice. One use-
ful focus has been on the conditions that lead members
of disadvantaged or low status groups (such as women)
to develop a “depressed sense of entitlement” that leads
them to be satisfied with less than others receive (Blanton,
George, & Crocker, 2001; Callahan-Levy & Messé, 1979;
Hogue & Yoder, 2003; Jost, 1997; Major, 1994; Pelham &
Hetts, 2001). The endorsement of various ideological
belief systems—especially those that reinforce notions
of meritocracy and deservingness—have been associated
with the tendency for members of low status groups to
view their own state of disadvantage as relatively legiti-
mate (Crandall, 1994; Jost, 1995; Jost, Banaji, & Nosek,
2004; Olson & Hafer, 2001; Quinn & Crocker, 1999). For
example, women who score higher on the belief in a just
world are less likely to report career-related discontentment
(Hafer & Olson, 1993), and ethnic minorities who espouse
the belief that it is possible to climb the status hierarchy are
less likely to view negative outcomes as due to discrimina-
tion or unfairness (Major et al., 2002).
There is also experimental work showing that “depressed
entitlement” (and tolerance of injustice more generally) can
be produced or exacerbated under specific situational condi-
tions. For instance, priming members of a low status group
with meritocratic ideals makes them less likely to regard
unfair treatment (by a higher status group member) as caused
by sexism or discrimination (McCoy & Major, 2007; see also
Biernat, Vescio, & Theno, 1996; Jost & Kay, 2005; Quinn &
Crocker, 1999). Research on system justification theory
similarly suggests that people may be motivated (for epis-
temic, existential, and relational reasons) to view inequalities
among individuals and groups as fair, legitimate, and defen-
sible rather than due to discrimination, unfairness, or his-
torical accident (e.g., Jost, Banaji, & Nosek, 2004). As with
regard to the belief in a just world and many other areas of
social justice research, system justification tendencies vary
as a function of both dispositional and situational vari-
ables (Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003; Jost &
Hunyady, 2005; Kay & Zanna, 2009; Kay, Gaucher, Peach,
Laurin, Friesen, Zanna, & Spencer, 2009).
Social Dilemmas Social dilemmas are situations that pit
self-interest against collective interest. Although scholarly
interest in these situations typically derives from an interest in
how people with “mixed motives” make difficult decisions,
there are clear implications for social justice—principally
for the distribution of resources across individuals and
even across generations of individuals. Experimentally cre-
ated social dilemmas involve two essential characteristics:
“(a) at any given decision point, individuals receive higher
payoffs for making selfish choices than they do for making
cooperative choices . . . and (b) everyone involved receives
lower payoffs if everyone makes selfish choices than if
everyone makes cooperative choices” (Weber, Kopelman, &
Messick, 2004, p. 281). Defined in these terms, there are
three major classes of social dilemmas (i.e., miniature social
systems) studied by experimentalists (Komorita & Parks,
1995). These are the prisoner ’s dilemma, in which two indi-
viduals must choose between “cooperating” and “defect-
ing,” with the knowledge that, although defecting will offer
an individual the highest possible payoff when his or her

partner cooperates, if both defect, the outcome will be sig-
nificantly worse than if both cooperate; the public goods
game, in which people must decide how much to contribute
to a common resource pool that others will benefit from,
regardless of how much they actually contributed; and the
resource dilemma, in which all group members are able to
draw from a given resource pool, but with the awareness
that overharvesting will deplete it entirely (because the
resource is replenished only occasionally).
Although cooperative, prosocial behavior is by no means
unheard of in these types of situations, it is less common
overall than is competitive, self-interested behavior. People
cooperate roughly 30%–40% of the time in laboratory stud-
ies, aggregating across different types of social dilemmas
(Komorita & Parks, 1995). Because competitive strategies
violate principles of equality and (assuming equivalent
inputs) equity, understanding the factors that inhibit compe-
tition and promote cooperation is an important goal of social
justice research (Schroeder, Steel, Woodell, & Bembenek,
2003). A comprehensive research literature (produced by
social psychologists, economists, sociologists, political sci-
entists, and others) highlights numerous factors associated
with cooperative behavior in social dilemma situations,
including shared social identification (Kramer & Brewer,
1984). Many excellent reviews of this literature exist, and
theoretical integration has been achieved to a considerable
extent (see Kollock, 1998; Komorita & Parks, 1995, 1996;
Weber, Kopelman, & Messick, 2004). Thus, our summary
will be confined to those empirical insights that speak most
readily to the theme of social justice.
Individual Differences A fruitful focus of research has
addressed individual differences in social value orientation—
that is, the extent to which people are concerned with self ver-
sus other regarding preferences and/or outcomes (Messick
& McClintock, 1968; Van Lange, 2000). Individuals who
hold prosocial orientations are more likely to cooperate in
social dilemmas than are individuals with “proself”—or,
as Aristotle would say, “grasping”—orientations (Bogaert,
Boone, & Declerck, 2008; De Cremer & Van Lange, 2001;
De Cremer & Van Vugt, 1999; Kollock, 1998; Kramer,
McClintock, & Messick, 1986; Smeesters, Warlop, Van
Avermaet, Corneille, & Yzerbyt, 2003; Weber, Kopelman, &
Messick, 2004). Prosocial individuals are more likely than
others to restrict their take of scarce resources (Roch &
Samuelson, 1997), conserve environmental resources for
the greater good (Van Vugt, Meertens, & Van Lange, 1995),
and volunteer their time to help others (McClintock &
Allison, 1989). They are also more likely to value equal-
ity of outcomes than are proselfs (Eek & Gärling, 2006).
A similar distinction has been proposed between “altruistic
cooperators,” who seem to be more interested in positive
A Typology of Social Justice Concerns 1139
outcomes for others than for themselves, and “reciprocal
cooperators,” who engage in prosocial behavior only to the
extent that they expect others to reciprocate (Kurzban &
Houser, 2001; Perugini & Galluci, 2001).
But why, exactly, do prosocials cooperate more than
proselfs? Two major explanations have been offered. First,
it has been suggested that prosocials are more likely to
construe the goal of social dilemma situations in terms of
maximizing collective (as opposed to individual) rationality
(Liebrand, Jansen, Rijken, & Suhre, 1986; Simpson, 2004;
Utz, Ouwerkerk, & Van Lange, 2004). Second, it is possible
that prosocials are more likely than proselfs to expect that
others will cooperate rather than defect (e.g., Smeesters,
Warlop, Van Avermaet, Corneille, & Yzerbyt, 2003).
Interested readers are directed to more detailed reviews of
how social value orientation (Bogaert, Boone, & Declerck,
2008) and other individual difference variables (Van Lange,
De Cremer, Van Dijk, & Van Vugt, 2007) predict behav-
ior in experimentally created social dilemmas. The general
assumption is that justice-related behavior in these situa-
tions has fairly deep roots both in personality and social-
ization experiences (Au & Kwong, 2004; De Cremer & Van
Lange, 2001; J. T. Jost & L. J. Jost, 2009; Kuhlman, Camac,
& Cunha, 1986; Van Lange, 2000).
Structural Factors Several studies have investigated
the influence of dilemma structure on cooperative versus
competitive behavior. For instance, cooperation increases
whenever structural changes (such as direct social con-
tact) foster the development of a common group iden-
tity (Gächter & Fehr, 1999; Kramer & Brewer, 1984;
Orbell, Van de Kragt, & Dawes, 1988; Wit & Kerr, 2002).
Although systems for monitoring and sanctioning the indi-
vidual’s behavior may be effective when they are firmly
in place, they tend to undermine subsequent cooperation
once they are removed because they reduce perceptions
of others’ cooperative intent (Yamagishi, 1988; see also
Mulder, van Dijk, De Cremer, & Wilke, 2006; Tyler &
Jost, 2007). When people are highly uncertain about the
availability of a collective resource, they expect that others
will engage in greater harvesting behavior and also har-
vest more resources themselves (Budescu, Rapoport, &
Suleiman, 1990; Gustafsson, Biel, & Gärling, 1999; but see
de Kwaadsteniet, van Dijk, Wit, De Cremer, & de Rooij,
2007; Van Dijk, Wilke, Wilke, & Metman, 1999; Wit &
Wilke, 1998).
One common response to social dilemma situations is to
appoint a leader who is expected to oversee the distribution
of resources (Hardin, 1968). Studies show that group mem-
bers are, indeed, more likely to appoint a leader when they
are aware that a valued resource is being rapidly depleted
(Messick et al., 1983) and when the use of resources is
1140 Social Justice
otherwise difficult to oversee (Samuelson, 1991). Group
identification, as usual, plays an important role in determin-
ing the behavior of leaders and followers (Tajfel & Turner,
1986). Those who identify strongly (vs. weakly) with their
group are more likely to support the democratic election of
a leader (Van Vugt & De Cremer, 1999) and to be inspired
by committed, fair leaders to increase their level of coopera-
tion (De Cremer & Van Vugt, 2002). However, leaders may
develop a sense of elevated entitlement, abandon norms of
equality, and reserve an overabundance of resources for
themselves—especially when they have been appointed
rather than elected (De Cremer & Van Dijk, 2005). On the
other hand, charismatic leaders can be effective at inducing
even “proselfs” to cooperate (De Cremer, 2002), whereas
autocratic leaders increase the likelihood that members will
abandon the group when faced with a conflict between per-
sonal and group interests (Van Vugt, Jepson, Hart, & De
Cremer, 2004). These and other findings attest to the endur-
ing significance of Lewin’s distinction between democratic
versus autocratic leadership—and Deutsch’s extrapolation
to cooperative versus competitive social systems—for ana-
lyzing justice-related procedures and outcomes.
The choice of whether to cooperate or not when con-
fronted with a social dilemma depends to a great extent on
how the situation is “framed” (or construed). Does it call for
cooperation and the privileging of collective (or communal)
interests? Or does it offer a chance to maximize one’s own
outcomes? Subtle manipulations can influence the extent to
which the same social dilemma situation is seen through one
or the other of these frames. Specifically, the use of differ-
ent labels (Batson & Moran, 1999; Liberman, Samuels, &
Ross, 2004) or metaphors (Allison, Beggan, & Midgley,
1999) within the context of the same dilemma affects coop-
eration rates. Furthermore, the priming of specific mindsets
(Elliott, Hayward, & Canon, 1998) and even incidental
exposure to objects that symbolize competitiveness ver-
sus cooperativeness (Kay, Wheeler, Bargh, & Ross, 2004)
can lead people to construe the same dilemma situation in
drastically different terms and, therefore, to behave in more
or less prosocial ways (Kay & Ross, 2003; Tenbrunsel &
Messick, 1999; Weber, Kopelman, & Messick, 2004).
Procedural Justice
Although the terms “social justice” and “distributive justice”
are often used interchangeably by philosophers and layper-
sons (e.g., Miller, 1999), social scientists in recent decades
have come to recognize that justice considerations pertain not
merely to the allocation of resources but also to the methods
or procedures by which decisions are made at work, in politi-
cal life, in the family, etc. A major thrust of contemporary
social psychological research has demonstrated that justice
appraisals are determined at least as much, if not more, by
the perceived fairness of procedural versus distributive fac-
tors (e.g., Tyler & Smith, 1998). The pioneers of this research
tradition, Thibaut and Walker (1975), were primarily inter-
ested in third-party decision making, such as legal decisions
made by judges or juries (see also Leventhal, 1980). This
work demonstrated that the perceived fairness of the specific
procedures used to render a verdict or decision influences
people’s evaluations of both the final outcome and the deci-
sion maker. Researchers have not looked back since; there
has been far more research on aspects of procedural justice
than on aspects of other types (including distributive jus-
tice) over the past quarter of a century.
“Voice” and Other Procedural Justice Criteria
According to Walker, Lind, and Thibaut (1979), “the belief
that the techniques used to resolve a dispute are fair and
satisfying in themselves” (p. 1402) follows from two major
procedural features: “(a) process control, referring to how
much people are allowed to present evidence on their behalf
before the decision is made, and (b) decision control; that
is, whether individuals have any say in the actual rendering
of the decision” (Brockner & Wiesenfeld, 1996, p. 189; see
also Ambrose & Arnaud, 2005). That is, people want to
know that they will have input into (and are therefore able
to exert at least some influence over) the decision-making
process as well as the decision itself. Thibaut and Walker
(1975) proposed that when people possess these two types
of perceived control they are able to trust that procedures
will be fair and that their short-term and especially long-
term outcomes will be favorable in general (but see Azzi &
Jost, 1997 for an application to majority–minority inter-
group relations).
Research has been supportive of the notion that process
control (i.e., the chance to present one’s own “side” to a
third-party decision maker) is a fundamental determinant
of justice appraisals (e.g., Houlden, LaTour, Walker, &
Thibaut, 1978; Thibaut & Walker, 1975; cf. Shapiro & Brett,
2005). Thibaut and Walker’s pioneering work has influenced
myriad research programs, including research on the so-
called “voice effect;” that is, the demonstration that the
opportunity to express one’s views or feelings during
the course of the decision-making process significantly
increases perceptions of procedural fairness (Folger, 1977;
Lind & Tyler, 1988; Van den Bos, 2005). Studies show
that the presence of voice affects not only justice judg-
ments but is also associated with increased positive affect,
decreased negative affect, and greater trust in authorities
(e.g., Brockner et al., 1998; Folger, Rosenfeld, Grove, &
Corkran, 1979; Lind, Kanfer, & Earley, 1990; Lind & Tyler,
1988; Shapiro & Brett, 2005; Tyler & Blader, 2003; Tyler,
Rasinki, & Spodick, 1985; Van den Bos, Wilke, & Lind,

1998; Van Prooijen, Karremans, & van Beest, 2006; Van
Prooijen, Van den Bos, & Wilke, 2004).
At the same time, voice is by no means the only vari-
able that influences perceptions of procedural justice.
Leventhal, Karuza, and Fry (1980) identified six factors
that can contribute to justice appraisals. To be considered
fair, they argued, decisions must be made (a) consistently
across instances and time periods; (b) neutrally, that is,
without bias, preconceptions, or self-interest; (c) on the
basis of accurate information; (d) with an opportunity to
make corrections if necessary; (e) in consideration of the
interests of all relevant parties; and (f) ethically. Leventhal
(1980) pointed out that, depending upon the specific cir-
cumstances, some of these “rules” may be weighted more
heavily than others. Consistent with this view, situational
differences (e.g., variability in the formality of a given
decision-making setting) affect the criteria that people
use in making judgments of procedural fairness (Barrett-
Howard & Tyler, 1986). Nevertheless, aggregating across
a wide range of situations, people tend to prioritize three of
these criteria—consistency, accuracy, and ethicality—in
determining whether procedural justice requirements have
been satisfied (Barrett-Howard & Tyler, 1986; Lind &
Tyler, 1988).
Skitka (2002; Skitka & Houston, 2001; Skitka & Mullen,
2002) has argued that procedural justice concerns are sus-
pended when people perceive “moral mandates”; that is,
when they feel especially strongly about a specific issue
or outcome, such as whether or not abortion is legally pro-
tected. Moral mandates, as defined by Skitka and her col-
leagues, are to be distinguished from strongly held attitudes
(Skitka, Bauman, & Sargis, 2005) and are associated with
anger directed at those who are seen as violating them
(Mullen & Skitka, 2006). On the basis of her research, Skitka
(2002) concluded that “when people have a moral mandate
about an outcome, any means justifies the mandated end”
and “fair procedures do not ameliorate the sense of injus-
tice people experience when a morally mandated outcome
is threatened or rejected” (p. 594). Napier and Tyler (2008)
reviewed this evidence and arrived at a different conclusion,
namely that even when people experience intense moral
conviction about a given issue (e.g., immigration, abortion,
or civil rights), they are still more likely to accept a decision
made by authorities when they believe that procedural fair-
ness norms have been observed than when they have not
(see also Gibson, 2008; Tyler & Mitchell, 1994).
Why Do People Care About Procedures?
There is little question that procedural characteristics affect
overall perceptions of fairness and satisfaction and also
exert downstream effects on an extremely wide range of
social and organizational variables (Van den Bos, 2005, pp.
A Typology of Social Justice Concerns 1141
274–277; see also Greenberg, 1993; Sweeney & McFarlin,
1993). At the same time, different theoretical models of
procedural justice emphasize distinctive (and sometimes
competing) underlying causes of procedural justice effects
(e.g., Cropanzano & Folger, 1989; Lind & Tyler, 1988;
Thibaut & Walker, 1975; Tyler & Lind, 1992; Van den Bos &
Lind, 2002). The question is why people care as much as
they do about the procedures that are used to determine
their outcomes and not just about the favorability of the
outcomes themselves.
Instrumental Models Thibaut and Walker (1975) initially
proposed that people seek control (or voice) over both the
process and decision because they want to ensure that
the ultimate outcome will be fair and favorable (see also
Walker, Lind, & Thibaut, 1979).3 The benefits of procedural
fairness, in other words, were assumed to be tangible and
instrumental. Given the fact that people often exhibit naïve
realism by seeing their own “side” in a dispute as more cor-
rect and reasonable in comparison with that of their adver-
saries (Ross & Ward, 1996), it is possible to view the desire
for fair procedures as a subtle expression of self-interest
motivation (Folger et al., 1979; Shapiro & Brett, 2005;
Tyler, 1994; Van Proojien et al., 2008). However, this inter-
pretation was not the one favored by Thibaut and Walker.
As Van den Bos (2005) noted, “An important aspect of the
Thibaut and Walker (1975) model was the focus on whether
people received fair outcomes and not so much on how
favorable outcomes were to people . . . It is therefore more
appropriate to label these authors’ theory as the ‘instrumen-
tal model,’ and . . . it is wrong to call this the ‘self-interest
model’ ” (p. 284).
Relational Models A clear alternative to instrumen-
tal explanations for why people care about procedural
justice emerges from relational models of procedural
justice (Tyler & Lind, 1992), such as the group-value
model (Lind & Tyler, 1988). The basic idea is that peo-
ple are concerned about the fairness of procedures largely
because of the implications that these procedures hold for
their feelings of self-worth, which are often derived from
processes of social identification (Tajfel & Turner, 1986).
3
Referent cognitions theory provides yet another account of
procedural justice effects (Cropanzano & Folger, 1989; Folger,
1986). From this perspective, when a procedure is experienced
as unfair, people begin to compare what actually happened to
what “could” have happened. To the extent that other referents
are available, that is, if people can easily imagine an alternative
procedure, negative reactions (including perceptions of injustice)
are more likely to ensue (see also Van den Bos, Lind, Vermunt, &
Wilke, 1997).
1142 Social Justice
As Tyler (1994) explains, “The basic assumption of the
relational model is that people are predisposed to belong
to social groups and that they are attentive to signs and
symbols that communicate information about their posi-
tion within groups” (p. 851). The quality of procedures, it
is argued, reflects the extent to which people are valued,
respected, and understood by decision-making authorities.
The notion that individuals would be strongly motivated to
obtain information about social standing is consistent not
only with social identity theory but also with models of
social belongingness, reputation, and shared reality (e.g.,
Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Hardin & Higgins, 1996).
Relational models of procedural justice can help to explain
“voice” effects, insofar as the opportunity to express one’s
own point of view allows individuals to express their values
to fellow group members and authorities (Lind, Kanfer, &
Earley, 1990; Tyler, 1987). Such models also bring to the
fore other benefits of procedural arrangements, including
the communication and building up of trust, standing, and
social status (Tyler, 1989; Van Prooijen, Van den Bos, &
Wilke, 2002). People do infer from procedural treatment the
extent to which authorities accord them with trust, standing,
respect, and value, and consider them to be worthy group
members (e.g., Heuer, Blumenthal, Douglas, & Weinblatt,
1999; Huo, 2002; Smith, Tyler, Huo, Ortiz, & Lind, 1998;
Tyler, 1994; Tyler, Degoey, & Smith, 1996). To put the
same point more negatively and, consequently, more dra-
matically, to treat someone unjustly is to deny them the ben-
efits and trappings of social belongingness (see Baumeister
& Leary, 1995).
Epistemic Models Social comparison processes are
fundamental to prominent models of distributive justice,
including theories of relative deprivation (Crosby, 1976),
equity (Walster, Walster, & Berscheid, 1978), equality and
need (Deutsch, 1975), and perceived entitlement (Major,
1994). That is, people often decide whether they have been
treated fairly by comparing their own situation to that of
relevant others (or, in the case of equity theory, comparing
their own ratio of inputs to outputs to the ratios of oth-
ers). In the real world, however, many people are largely
ignorant about the sizes of their colleagues’ salaries, their
neighbors’ inheritances, and their friends’ tax breaks; thus,
it is often difficult to make direct social comparisons,
and many justice appraisals are made under conditions of
uncertainty.
It has been suggested that people often rely on procedures
as heuristic substitutes for social comparison information
(Van den Bos & Lind, 2002; Van den Bos, Lind, Vermunt, &
Wilke, 1997). In the absence of unambiguous information
with which to draw conclusions about distributive justice,
for example, people are compelled to rely on procedural
information (Skitka, 2002; Van den Bos, Wilke, Lind, &
Vermunt, 1998).4 Even abstract experimental manipulations
of general self-uncertainty (having nothing to do with ques-
tions of fairness) are capable of increasing participants’ atten-
tion to the procedural aspects of a given situation (see Van
den Bos, 2001; Van den Bos, Wilke, & Lind, 1998; see also
Diekmann, Barsness & Sondak, 2004, for an organizational
field study).
Interactional (or Informal) Justice
The philosopher Frankena (1962) observed that “society
does not consist merely of the law or the state: it has also a
more informal aspect, comprised of its cultural institutions,
conventions, moral rules, and moral sanctions.” Thus, he
argued, “In order for society to be fully just, it must be just
in its informal as well as in its formal aspect” (p. 2). If this
is correct, then it is possible to speak of social injustice
as arising not merely as a consequence of unfair treatment
proffered by institutionally sanctioned authority figures,
such as politicians, judges, police officers, bosses, teach-
ers, and so on, but also on the basis of how citizens tend to
treat one another. It is in this sense that prejudice, discrimi-
nation, and authoritarianism on the part of ordinary citizens
can contribute to a social climate that is undemocratic and
fundamentally unjust, as Lewin (1939/1948a) noted with
regard to fascist society. Several models of interpersonal
justice have been put forth by social and organizational
psychologists over the years; few of them deal explicitly
with behavior or circumstances that are as extreme as those
associated with fascism, but the models clearly do involve
a broader conception of social justice than is suggested by
more formal models of distributive or procedural justice.
Fairness of Interpersonal Treatment
Tyler and Lind (1992; Tyler, 1989) deserve credit for high-
lighting a number of ways in which aspects of social inter-
action affect perceptions of procedural justice (see also
Leventhal, 1980; Thibaut & Walker, 1975). This idea was
taken further by Bies and colleagues (Bies & Moag, 1986;
4
Brockner & Wiesenfeld (1996) have also noted that perceptions
of procedural and distributive justice frequently interact with one
another, such that “when outcomes are unfair or have a negative
valence, procedural justice is more likely to have a direct effect
on individuals’ reactions”; “when procedural justice is relatively
low, outcome favorability is more apt to be positively correlated
with individuals’ reactions”; and “the combination of low pro-
cedural fairness and low outcome favorability engenders par-
ticularly negative reactions” (p. 191; regarding implications for
self-evaluation, see also Brockner, Heuer, & Magner, 2003).

Folger & Bies, 1989; Tyler & Bies, 1990), who distinguished
between “structural” and “interactional” components of
decision-making procedures. In stressing the importance
of the latter, Bies and Moag (1986) noted that people are
sensitive not merely to the structure or content of a given
procedure, but also to the “quality of interpersonal treat-
ment they receive during the enactment of organizational
procedures” (p. 44; see also Colquitt, Greenberg, & Zapata-
Phelan, 2005). In other words, people do not just want fair
procedures at work and elsewhere; they also want fair treat-
ment in a much broader sense.
What constitutes fair interpersonal treatment? Bies
and Moag (1986) initially focused on four aspects of
social interaction: respect, truthfulness, justification (i.e.,
the provision of timely, adequate explanations for deci-
sions), and propriety (i.e., sensitivity, appropriateness, and
the avoidance of prejudicial treatment). The data speak
favorably with respect to the predictive validity of each
of these four facets of interactional justice (e.g., Colquitt,
2001; Colquitt, Conlon, Wesson, Porter, & Ng, 2001). This
has only encouraged researchers to continue nominating
additional candidates, such as dignity, the provision of
feedback, and consideration of employees’ (and other con-
stituents’) views (Folger & Bies, 1989; Greenberg, Bies, &
Eskew, 1991; Tyler & Bies, 1990). Some authors have
suggested that interactional justice is comprised of two
separate constructs, namely informational justice, which
emphasizes communicative aspects, such as truthfulness
and justification, and interpersonal justice, which guar-
antees sensitive, respectful, and appropriate treatment.
(See Bies, 2005; Colquitt, 2001; Greenberg, 1993).
Relationship Between Procedural and
Interactional Justice
More than 20 years of research (most of which comes from
the field of organizational behavior) confirms that percep-
tions of interactional justice help to explain how employ-
ees and others respond to decisions made by authority
figures (Bies, 2005; Colquitt, Conlon, Wesson, Porter, &
Ng., 2001; Colquitt, Greenberg, & Zapata-Phelan, 2005).
Everyone agrees that—in addition to or in conjunction
with formal mechanisms, such as rules and policies—
informal aspects of social interaction matter a great deal
when people are asked to evaluate the fairness of proce-
dures and outcomes. Nevertheless, scholars disagree con-
siderably about whether interactional justice concerns
should fall under the rubric of procedural justice or be
considered an entirely independent type of justice con-
cern (see Bies, 2001, 2005; Bobocel & Holmvall, 2001;
Colquitt, Greenberg, & Zapata-Phelan, 2005; Greenberg,
1993; Tyler & Blader, 2003). A fair amount of ink has been
spilled in an effort to resolve this question, but from our
A Typology of Social Justice Concerns 1143
point of view the study of social justice is too important to
be mired in semantic or taxonomic disputes for long. There
may well be circumstances in which it is useful to distin-
guish between cases involving procedural (or formal) and
interactional (or informal) justice, but little is gained by
exaggerating or reifying such divisions. It seems reason-
able enough to assume that procedural justice and interac-
tional justice constitute two important aspects of “fairness
of treatment” (Van den Bos, 2005).
Probably the most compelling empirical case for sepa-
rating the constructs comes from a series of studies sug-
gesting that people spontaneously distinguish between
structural and interactional aspects of procedures (see
Bies, 2001). However, mapping this difference onto the con-
cepts of procedural and interactional justice requires one to
define procedural justice solely in terms of formal, struc-
tural aspects of procedures (Bobocel & Holmvall, 2001). In
point of fact, the most influential research and theorizing on
procedural justice does not treat procedural justice in such
limited terms; rather, it views interpersonal treatment as a key
determinant of perceptions of procedural justice (Folger &
Bies, 1989; Lind & Tyler, 1988; Tyler & Bies, 1990;
Tyler & Blader, 2000; Tyler & Lind, 1992). For example,
relational models of procedural justice (e.g., group-value
and group engagement models) stress that both formal
structures and mechanisms and the manner in which these
are implemented (i.e., fairness of treatment) are important
for the same social psychological reasons: they signal one’s
degree of social acceptance, group inclusion, status, and
worth (Tyler & Blader, 2003).
The notion that procedural and interactional justice are
partially overlapping constructs also emerges from the
research literature on themes of insult and disrespect, inso-
far as these refer to both qualities of treatment and social
outcomes in themselves (see Miller, 2001, for a review).
People tend to experience a wide range of violations,
including structural forms of injustice, poor interpersonal
treatment, and receipt of inequitable outcomes, as upset-
ting at least in part because they convey some measure of
disrespect. Additional facts—such as the observation that
people respond more harshly to perceived injustices when
they are committed publicly rather than privately and that
apologies can be quite effective at alleviating the sense
of injustice—are supportive of the notion that feelings of
injustice and disrespect are intertwined (Miller, 2001).
At the same time, there is some evidence indicating that
people sometimes react differently to procedural versus
interactional violations. Perceptions of procedural justice
predict reactions to and evaluations of the system (e.g.,
one’s organization), whereas perceptions of interactional
justice predict reactions to and evaluations of representa-
tives of the system (e.g., supervisors) who communicate the
1144 Social Justice

decisions (Ambrose, Seabright, & Schminke, 2002; Aryee, schemes are typically seen as reasonable and legitimate by
Budhwar, & Chen, 2002; Colquitt, 2001; Fuller & Hester, the public at large—indeed, they are seen as cornerstones
2001). These results are easily interpretable from the of the “justice system.” But how, specifically, are these
standpoint of social exchange theories (e.g., Cropanzano, systems of punishment justified or, more precisely, “jus-
Prehar, & Chen, 2002; Masterson, Lewis, Goldman, & ticized?” Questions such as these have been investigated
Taylor, 2000). To the extent that people view rules and pro- most directly by scholars focused on the study of retributive
cedures as under the control of the system, the perceived justice concerns, namely the question of “how people who
fairness of formal procedures should affect the “relation- have intentionally committed known, morally wrong actions
ship” that people develop with the system. Likewise, to the that either directly or indirectly harm others, should be pun-
extent that people view the quality of interpersonal treat- ished for their misdeeds” (Carlsmith & Darley, 2008).
ment they receive as under the control of the person (or
persons) with whom they are interacting, the perceived Is Vengeance Ours?
fairness of treatment should affect the relationships that
Two broad kinds of justifications for punishment have
people develop with those specific actors.
been offered, both of which originate in the seminal work
Finally, meta-analytic evidence reveals that procedural
of moral philosophers. Bentham (1962/1843) argued that
and interactional justice concerns are indeed correlated and
punishment, to be justified, must serve some utilitarian pur-
partially overlapping, but they do predict somewhat differ-
pose; that is, it must benefit society overall—making social
ent behavioral responses (Cohen-Charash & Spector, 2001;
life better or happier in some important way (cf. Greene &
Colquitt, Conlon, Wesson, Porter, & Ng, 2001). Informational
Cohen, 2004). How might punishment benefit society? It is
and interpersonal justice concerns also predict somewhat
certainly possible that the threat and/or execution of pun-
different behavioral outcomes (Colquitt, 2001; Greenberg,
ishment serves to prevent or reduce the number of poten-
1993; Kernan & Hanges, 2001). However, to justify con-
tial acts of injustice. Whether through specific deterrence
ceptualizing procedural and interactional justice perceptions
(which aims to punish an offender sufficiently to deter him
as fundamentally different phenomena, one would want to
or her from committing similar offenses in the future), inca-
show that structural and interpersonal aspects of procedures
pacitation (in which an offender is temporarily or even per-
exert their influence on justice-related judgments and behav-
manently prevented from committing additional offenses
iors through different psychological mechanisms (Bobocel &
through incarceration or some other method), or general
Holmvall, 2001; Miller, 2001). Apparently, this has yet to be
deterrence (in which certain individuals are punished so as
demonstrated. But, rather than seeking to neatly compart-
to deter others from committing similar offenses), a utilitar-
mentalize different areas of social justice research, a better
ian approach emphasizes the potential benefits punishment
strategy for conveying the theoretical and practical signifi-
can have for society as a whole.
cance of interactional justice might be to broaden the range
Kant (1790/1952) offered a different justification for
of phenomena to be understood and explained. For example,
punishment. He argued that punishment was fair insofar
experimental and other studies of hostility, aggression, stig-
as people deserve to be punished for immoral behavior;
matization, harassment, social exclusion, and inappropriate
punishment “balances the scales,” so to speak. From a just-
humor are not necessarily considered part of the social jus-
deserts perspective such as this, the worse the perpetrator’s
tice canon, but this work should be incorporated, insofar as it
actions, the harsher the punishment that is required to
speaks directly to the ways in which individuals are or are not
restore justice. As Kant said, punishment “should be pro-
treated with dignity and respect in their daily lives and why
nounced over all criminals in proportion to their wicked-
(e.g., Bargh, Raymond, Pryor, & Strack, 1995; Ford, Boxer,
ness” (as cited in Carlsmith, Darley, & Robinson, 2002,
Armstrong, & Edel, 2008; Gelfand, Fitzgerald, & Drasgow,
p. 397). Although there are clear parallels here to equity
1995; Kurzban & Leary, 2001; Link & Phelan, 2001;
theory and other work on distributive justice, Carlsmith and
Maass, Cadinu, Guarnieri, & Grasselli, 2003; Rudman &
Darley (2008) distinguish between concepts of distributive
Ashmore, 2007; Struch & Schwartz, 1989; Watson,
and retributive justice as follows:
Ottati, & Corrigan, 2003).
[D]istributive justice theories tend to assume positive outcomes
Retributive Justice and are concerned with whether those positive outcomes should
be shared out equally, equitably . . . or on the basis of needs.
Following acts of clear injustice, individuals, groups, and In keeping with the standard conventions in this area, we will
societies often enact some form of punishment. When appre- reserve the term “distributive justice” to discuss reward alloca-
hended and found guilty, perpetrators are jailed, fined, or in tions, and use “retributive justice” to refer to punishments that
some way reprimanded for their actions. Such punishment people deserve for their wrongdoing. (p. 195)

Increasingly, researchers have sought to flesh out the social
psychological underpinnings of support for policies that
involve punishment. Generally, the aim is not to understand
the best or most rational reasons to support policies of pun-
ishment (the normative question), but to discover why peo-
ple support such policies, regardless of the objective quality
of the reasons for their support (the descriptive question).
For instance, researchers have pitted utilitarian, deterrence-
related concerns against Kantian notions of just-deserts to
determine which is the stronger motivation of support for
strict punishment (Carlsmith, 2006; Carlsmith, Darley, &
Robinson, 2002; Darley, Carlsmith, & Robinson, 2000).
One firm conclusion emerges from these studies: People
are far more attuned to the severity of a crime and its moral
significance when assigning punishment than they are to
information pertaining to the likelihood of either general
or specific deterrence (Carlsmith & Darley, 2008; Darley
& Pittman, 2003; Kahneman, Schkade, & Sunstein, 1998;
McFatter, 1982).
More specifically, the desire for retribution is motivated
by the perceived immorality of unjust behavior and the
moral outrage that accompanies such perceptions. Studies
show that people actively search for information related to
morality when assigning punishment, that moral culpability
and seriousness influence the harshness of recommended
punishment, and that moral outrage mediates the relation-
ship between the severity of an offense and recommended
punishments (Carlsmith, 2006; Carlsmith, Darley, &
Robinson, 2002; Darley, Carlsmith, & Robinson, 2000).
Cultural and religious norms affect specific attitudes about
retributive and other forms of justice (Cohen & Rozin,
2001; Henrich et al., 2001), but the desire to punish those
who commit serious transgressions seems fairly universal.
A fascinating contrast exists between the objective deter-
minants of punishment attitudes, which are largely Kantian,
and the subjective reasons that people give in explaining
their support for punishment, which lean toward utilitari-
anism (e.g., Ellsworth & Ross, 1983). Such a divergence
has been observed, for example, in the dramatic context
of debates over the use of torture in U.S. military prisons
abroad. Although people who endorse torture generally
say that their opinion is driven by their conviction that it
successfully prevents future harm, experimental evidence
reveals that support for harsh interrogation tactics is pre-
dicted by the perceived moral status of the target, and not
by information concerning the likely effectiveness of the
interrogation process (Carlsmith, 2008; Carlsmith & Sood,
2009; Janoff-Bulman, 2007). The motivation to justify the
social system also plays a role in popular support for tor-
ture, insofar as citizens deem torture to be more accept-
able and justifiable to the extent that it is seen as part of
the societal status quo; that is, when they are told (falsely)
A Typology of Social Justice Concerns 1145
that the nation’s military has been practicing torture for 40
years (Crandall, Eidelman, Skitka, & Morgan, 2009).
Studies such as these raise the important possibility that
people may be actually motivated (consciously or uncon-
sciously) to support highly aggressive forms of retribu-
tion (such as torture and capital punishment) by one set of
justice-related reasons (e.g., intuitions about fairness and
deservingness) or even nonjustice-related reasons, such as
authoritarianism, social dominance, or racial prejudice (e.g.,
Dambrun, 2007; Ho, ForsterLee, ForsterLee, & Crofts, 2002;
Johnson, Whitestone, Jackson, & Gatto, 1995; McKee &
Feather, 2008; Rossi & Berk, 1997; Sidanius, Mitchell,
Haley, & Navarrete, 2006) and yet offer a different set of
justice-related reasons (e.g., utilitarianism, deterrence) as
post hoc justifications or rationalizations for taking or sup-
porting punitive action. Such a possibility is broadly consis-
tent with the notion that moral judgment is often the result
of automatic, intuitive judgments, rather than deliberative
reasoning (Darley & Pittman, 2003; Haidt, 2001).
A far more optimistic image of retributive justice motives
comes from theoretical models that emphasize the desire to
affirm group or community values or standards (Tyler &
Boeckman, 1997; Vidmar, 2002). The guiding idea is that
unjust actions threaten the assumption that social consensus
exists with regard to justice and morality and that meting
out punishment can be an effective way of affirming shared
values (Wenzel & Thielman, 2006). From this perspective,
punishment serves to communicate the group’s values and
may therefore repair feelings of social identification—
feelings that can be damaged when group members are
confronted with an explicit challenge to their values
(Vidmar, 2000). However, if one’s primary goal in assign-
ing punishment is to reaffirm social values and the consen-
sus of group norms, restorative justice—which involves
coming up with prosocial alternatives to traditional forms
of punishment—is probably a better option.
Restorative Justice
The concept of restorative justice represents an alternative
to traditional ways of thinking about crime and punishment
(Bazemore, 1998; Braithwaite, 1989; Roberts & Stalans,
2004). More than any other approach discussed in this
chapter (and perhaps even the entire Handbook), notions
about restorative justice have developed out of professional
practice rather than academic circles. As a result, restor-
ative justice procedures have unfolded in realistic settings
in fascinating ways, but there has been tremendous vari-
ety and, therefore, imprecision concerning the definition
of restorative justice practices. Although the goals of most
restorative justice programs appear to be similar, the meth-
ods for achieving them differ considerably. Roche (2006)
1146 Social Justice
offered the following description: “One way to think of
restorative justice is simply as a particular method for deal-
ing with crime that brings together an offender, his or her
victims, and their respective families and friends to discuss
the aftermath of an incident, and the steps that can be taken
to repair the harm an offender has done” (p. 217). Thus,
rather than relying on a third party to impose a unilateral
punishment upon a particular offender, restorative justice
programs give the justice process “back to their rightful
owners: offenders, victims, and their respective communi-
ties” (Wenzel, Okimoto, Feather, & Platow, 2008, p. 376).
In restorative justice sentencing, the various parties are
encouraged to express their feelings, come to an agreement
about the harm that has occurred, and decide together what
actions should be taken to reestablish a sense of justice.
The aim of such programs is to promote healing and jus-
tice through open discussion, consensus, and forgiveness.
Rather than simply meting out punishment—punishment
can be part of restorative justice outcomes, but it is not
usually considered to be necessary—the agreed upon
actions often involve the offender participating in events or
activities that are directly related to the restoration of jus-
tice (e.g., participation in community service, etc.). When
applied appropriately, this procedure is thought to help
the victim and the broader community feel that justice has
been restored and to reintegrate the perpetrator into com-
munity life so that he or she will be more likely to respect
its norms in the future. A well-known example concerns
the “truth and reconciliation” commission established in
South Africa, following the abolition of the apartheid sys-
tem (Gibson, 2004).
Research provides modest support for the general effec-
tiveness of restorative justice programs. It has been associ-
ated, for example, with decreased recidivism in groups of
juveniles, bullies, and white-collar criminals (Ahmed &
Braithwaite, 2006; Harris, 2006; Latimer, Dowden, & Muise,
2005; Murphy & Harris, 2007; Rodriguez, 2007). These
data should be interpreted with caution, however, because
self-selection biases and measurement problems limit the
kinds of causal inferences that can be drawn. Furthermore,
the effectiveness of restorative justice programs is likely to
depend upon a number of contextual variables, including
offense type (Braithwaite & Mugford, 1994). But, evidence
from quasi-experimental paradigms in which a range of
beneficial effects of restorative justice programs has been
demonstrated across a range of contexts and offenses is espe-
cially impressive (Strang et al., 2006; Wallace, Exline, &
Baumeister, 2008).
From a social psychological perspective, the crucial
question is not simply whether such programs are effective
but why. Although the earliest restorative justice programs
originated in the late 1970s, serious intellectual attention
was not devoted to the issue until roughly a decade later.
Braithwaite (1989) was instrumental in drawing attention
to the phenomenon of “reintegrative shaming”—a form of
shaming behavior in which the community condemns the
transgression but not the transgressor, seeks to treat all of
the parties with dignity and respect, and attempts to bro-
ker a situation of forgiveness. Although it is not synony-
mous with restorative justice, reintegrative shaming theory
(RST) was the first academic attempt to explain how and
why restorative justice programs can succeed. Harris
(2006) observed that “one of the most distinctive fea-
tures of RST is its focus on the social process of shaming
as the crucial mechanism in crime control” (p. 330). The
generation of shame-related emotions is thought to dis-
courage future offenses by introducing a powerful signal
as to what is considered wrong and motivating the offender
to preserve his or her (presumably valued) relation-
ships with the “shamer” (Braithwaite, 1989; Braithwaite
& Braithwaite, 2001). By focusing on the shameful act
rather than the individual who committed it, reintegra-
tive shaming is thought to foster reintegration rather than
stigmatization, which frequently results from traditional
legal proceedings. Research on specific social psychological
mechanisms triggered by restorative justice sanctions is
scarce, and the available data indicate considerable nuance
and complexity concerning the emotion of shame and
the important task of shame management. Nevertheless, there
is empirical support for the notion that shame-based emo-
tions are evoked by restorative justice procedures (Ahmed &
Braithwaite, 2006; Harris, 2006; Murphy & Harris, 2007;
for conflicting views on shame and guilt, see Leith &
Baumeister, 1998; Tangney, 1995).
Other research programs emphasize different social
psychological mechanisms. Wenzel and colleagues (2008),
for example, stressed the role of social identification needs
in driving the restorative justice process. When victims (and
other observers) view themselves as sharing a common
group identity with the offender, restorative justice is often
preferred, presumably because it seeks to reestablish values
and preserve a sense of community. When the offender is
viewed as an outgroup member, however, more traditional
forms of punishment are seen as appropriate, insofar as they
restore the balance between the status of the offender and
the victim or community (Wenzel & Thielmann, 2006).
Drawing on the work of Kurt Lewin, Tyler (2007) observed
that restorative justice, like procedural justice, has the poten-
tial to encourage individuals to rely upon intrinsic motivation
rather than external pressures in regulating their behavior.
Following a transgression, both victims and perpetrators
develop social psychological needs (pertaining to status
and belongingness, respectively) that need to be addressed
(Shnabel & Nadler, 2008). The opportunity for social

exchange, in which victim and perpetrator can satisfy each
other’s needs, may be a particularly effective way to help
both parties. Despite the potential benefits of restorative
sentencing procedures, public opinion polls reveal that atti-
tudinal support for restorative justice programs decreases
significantly as the severity of the crime increases (Roberts &
Stalans, 2004). For crimes that are particularly severe,
experimental research suggests that combining retribu-
tive and restorative justice procedures may best satisfy the
desire for justice (Gromet & Darley, 2006).
One final question can be raised about the overarch-
ing goals of restorative measures and whether they always
serve the broader cause of social justice. Capehart and
Milovanovic (2007) put it this way:
The glaring question is “Restore to what?” If, for example,
structures and a particular form of community organizations
reduce or repress the search for self-development and actu-
alization, then, the transformative theorists argue, simply to
restore relations to this previous state is by itself contributing
to the sustaining of reductive or repressive practices (p. 61;
emphasis added).
The problem highlighted here is by no means limited to the
study of restorative justice; it should serve as a reminder
always to consider the “forest” as well as the “trees,”
that is, the overall extent to which the social system that
is being created or reinforced by the implementation of
specific principles or mechanisms (allegedly in the name
of distributive, procedural, interactional, retributive, or
restorative justice concerns) actually is worth reinforcing
(see also Tyler & Jost, 2007).
OBSTACLES TO ATTAINING
SOCIAL JUSTICE
There are numerous potential obstacles to the attainment
of social justice, including both selfishness and laziness.
There is also the tendency to dehumanize one’s enemies
or to otherwise exclude them from the “scope of justice,”
so that common standards of decency, fairness, and moral-
ity simply are not applied to certain groups or individuals
(e.g., Clayton & Opotow, 2003; Deutsch, 1985; Hafer &
Olson, 2003; Opotow, 1995). In this section we focus on
the ways in which authoritarianism, social dominance, and
system justification tendencies can threaten to undermine
the cause of social justice.
Authoritarianism and Social Dominance
Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, and Sanford (1950)
identified a personality syndrome that they regarded as a
Obstacles to Attaining Social Justice 1147
threat not merely to social justice but to democracy itself (see
also Reich, 1946/1970). Specifically, they proposed that eco-
nomic frustration and harsh childrearing tactics, among other
dynamics, lead certain individuals (including a majority of
individuals in some circumstances, such as Nazi Germany)
to develop fascist (or proto-fascist) tendencies. The result
was a population containing a disproportionate share of citi-
zens gravitating toward rigid, stereotypical ways of thinking
and extreme forms of prejudice and intolerance toward oth-
ers, especially those who are considered deviants or conve-
nient scapegoats. Subsequent research has shown that highly
threatening circumstances elicit increased authoritarianism,
especially in individuals who are prone to such responses
(e.g., Bonanno & Jost, 2006; Brown, 1965; Davis & Silver,
2004; Doty, Peterson, & Winter, 1991; Feldman, 2003; Jost,
Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003; Lavine, Lodge, &
Freitas, 2005; Napier & Jost, 2008b; Stenner, 2005).
Altemeyer (1981) updated the “classic” theory of authori-
tarianism to emphasize three major characteristics of the
disposition: (1) “a high degree of submission to the authori-
ties who are perceived to be established and legitimate”; (2)
“a general aggressiveness, directed against various persons,
which is perceived to be sanctioned by established authori-
ties”; and (3) “a high degree of adherence to the social con-
ventions which are perceived to be endorsed by society”
(1981, p. 148). Scores on the Right-Wing Authoritarianism
(RWA) scale predict a wide range of attitudes and behaviors,
including racial prejudice; sexism; homophobia; victim-
blaming; punishment of deviants; severity of jury sentenc-
ing decisions; lack of support for civil liberties and freedoms;
and approval of illegal governmental activities, such as wire-
tapping, unconstitutional drug raids, and political harassment
and intimidation (e.g., see Altemeyer, 1981, 1996, 1998).
Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) gauges individual
differences in “general support for the domination of certain
socially constructed groups over other socially constructed
groups,” whether on the basis of “race, sex, religion, social
class, region, skin color, clan, caste, lineage, tribe, mini-
mal groups, or any other group distinction that the human
mind is capable of creating” (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999).
Support for social dominance is comprised of two sub-
factors: the desire for ingroup superiority and generalized
opposition to equality (e.g., Eagly, Diekman, Johannesen-
Schmidt, & Koenig, 2004; Foels & Pappas, 2004; Freeman,
Aquino, & McFerran, 2009; Jost & Thompson, 2000).
Altemeyer (1998) estimated that, when combined in a
statistical model, respondents’ scores on RWA and SDO
scales account for more than half of the observable varia-
tion in prejudice and ethnocentrism. Guimond, Dambrun,
Michinov, and Duarte (2003) found that SDO mediates the
effect of social position (i.e., belonging to a high status and/
or powerful group) on prejudice.
1148 Social Justice
Perhaps the most succinct and compelling explanation
for why social dominance poses an inherent threat to the
attainment of social justice comes from Walzer (1983),
who observed that:
The critique of dominance and domination points toward an
open-ended distributive principle. No social good x should be
distributed to men and women who possess some other good y
merely because they possess y and without regard to the mean-
ing of x. This is a principle that has probably been reiterated, at
one time or another, for every y that has ever been dominant.
But it has not often been stated in general terms. (p. 20)
In other words, it is unjust for individuals to disproportion-
ately receive benefits or burdens simply because of some
other (arbitrary, irrelevant) characteristic that they possess,
such as belonging to a dominant or subordinated group. This
is because, among other things, it violates basic notions of
deservingness, including the merit (or contribution) prin-
ciple, as well as what Mansbridge (2005) referred to the
“logic of formal justice”—the prescription to “Treat every-
one equally unless you can give relevant reasons for unequal
treatment” (p. 337; emphasis added). As Sidanius and Pratto
(1999) point out, it is a regrettable if not reprehensible fact
about many social systems that—at least in part because of
their social group memberships—some individuals possess
a “disproportionately large share of positive social value,”
including “such things as political authority and power, good
and plentiful food, splendid homes, the best available health
care, wealth, and high social status,” whereas others “pos-
sess a disproportionately large share of negative social value,
including such things as low power and social status, high-
risk and low-status occupations, relatively poor health care,
poor food, modest or miserable homes, and severe negative
sanctions (e.g., prison and death sentences)” (pp. 31–32).
System Justification: The Palliative Function
of Ideology
It would be difficult to find a more astute justice theorist or
a bigger authority on ethical behavior in the entire history
of Western civilization than Aristotle. And yet, there are
aspects of his belief system that strike contemporary audi-
ences as anomalous and obviously wrong-headed, possibly
even immoral. Probably the most obvious example is his
spirited defense of the institution of slavery as practiced by
so many of his fellow Athenian citizens (see Kraut, 2002;
Miller, 1995).5 It is not the case that no one in ancient
5
Aristotle’s views on women (and sex differences in general) are
also easily subject to criticism on normative as well as descrip-
tive grounds (e.g., Miller, 1995, pp. 239–246).
Greece had ever raised moral objections about slavery;
several philosophers of Aristotle’s era had criticized the
practice, but Aristotle apparently rejected those criticisms
(Kraut, 2002, pp. 277–8). How could such a brilliant ethi-
cal mind possibly find itself arguing that such a brutal,
exploitative institution as slavery was not only necessary
but also just? The answer, it seems, has to do with sys-
tem justification, defined as the conscious or unconscious
motivation to defend, bolster, and justify existing social,
economic, and political institutions and arrangements
(Jost, Banaji, & Nosek, 2004). Kraut (2002) writes:
No doubt, Aristotle believed that slavery was justified in part
because that was a convenient tenet for him to hold. Had he
come to the opposite conclusion, he would have been forced
to announce to the Greek world that its political institutions,
which he greatly valued (however much he also criticized
them), rested on resources that could not be justly acquired or
used. The all too human tendency to avoid upheavals of thought
and revolutions in social practice certainly played a role here.
But . . . in order for Aristotle to have arrived at the sincere con-
viction that slavery was just, his social world had to present
itself to him in a way that supported that thesis. (p. 279)
Thus, a combination of social, cognitive, and motivational
factors apparently led Aristotle to the conclusion that some
individuals are “natural slaves” (by virtue of their “child-
like helplessness”) and others are “natural masters” (by
virtue of their “rational faculties”). Thus, he argued that both
slaves and masters benefit from the institution of slavery. As
a result of these beliefs, Aristotle and his fellow Athenians
were able to feel better about their own society and to
rationalize away any guilt, dissonance, or negative affect
that they might have otherwise felt. To make matters worse,
because of Aristotle’s philosophical stature, his argu-
ments were resurrected in 16th-century Spain to justify the
enslavement of indigenous people in the New World (Kraut,
2002, p. 277).
Motivation to Justify the Societal Status Quo
If Aristotle himself was tempted to excuse the injustices
inherent in the social system he knew and loved, what hope
is there for the rest of us to avoid a similar fate, at least with
respect to some subset of social issues? According to sys-
tem justification theory, all of us are motivated—to varying
degrees, as a function of both dispositional and situational
factors (e.g., Jost & Hunyady, 2002, 2005; Kay & Zanna,
2009)—to rationalize away the moral and other failures
of our social, economic, and political institutions and to
derogate alternatives to the status quo (Jost, Liviatan, van
der Toorn, Ledgerwood, Mandisodza, & Nosek, 2009;
Kay, Gaucher, Peach, Laurin, Friesen, Zanna, & Spencer,
2009). Thus, despite the fact that most Americans espouse

egalitarian ideals and acknowledge substantial income
inequality in society, surveys show that a majority of U.S.
respondents judge the economic system to be highly fair and
legitimate (Bartels, 2008; Jost, Blount, Pfeffer, & Hunyady,
2003). In the context of a chapter on social justice, it is
worth pointing out that in the United States today the com-
bined net worth of the 400 wealthiest citizens exceeds $1
trillion (Mishel, Bernstein, & Allegretta, 2005) and that
corporate chief executives earn more than 500 times the sal-
ary of their average employee (Stiglitz, 2004). It would be
difficult to find any justice principle (i.e., equity, equality,
need, etc.) that would “justicize” this degree of economic
inequality, and in fact the inequality has arisen not because
it was judged in advance to be fair but because of imper-
sonal “market forces” that most citizens accept (consciously
or unconsciously) as legitimate (see also Benabou &
Tirole, 2006; Kluegel & Smith, 1986).
Stereotyping as System Justification One way in
which people engage in system justification is through
the use of stereotypes (such as Aristotle’s stereotypes of
slaves and masters) that ascribe to individuals and groups
characteristics that render them especially well-suited to
occupy the status or positions that they do in the current
social order (e.g., Allport, 1954; Eagly & Steffen, 1984;
Hoffman & Hurst, 1990; Jost & Banaji, 1994; Jost & Kay,
2005; Kay, Jost, et al., 2007; Kay et al., 2009; Sidanius &
Pratto, 1999). It is important to point out that members of
disadvantaged groups sometimes internalize system-justi-
fying stereotypes and evaluations of themselves, and this
almost surely has the consequence of decreasing their like-
lihood of rebelling against the status quo or participating in
collective action aimed to change it (e.g., Ashburn-Nardo,
Knowles, & Monteith, 2003; Jost, Banaji, & Nosek, 2004;
Jost, Pelham, & Carvallo, 2002; Lewin, 1941/1948b;
Rudman, Feinberg & Fairchild, 2002; Uhlmann, Dasgupta,
Elgueta, Greenwald, & Swanson, 2002).
System-Justifying Aspects of Conservative Ideology
Certain ideologies—such as political conservatism, which
developed in part out of Edmund Burke’s (1790/1987)
critical resistance to the French Revolution and his efforts
to “vindicate” the social order—satisfy the “goal” of sys-
tem justification as well (see Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, &
Sulloway, 2003; Jost, 2009). More than two centuries after
the French Revolution, political conservatives continue to
show stronger implicit as well as explicit preferences for
order, stability, conformity, and tradition (over chaos, flex-
ibility, rebelliousness, and progress), in comparison with
liberals and others (Jost, Nosek, & Gosling, 2008). The fact
that political conservatives are motivated more strongly
than liberals by system justification motivation helps to
Obstacles to Attaining Social Justice 1149
explain why: (a) they strongly favor advantaged over dis-
advantaged groups on implicit as well as explicit measures
(Jost, Banaji, & Nosek, 2004); (b) their Black–White racial
attitudes lagged behind those of liberals by over thirty
years in the United States (Nosek, Banaji, & Jost, 2009);
(c) they are more likely to deny problems associated with
global climate change and to resist efforts to change cur-
rent environmental practices (Feygina, Goldsmith, & Jost,
in press); and (d) they are relatively insulated against the
negative hedonic effects of increasing inequality (Napier &
Jost, 2008a). Thus, at least some of the attitudinal differ-
ences observed between liberals and conservatives can be
understood in terms of variability in system justification
tendencies.
Costs and Benefits of System Justification
System justification appears to satisfy a constellation of
epistemic needs to attain certainty and create a stable, pre-
dictable worldview (Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway,
2003); existential needs to manage threat and perceive
a safe, reassuring environment (Kay, Gaucher, Napier,
Callan, & Laurin, 2008); and relational needs to achieve
shared reality with important others, including friends and
family members who are also motivated by system justifica-
tion concerns (Jost, Ledgerwood, & Hardin, 2008). Perhaps
because it addresses these various needs, system justifica-
tion conveys palliative psychological benefits, including
increased positive affect and (especially) decreased negative
affect (Janoff-Bulman, 1992; Jost & Hunyady, 2002; Kay,
Gaucher, Napier, Callan, & Laurin, 2008; Kluegel & Smith,
1986; Lerner, 1980; Napier & Jost, 2008a; Wakslak, Jost,
Tyler, & Chen, 2007). At the same time, however, system
justification is associated with low self-esteem, depression,
ambivalence, and outgroup favoritism among members
of disadvantaged groups, who may be “caught” between
competing desires to feel good about themselves and to
feel good about the social system to which they belong
(e.g., Ashburn-Nardo, Knowles, & Monteith, 2003; Jost &
Burgess, 2000; Jost, Pelham, & Carvallo, 2002; Jost &
Thompson, 2000; O’Brien & Major, 2005).
It has been suggested that system-justifying attitudes
reflect a “moral motivation” to protect society and that
“the benefits of justifying the system are not just palliative,
they are meaning-providing and can often be important
for human flourishing” (Haidt & Graham, 2009, p. 391).
Without disputing that system justification contributes
to social stability and carries with it a number of social
and psychological advantages for the individual, group, and
society, it seems important to point out that it is probably
neither moral nor immoral in and of itself. System justifi-
cation can indeed inspire people to celebrate and vindicate
truly just institutions and practices. Nevertheless, the same
1150 Social Justice
motivation can lead us—as it may have led Aristotle—to
venerate those features of the social system (e.g., customs,
traditions, and practices) that should, on normative
grounds, be changed. As Frankena (1962) pointed out, “All
sorts of injustices may be enshrined in the rules of society,
as those who settled this country knew and as many of those
whose ancestors did not come willingly know even now”
(pp. 8–9).
FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE: WHAT CAN
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY CONTRIBUTE TO
SOCIAL JUSTICE?
The topic of social justice brings into stark relief both the
promise and challenges of social psychology in a way that per-
haps no other subject matter covered in this Handbook does.
Among other things, social justice is a theme that requires
one to consider and integrate insights arising from individual,
group, and system levels of analysis (Doise, 1986; Stangor &
Jost, 1997). Students of social justice—like those who dare to
confront questions of rationality or truth—must grapple with
the uneasy relationship between the subjective and the objec-
tive or, what is nearly the same in this context, descriptive facts
about how people actually think, feel, and act with respect to
justice considerations and normative standards about how
they ought to behave if their actions and institutions are to be
considered just (see also Baron, 1993; Elster, 1992; Feinberg,
1973; Frankena, 1962; Konow, 2003; Lerner, 2003; Miller,
1999; Payne & Cameron, in press; Sandel, 1998; Tyler &
Jost, 2007; Walzer, 1983).
Of course, reasonable (as well as unreasonable) par-
ties can disagree about what justice entails, and many
longstanding, seemingly intractable conflicts, such as the
Arab-Israeli conflict, involve interpersonal or intergroup
disputes over what is considered fair and legitimate (e.g.,
Deutsch, 2006; Gibson, 2008; Jost & Ross, 1999; Kelman,
2001; Leung & Stephan, 2000; Mikula & Wenzel, 2000).
At the same time, it is not entirely satisfying to conclude
simply that justice (like truth or beauty) is in the “eye of
the beholder.” As Miller (1999) observed, “Popular beliefs
about social justice may turn out to be defective in vari-
ous ways; for instance, they may prove to conceal deep
contradictions, or involve serious factual errors” (p. x). If
we accept this possibility, then we cannot merely assume
that justice consists solely of what people think is just (see
also Sampson, 1983), even though it may be a difficult task
to determine what actually is just (or unjust) in any given
situation.
Another reason why one cannot simply interpret the sub-
jective acceptance of a given state of affairs as conclusive
evidence of its objective fairness is that people sometimes
tolerate circumstances, such as slavery, apartheid, or caste
systems, that seem obviously unjust to outsiders, or in ret-
rospect, or from the point of view of clearly established
standards of just treatment (Crosby, 1982; Deutsch, 1985;
Lerner, 1980; Martin, 1986; Moore, 1978). Some such cases
are said to reflect “false consciousness,” defined as false
beliefs that serve to sustain injustice or oppression (Fox,
1999; Jost, 1995; Lind & Tyler, 1988). They may also sug-
gest the presence of system justification motivation, that is,
the desire to exonerate the existing social system and, in so
doing, to minimize or overlook its injustices, whether petty
or grand (see Jost, Banaji, & Nosek, 2004; Jost et al., 2009;
Kay et al., 2009).
For all of these reasons, the scholar of social justice must
at least bear in mind the possibility that there are objective
standards of justice, even if specific candidates are bound
to be controversial (e.g., see Feinberg, 1973; Hare, 1981;
Miller, 1999; Rawls, 1971). Much as researchers use sci-
entific means to identify the objective causes of subjective
well-being (or happiness) of individuals (e.g., Kahneman,
Diener, & Schwarz, 1999), it should be possible for social
scientists to discover which characteristics of social systems
are more and less likely to maximize equity, equality, need,
liberty, respect, and other putative principles of social justice,
and which characteristics lead disproportionately to unjust
outcomes, such as suffering, exploitation, abuse, prejudice,
and oppression. It seems like a daunting task to develop
objective (as well as subjective) measures of well-being at
the system or societal level, but there is no way of know-
ing whether scientific methods can gain traction on age-old
problems of social justice unless and until it is attempted.
Work by Jasso (1999) suggests that it may be possible
to draw meaningful comparisons among different societies
with respect to their abilities to satisfy certain standards of
distributive justice. By extending this general approach to
incorporate objective, quantifiable indicators of well-being
(e.g., health, wealth, education, work satisfaction, and qual-
ity of life) in drawing comparisons among nations that pri-
oritize different justice principles, empirical research could
leverage utilitarian and other insights concerning social
justice. Likewise, it may be feasible to compare societies
in terms of how well they adhere to specific deontological
principles; indeed, some human rights organizations col-
lect international data to draw precisely such comparisons.
The most compelling normative theory (or metatheory) of
social justice will probably combine elements of utilitarian
and deontological approaches and reconcile multiple, poten-
tially conflicting justice principles—such as equity, equality,
need, merit, liberty, consistency, accuracy, and ethicality—
in some hierarchical structure that weights such principles
differentially as a function of contextual variables, local
contingencies, and domains of application. As John Stuart
 From Theory to Practice: What Can Social Psychology Contribute to Social Justice?
Mill (1910) observed, “Not only have different nations and
individuals different notions of justice, but, in the mind of
one and the same individual, justice is not some one rule,
principle, or maxim, but many, which do not always coin-
cide in their dictates” (p. 51).
Empirical research has a crucial role to play in clear-
ing away common misconceptions—including erroneous
assumptions, stereotypes, and misunderstandings about
the causes of human behavior—and thereby updating and
elevating public discourse about matters of social justice
and morality (Greene, 2003; Payne & Cameron, in press).
Over time, we have seen that scientific findings can change
culturally prevalent representations of free will, conscious-
ness, responsibility, and so on, and these changes slowly
manifest themselves in legal and judicial transformations
(e.g., Blasi & Jost, 2006; Greene & Cohen, 2004; Wegner,
2002).6 Cognitive scientists have contributed mightily to
refining normative theories of rationality (e.g., Kahneman
et al., 1982; March & Simon, 1958; Thaler, 1991) as well
as formerly philosophical (and even metaphysical) treat-
ments of epistemological questions in general (Goldman,
1992; Kornblith, 1999; Quine, 1969; Stich, 1990). In recent
years, philosophers have incorporated evidence from social
and personality psychology in evaluating Aristotelian and
other normative (as well as descriptive) theories of ethics,
virtue, and moral character (Appiah, 2008; Doris, 2002;
Flanagan, 1991; Harman, 1999; J. T. Jost & L. J. Jost,
2009). There is no a priori reason to assume that social
psychological research will be less useful in forging the
kinds of normative conceptions of justice and injustice
that have traditionally been the bread and butter of moral
philosophy and legal scholarship (see also Tyler & Jost,
2007).
Another basis for optimism concerning attempts to
“naturalize” the study of social justice comes from explicit
efforts to integrate legal studies with research in the social
and behavioral sciences (e.g., Sunstein, 2000), including
calls for “psychological jurisprudence” (Darley, Fulero,
Haney, & Tyler, 2002; Haney, 1993; Tyler & Jost, 2007)
and “behavioral realism” (Blasi & Jost, 2006; Hanson &
Yosifon, 2004; Kang, 2005; Krieger & Fiske, 2006). Each
of these represents a concerted attempt to bring the law
and public policy into better alignment with conclusions
6
Philosophers, including Rawls (1971), often strive to develop
normative theories of justice that satisfy the principle of “mini-
mal psychological realism,” that is, theories that are at least con-
sistent with what is known about the laws of human psychology.
Legal authorities, too, have a vested interest in prescribing laws
that are psychologically realistic in the sense that most citizens
will be able to follow them.
1151
drawn from the scientific study of human nature. It has
been suggested, for instance, that current legal protections
against racial discrimination (e.g., the Davis doctrine) are
inadequate because they focus exclusively on conscious
intention as an explanation for human behavior and the
basis for assigning legal responsibility, whereas contempo-
rary social and cognitive psychology has demonstrated that
automatic, implicit (i.e., unintentional) processes are capa-
ble of producing discriminatory outcomes (Greenwald &
Krieger, 2006; Kang & Banaji, 2006; Krieger, 1995; Lane,
Kang, & Banaji, 2007; Lawrence, 2008; but see Mitchell &
Tetlock, 2006 for a dissenting view).
All of this returns us to the grand Lewinian ambitions
with which we began this chapter. The notion of solving
social problems through rational, scientific means rather
than ideological (or even coercive) means is particularly
attractive (e.g., Allport, 1954, 1962; Deutsch, 1999; Lerner,
1980, 2003; Lewin, 1939/1948a; Mansbridge, 2005;
McGuire, 1985; Walton & Dweck, 2009). Along these lines,
Kurt Lewin (1939/1948a) argued that the objectives of sci-
ence and social justice were in fact highly compatible:
To believe in reason means to believe in democracy, because
it grants to the reasoning partners a status of equality. It is
therefore not an accident that not until the rise of democracy
at the time of the American and French Revolutions was the
goddess of “reason” enthroned in modern society. And again,
it is not an accident that the first act of modern Fascism in
every country has been officially and vigorously to dethrone
this goddess and instead to make emotions and obedience the
all-ruling principles in education and life from kindergarten
to death.
I am persuaded that scientific sociology and social psychology
based on an intimate combination of experiments and empiri-
cal theory can do as much, or more, for human betterment as
the natural sciences have done. However, the development of
such a realistic, nonmystical social science and the possibility
of its fruitful application presuppose the existence of a society
which believes in reason. (p. 83; emphasis added)
Thus, Lewin was enthusiastic—even “heroic,” according
to some (e.g., Ring, 1967)—about the use of social science to
serve the ends of social justice and, in so doing, to improve
society. The evidence we have reviewed in this chapter sug-
gests that considerable progress toward this most ambitious
goal has been achieved (e.g., see Benabou & Tirole, 2006;
Deutsch, 1985, 2006; Frohlich & Oppenheimer, 1992;
Jasso, 1999; Konow, 2003; Lerner, 1987; Lind & Tyler,
1988; Major, 1994; Mikula & Wenzel, 2000; Miller, 2001;
Payne & Cameron, in press; Pettigrew et al., 2008; Rossi &
Berk, 1997; Skitka & Tetlock, 1993; Thibaut & Walker,
1986; Tyler, 2006, 2007; Tyler & Jost, 2007; Van den Bos,
2005; Van Lange, 2000; Wakslak et al., 2007). At the same
1152 Social Justice
time, the jury is still out on whether the theories and methods
of social psychology can offer unique, indispensable
insights that—when combined with those gathered from
philosophy, law, history, anthropology, sociology, econom-
ics, political science, and other disciplines—will enable the
human race to attain the highest degree of social justice in
practice and to permanently overcome its most stubborn,
pernicious obstacles. We follow Kurt Lewin in supposing,
however optimistically, that they can.
REFERENCES
Adams, J. S. (1965). Inequality in social exchange. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.),
Advances in experimental social psychology, (Vol. 2, pp. 267–299).
New York: Academic Press.
Adelson, H. L. (1995). The origins of a concept of social justice.
In K. D. Irani & M. Silver (Eds.), Social justice in the ancient world
(pp. 25–38). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Adorno, T. W., Frenkel-Brunswik, E., Levinson, D. J., & Sanford, R. N.
(1950). The authoritarian personality. New York: Harper.
Aguiar, P., Vala, J., Correia, I., & Pereira, C. (2008). Justice in our world
and in that of others: Belief in a just world and reactions to victims.
Social Justice Research, 21, 50–68.
Ahmed, E., & Braithwaite, V. (2006). Forgiveness, reconciliation, and
shame: Three key variables in reducing school bullying. Journal of
Social Issues, 62, 347–370.
Albert, S. (1977). Temporal comparison theory. Psychological Review, 84,
485–503.
Allison, S. T., Beggan, J. K., & Midgley, E. H. (1996). The quest for “simi-
lar instances” and “simultaneous possibilities”: Metaphors in social
dilemma research. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71,
479–497.
Allport, G. W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Cambridge, MA:
Addison-Wesley.
Allport, G. W. (1962). The historical background of modern social psy-
chology. In G. Lindzey & E. Aronson (Eds.), The handbook of social
psychology (2nd ed., Vol. 1, pp. 1–80). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
(Original work published in 1954)
Altemeyer, R. (1981). Right wing authoritarianism. Winnipeg, Manitoba,
Canada: University of Manitoba Press.
Altemeyer, B. (1996). The authoritarian specter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Altemeyer, B. (1998). The other “authoritarian personality.” In M. P. Zanna
(Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 30, pp. 47–92).
New York: Academic Press.
Alves, H., & Correia, I. (2008). On the normativity of expressing the
belief in a just world: Empirical evidence. Social Justice Research, 21,
106–118.
Ambrose, M. L., & Arnaud, A. (2005). Are procedural justice and distrib-
utive justice conceptually distinct? In J. Greenberg & J. A. Colquitt
(Eds.), Handbook of organizational justice (pp. 59–84). Mahwah, NJ:
Erlbaum.
Ambrose, M. L., & Kulik, C. T. (1999). Old friends, new faces: Motivation
research in the 1990s. Journal of Management, 25, 231–292.
Ambrose, M. L., Seabright, M. A., & Schminke, M. (2002). Sabotage in
the workplace: The role of organizational injustice. Organizational
Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 89, 947–965.
Anderson, V. N. (1992). For whom is this world just? Sexual orientation
and AIDS. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 22, 248–259.
Appiah, K.A. (2008). Experiments in ethics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Aristotle (2002). Nicomachean ethics (S. Broadie & C. Rowe [Eds.],
Trans.). New York: Oxford University Press. (Original work published
384-322 BCE).
Aryee, S., Budhwar, P. S., & Chen, Z. X. (2002). Trust as a mediator of
the relationship between organizational justice and work outcomes: Test
of a social exchange model. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 23,
267–286.
Asch, S. E. (1959). A perspective on social psychology. In S. Koch (Ed.),
Psychology: A study of a science (Vol. 3, pp. 363–383). New York:
McGraw-Hill.
Ashburn-Nardo, L., Knowles, M. L., & Monteith, M. J. (2003). Black
Americans’ implicit racial associations and their implications for inter-
group judgment. Social Cognition, 21, 61–87.
Au, W. T., & Kwong, J. Y. Y. (2004). Measurements and effects of social-
value orientation in social dilemmas: A review. In R. Suleiman,
D. V. Budescu, I. Fischer, & D. M. Messick (Eds.), Contemporary
psychological research on social dilemmas. (pp. 71–98). New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Austin, W., & Walster, E. (1974). Participants’ reactions to “equity with the
world.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 10, 528–548.
Axelrod, R. (2006). The evolution of cooperation (Rev. ed.). New York:
Perseus.
Azzi, A. E., & Jost, J. T. (1997). Votes without power: Procedural justice
as mutual control in majority–minority relations. Journal of Applied
Social Psychology, 27, 124–155.
Bargh, J. A., Raymond, P., Pryor, J. B., & Strack, F. (1995). Attractiveness
of the underling: An automatic power-sex association and its conse-
quences for sexual harassment and aggression. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 68, 768–781.
Baron, J. (1993). Heuristics and biases in equity judgments: A utilitarian
approach. In B. A. Mellers & J. Baron (Eds.), Psychological perspec-
tives on justice (pp. 109–137). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Barrett-Howard, E., & Tyler, T. R. (1986). Procedural justice as a criterion
in allocation decisions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
50, 296–304.
Barry, B. M. (2005). A treatise on social justice. Berkeley, CA: University
of California Press.
Bartels, L. M. (2008). Unequal democracy: The political economy of the
new gilded age. Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press.
Batson, C. D. (1990). How social is an animal? The human capacity for
caring. American Psychologist, 45, 336–346.
Batson, C. D. (1998). Altruism and prosocial behavior. In D. Gilbert,
S. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology
(pp. 282–316). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Batson, C. D., Batson, J. G., Singlsby, J. K., Harrell, K. L., Peekna, H. M., &
Todd, R. M. (1991). Empathic joy and the empathy–altruism hypoth-
esis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 413–426.
Batson, C. D., & Moran, T. (1999). Empathy-induced altruism in a prisoner’s
dilemma. European Journal of Social Psychology, 29, 909924.
Batson, C. D., & Shaw, L. L. (1991). Evidence for altruism: Toward a plu-
ralism of prosocial motives. Psychological Inquiry, 2, 107–122.
Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire
for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation.
Psychological Bulletin, 117, 497–529.
Bazemore, G. (1998). Restorative justice and earned redemption:
Communities, victims, and offender reintegration. American Behavioral
Scientist, 41, 768–813.
Becker, G. (1976). The economic approach to human behavior. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.

Bègue, L., & Bastounis, M. (2003). Two spheres of belief in justice:
Extensive support for the bidimensional model of belief in a just world.
Journal of Personality, 71, 435–463.
Benabou, R. & Tirole, J. (2006). Belief in a just world and redistributive
politics. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 121, 1652–1678.
Bentham, J. (1962). Principles of penal law. In J. Bowring (Ed.), The works
of Jeremy Bentham (pp. 396). Edinburgh: W. Tait. (Original work pub-
lished 1843).
Bernstein, M., & Crosby, F. (1980). An empirical examination of relative
deprivation theory. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 16,
442–456.
Bierhoff, H. W., Buck, E., & Klein, R. (1986). Social context and perceived
injustice. In H. W. Bierhoff, R. L. Cohen, & J. Greenberg (Eds.), Justice
in social relations (pp. 165–185). New York: Plenum.
Biernat, M., Vescio, T. K., & Theno, S. A. (1996). Violating American values:
A “value congruence” approach to understanding outgroup attitudes.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 32, 387–410.
Biernat, M., & Wortman, C. B. (1991). Sharing of home responsibilities
between professionally employed women and their husbands. Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 844–860.
Bies, R. J. (2001). Interactional (in)justice: The sacred and the profane.
In J. Greenberg & R. Cropanzano (Eds.), Advances in organizational
justice (pp. 89–118). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Bies, R. J. (2005). Are procedural justice and interactional justice con-
ceptually distinct? In J. Greenberg & J. A. Colquitt (Eds.), Handbook
of organizational justice (pp. 85–112). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Bies, R. J., & Moag, J. S. (1986). Interactional justice: Communication
criteria of fairness. In B. Sheppard (Ed.), Research on negotiation in
organizations (pp. 43–55). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Blanton, H., George, G., & Crocker, J. (2001). Contexts of system justifi-
cation and system evaluation: Exploring the social comparison strat-
egies of the (not yet) contented female worker. Group Processes &
Intergroup Relations, 4, 126–137.
Blau, P. M. (1968). Social exchange. In D. L. Sills (Ed.), International
encyclopedia of the social sciences (Vol. 7). New York: Macmillan.
Blasi, G., & Jost, J. T. (2006). System justification theory and research:
Implications for law, legal advocacy, and social justice. California Law
Review, 94, 1119–1168.
Bobocel, D. R., & Holmvall, C. M. (2001). Are interactional justice and
procedural justice different? Framing the debate. In S. Gilliland,
D. Steiner, & D. Skarlicki (Eds.), Research in social research in social
issues in management: Theoretical and cultural perspectives on orga-
nizational justice (pp. 85–108). Greenwich, CT: Information Age.
Bogaert, S., Boone, C., & Declerck, C. (2008). Social value orientation
and cooperation in social dilemmas: A review and conceptual model.
British Journal of Social Psychology, 47, 453–480.
Bolino, M. C., & Turnley, W. H. (2008). Old faces, new places: Equity
theory in cross-cultural contexts. Journal of Organizational Behavior,
29, 29–50.
Boll, T., Ferring, D., & Filipp, S. (2005). Effects of parental differential
treatment on relationship quality with siblings and parents: Justice
evaluations as mediators. Social Justice Research, 18, 155–182.
Bonanno, G. A., & Jost, J. T. (2006). Conservative shift among high-
exposure survivors of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Basic and
Applied Social Psychology, 28, 311–323.
Bond, D., & Park, J. (1991). An empirical test of Rawls’s theory of jus-
tice: A second approach, in Korea and the United States. Simulation &
Gaming, 22, 443–462.
Boucher, D., & Kelly, P. (Eds.). (1998). Social justice from Hume to Walzer.
New York: Routledge.
Bowie, N. E., & Simon, R. L. (2007). The individual and the political
order: An introduction to social and political philosophy (4th ed.).
New York: Rowman & Littlefield.
References 1153
Braithwaite, J. (1989). Crime, shame, and reintegration. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Braithwaite, J., & Braithwaite, V. (2001). Shame and shame manage-
ment. In E. Ahmed, N. Harris, J. Braithwaite, & V. Braithwaite (Eds.),
Shame management and regulation (pp. 3–69). Cambridge, England:
Cambridge University Press.
Braithwaite, J., & Mugford, S. (1994). Conditions of successful reintegra-
tion ceremonies: Dealing with juvenile offenders. British Journal of
Criminology, 34, 139–171.
Braman, A. C., & Lambert, A. J. (2001). Punishing individuals for their
infirmities: Effects of personal responsibility, just-world beliefs, and
in-group/out-group status. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 31,
1096–1109.
Brickman, P. (1977). Preference for inequality. Social Psychology
Quarterly, 40, 303–310.
Brickman, P., Coates, D., & Janoff-Bulman, R. (1978). Lottery winners
and accident victims: Is happiness relative? Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 36, 917–927.
Broadie, S. (2002). Philosophical introduction. In S. Broadie & C. Rowe
(Eds.), Aristotle, Nicomachean ethics: Translation, introduction, and
commentary (pp. 9–91). New York: Oxford University Press.
Brockner, J., Heuer, L., & Magner, N. (2003). High procedural fairness
heightens the effect of outcome favorability on self-evaluations: An
attributional analysis. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision
Processes, 91, 51–68.
Brockner, J., Heuer, L., Siegel, P. A., Wiesenfeld, B., Martin, C., Grover, S.,
et al. (1998). The moderating effect of self-esteem in reaction to voice:
Converging evidence from five studies. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 75, 394–407.
Brockner, J., & Wiesenfeld, B. (1996). An integrative framework for
explaining reactions to decisions: Interactive effects of outcomes and
procedures. Psychological Bulletin, 120, 189–208.
Brosnan, S. F. (2006). Nonhuman species’ reactions to inequity and their
implications for fairness. Social Justice Research, 19, 153–185.
Brosnan, S. F., & de Waal, F.B.M. (2003). Monkeys reject unequal pay.
Nature, 425, 297–299.
Brown, R. (1965). Social psychology. New York: Free Press.
Budescu, D. V., Rapoport, A., & Suleiman, R. (1990). Resource dilemmas
with environmental uncertainty and asymmetric players. European
Journal of Social Psychology, 20, 475–487.
Burkart, J. M., Fehr, E., Efferson, C., & van Schaik, C. P. (2007). Other-
regarding preferences in a non-human primate: Common marmosets
provision food altruistically. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences, 104, 19762–19766.
Burke, E. (1987). Reflections on the revolution in France. In
J.G.A. Pocock (Ed.), Reflections on the revolution in France
(pp. 1–218). Indianapolis: Hackett. (Original work published 1790).
Callahan-Levy, C. M., & Messé, L. A. (1979). Sex differences in the
allocation of pay. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37,
433–446.
Callan, M. J., Ellard, J. H., & Nicol, J. E. (2006). The belief in a just world
and immanent justice reasoning in adults. Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, 32, 1646–1658.
Callan, M. J., Kay, A. C., Davidenko, N., & Ellard, J. H. (in press). The
effects of justice motivation for memory for self- and other-relevant
events. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
Callan, M. J., Powell, N. G., & Ellard, J. H. (2007). The consequences
of victim physical attractiveness on reactions to injustice: The role of
observers’ belief in a just world. Social Justice Research, 20, 433–456.
Campbell, T. (2001). Justice (2nd ed.). New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Capehart, L., & Milovanovic, D. (2007). Social justice: Theories, issues,
and movements. New York: Rutgers University Press.
1154 Social Justice
Carlsmith, K. M. (2006). The roles of retribution and utility in determining
punishment. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42, 437–451.
Carlsmith, K. M. (2008). On justifying punishment: The discrepancy
between words and actions. Social Justice Research, 21, 119–137.
Carlsmith, K. M., & Darley, J. M. (2008). Psychological aspects of retribu-
tive justice. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psy-
chology (pp. 193–236). San Diego, CA: Elsevier.
Carlsmith, K. M., Darley, J. M., & Robinson, P. H. (2002). Why do we pun-
ish? Deterrence and just deserts as motives for punishment. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 284–299.
Carlsmith, K. M., & Sood, A. M. (2009). The fine line between interroga-
tion and retribution. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45,
191–196.
Carr, S. C., & MacLachlan, M. (1998). Actors, observers, and attributions
for third world poverty: Contrasting perspectives from Malawi and
Australia. Journal of Social Psychology, 138, 189–202.
Cartwright, D. (1979). Contemporary social psychology in historical per-
spective. Social Psychology Quarterly, 42, 82–93.
Chen, C. C. (1995). New trends in rewards allocation preferences: A Sino–
U.S. comparison. Academy of Management Journal, 38, 408–428.
Christiansen, N. D., & Lavine, H. (1997). Need-efficiency trade-offs in
the allocation of resources: Ideological and attributional differences
in public aid decision making. Social Justice Research, 10, 289–310.
Cialdini, R. B., Brown, S. L., Lewis, B. P., Luce, C., & Neuberg, S. L.
(1997). Reinterpreting the empathy–altruism relationship: When one
into one equals oneness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
73, 481–494.
Cialdini, R. B., Schaller, M., Houlihan, D., Arps, K., Fultz, J., &
Beaman, A. L. (1987). Empathy-based helping: Is it selflessly or selfishly
motivated? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 749–758.
Clark, M. S., & Mills, J. (1979). Interpersonal attraction in exchange and
communal relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
37, 12–24.
Clayton, S., & Opotow, S. (2003). Justice and identity: Changing perspec-
tives on what is fair. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 7,
298–310.
Cohen, A. B., & Rozin, P. (2001). Religion and the morality of mentality.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 697–710.
Cohen, R. L., & Greenberg, J. (1982). The justice concept in social psychol-
ogy. In J. Greenberg & R. L. Cohen (Eds.), Equity and justice in social
behavior (pp. 1–41). New York: Academic Press.
Cohen-Charash, Y., & Spector, P. E. (2001). The role of justice in organiza-
tions: A meta-analysis. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision
Processes, 86, 278–321.
Colquitt, J. A. (2001). On the dimensionality of organizational justice:
A construct validation of a measure. Journal of Applied Psychology,
86, 386–400.
Colquitt, J. A., Conlon, D. E., Wesson, M. J., Porter, C. O. L. H., & Ng, K. Y.
(2001). Justice at the millenium: A meta-analytic review of 25 years
of organizational justice research. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86,
425–445.
Colquitt, J. A., Greenberg, J., & Zapata-Phelan, C. P. (2005). What is
organizational justice? A historical overview. In J. Greenberg &
J. A. Colquitt (Eds.), Handbook of organizational justice (pp. 3–56).
Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Cook, K. S., & Hegtvedt, K. A. (1986). Justice and power: An exchange
analysis. In H. W. Bierhoff, R. L. Cohen, & J. Greenberg (Eds.), Justice
in social relations (pp. 19–41). New York: Plenum.
Correia, I., Vala, J., & Aguiar, P. (2007). Victim’s innocence, social cat-
egorization, and the threat to the belief in a just world. Journal of
Experimental Social Psychology, 43, 31–38.
Crandall, C. S. (1994). Prejudice against fat people: Ideology and self-
interest. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 882–894.
Crandall, C. S., Eidelman, S., Skitka, L. J., & Morgan, G. S. (2009). Status
quo framing increases support for torture. Social Influence, 4, 1–10.
Crandall, C. S., & Eshleman, A. (2003). A justification–suppression of the
expression and experience of prejudice. Psychological Bulletin, 129,
414–446.
Crandall, C. S., & Martinez, R. (1996). Culture, ideology, and antifat atti-
tudes. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22, 1165–1176.
Crespi, B. J. (2000). The evolution of maladaptation. Heredity, 84, 623–629.
Crocker, J., & Major, B. (1989). Social stigma and self-esteem: The self-
protective properties of stigma. Psychological Review, 96, 608–630.
Cropanzano, R., & Folger, R. (1989). Referent cognitions and task decision
autonomy: Beyond equity theory. Journal of Applied Psychology, 74,
293–299.
Cropanzano, R., Prehar, C. A., & Chen, P. Y. (2002). Using social exchange
theory to distinguish procedural from interactional justice. Group &
Organization Management, 27, 324–351.
Crosby, F. (1976). A model of egoistical relative deprivation. Psychological
Review, 83, 85–113.
Crosby, F. (1982). Relative deprivation and the working woman.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Crosby, F., Muehrer, P., & Loewenstein, G. (1986). Relative deprivation
and explanation: Models and concepts. In J. M. Olson, C. P. Herman, &
M. P. Zanna (Eds.), Relative deprivation and social comparison: The
Ontario symposium (Vol. 4, pp. 17–32). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Curtis, R. C. (1979). Effects of knowledge of self-interest and social rela-
tionship upon the use of equity, utilitarian, and Rawlsian principles of
allocation. European Journal of Social Psychology, 9, 165–175.
Cushman, F., Young, L., & Hauser, M. (2006). The role of conscious rea-
soning and intuition in moral judgment: Testing three principles of
harm. Psychological Science, 17, 1082–1089.
Dalbert, C. (1998). Belief in a just world, well-being, and coping with an
unjust fate. In L. Montada & M. J. Lerner (Eds.), Responses to victim-
izations and belief in a just world (pp. 87–105). New York: Plenum.
Dalbert, C. (2001). The justice motive as a personal resource: Dealing with
challenges and critical life events. New York: Plenum.
Dalbert, C. (2002). Beliefs in a just world as a buffer against anger. Social
Justice Research, 15, 123–145.
Dambrun, M. (2007). Understanding the relationship between racial preju-
dice and support for the death penalty: The racist punitive bias hypoth-
esis. Social Justice Research, 20, 228–249.
Dambrun, M., Taylor, D. M., McDonald, D. A., Crush, J., & Méot, A.
(2006). The relative deprivation–gratification continuum and the atti-
tudes of South Africans toward immigrants: A test of the V-curve hypoth-
esis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 1032–1044.
Darley, J. M., Carlsmith, K. M., & Robinson, P. H. (2000). Incapacitation
and just deserts as motives for punishment. Law and Human Behavior,
24, 659–683.
Darley, J.M., Fulero, S., Haney, C., & Tyler, T. (2002). Psychological juris-
prudence: Taking psychology and law into the twenty-first century. In
J.R.P. Ogloff (Ed.), Taking psychology and law into the twenty-first
century (pp. 35–59). New York: Plenum.
Darley, J. M., & Pittman, T. S. (2003). The psychology of compensatory
and retributive justice. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 7,
324–336.
Darwin, C. (1871). The descent of man and selection in relation to sex.
London: John Murray.
Dawkins, R. (1989). The selfish gene (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Davies, J. C. (1962). Towards a theory of revolution. American Sociological
Review, 27, 5–19.
Davis, J. A. (1959). A formal interpretation of the theory of relative depri-
vation. Sociometry, 22, 280–296.

Davis, D.W., & Silver, B. D. (2004). Civil liberties vs. security: Public
opinion in the context of the terrorist attacks on America. American
Journal of Political Science, 48, 28–46.
De Cremer, D. (2002). Charismatic leadership and cooperation in social
dilemmas: A matter of transforming motives? Journal of Applied Social
Psychology, 32, 997–1016.
De Cremer, D., & Van Dijk, E. (2005). When and why leaders put them-
selves first: Leader behaviour in resource allocations as a function of
feeling entitled. European Journal of Social Psychology, 35, 553–563.
De Cremer, D., & Van Lange, P.A.M. (2001). Why prosocials exhibit
greater cooperation than proselfs: The roles of social responsibility and
reciprocity. European Journal of Personality, 15, 5–18.
De Cremer, D., & Van Vugt, M. (1999). Social identification effects in
social dilemmas: A transformation of motives. European Journal of
Social Psychology, 29, 871–893.
De Cremer, D., & Van Vugt, M. (2002). Intergroup and intragroup aspects
of leadership in social dilemmas: A relational model of cooperation.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 126–136.
De Judicibus, M., & McCabe, M. P. (2001). Blaming the target of sexual
harassment: Impact of gender role, sexist attitudes, and work role.
Sex Roles, 44, 401–417.
De Kwaadsteniet, E. W., van Dijk, E., Wit, A., De Cremer, D., &
de Rooij, M. (2007). Justifying decisions in social dilemmas:
Justification pressures and tacit coordination under environmental
uncertainty. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 1648–1660.
Deutsch, M. (1973). The resolution of conflict. New Haven: Yale University
Press.
Deutsch, M. (1975). Equity, equality, and need: What determines which
value will be used as the basis of distributive justice? Journal of Social
Issues, 31, 137–149.
Deutsch, M. (1985). Distributive justice: A social–psychological perspec-
tive. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Deutsch, M. (1999). A personal perspective on the development of social
psychology in the twentieth century. In A. Rodrigues & R. Levine
(Eds.), Reflections on 100 years of experimental social psychology (pp.
1–34). New York: Basic Books.
Deutsch, M. (2006). Justice and conflict. In M. Deutsch, P. T. Coleman, &
E. C. Marcus (Eds.), The handbook of conflict resolution: Theory and
practice (2nd ed., pp. 43–68). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Diekmann, K.A., Barsness, Z. I., & Sondak, H. (2004). Uncertainty, fair-
ness perceptions, and job satisfaction: A field study. Social Justice
Research, 17, 237–255.
Diekmann, K. A., Samuels, S. M., Ross, L., & Bazerman, M. H. (1997).
Self-interest and fairness in problems of resource allocation: Allocators
versus recipients. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72,
1061–1074.
Diener, E. (1984). Subjective well-being. Psychological Bulletin, 95,
542–575.
Dion, K. L., (1986). Responses to perceived discrimination and relative
deprivation. In J. M. Olson, H. C. Peter, & M. P. Zanna (Eds.),
Relative deprivation and social comparison: The Ontario symposium
(Vol. 4, pp. 159–179). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Dion, K. L., & Dion, K. K. (1987). Belief in a just world and physi-
cal attractiveness stereotyping. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 52, 775–780.
Doise, W. (1986). Levels of explanation in social psychology. Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press.
Doob, L. W. (1952). Social psychology: An analysis of human behavior.
New York: Holt.
Doris, J. M. (2002). Lack of character: Personality and moral behavior.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
References 1155
Doty, R. M., Peterson, B. E., & Winter, D. G. (1991). Threat and authori-
tarianism in the United States, 1978–1987. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 61, 629–640.
Drout, C. E., & Gaertner, S. L. (1994). Gender differences in reactions to
female victims. Social Behavior and Personality, 22, 267–277.
Dubé, L., & Guimond, S. (1986). Relative deprivation and social protest.
In J. M. Olson, C. P. Herman, & M. P. Zanna (Eds.), Relative depri-
vation and social comparison: The Ontario symposium (Vol. 4,
pp. 201–216). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Eagly, A. H., Diekman, A. B., Johannesen-Schmidt, M. C., & Koenig,
A. M. (2004). Gender gaps in sociopolitical attitudes: A social
psychological analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
87, 796–816.
Eagly, A. H., & Steffen, V. J. (1984). Gender stereotypes stem from the
distribution of women and men into social roles. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 46, 735–754.
Eek, D., & Gärling, T. (2006). Prosocials prefer equal outcomes to maxi-
mizing joint outcomes. British Journal of Social Psychology, 45,
321–337.
Ellard, J. H., & Bates, D. D. (1990). Evidence for the role of the justice motive
in status generalization processes. Social Justice Research, 4, 115–134.
Elliott, C. S., Hayward, D. M., & Canon, S. (1998). Institutional fram-
ing: Some experimental evidence. Journal of Economic Behavior and
Organization, 35, 455–464.
Ellsworth, P. C., & Ross, L. (1983). Public opinion and capital punishment:
A close examination of the views of abolitionists and retentionists.
Crime & Delinquency, 29, 116–169.
Elster, J. (1992). Local justice: How institutions allocate scarce goods and
necessary burdens. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Emler, N. (2002). Morality and political orientations: An analysis of their
relationship. European Review of Social Psychology, 13, 259–291.
Feather, N. T. (1994). Attitudes toward high achievers and reactions to
their fall: Theory and research concerning tall poppies. In M. P. Zanna
(Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 26, pp. 1–73).
San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Feather, N. T. (1999). Judgments of deservingness: Studies in the psychol-
ogy of justice and achievement. Personality and Social Psychology
Review, 3, 86–107.
Feather, N. T. (2008). Perceived legitimacy of a promotion decision in
relation to deservingness, entitlement, and resentment in the context
of affirmative action and performance. Journal of Applied Social
Psychology, 38, 1230–1254.
Fehr, E. & Fischbacher, U. (2003). The nature of human altruism. Nature,
425, 785–791.
Feinberg, J. (1973). Social philosophy. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Feldman, S. (2003). Enforcing social conformity: A theory of authoritari-
anism. Political Psychology, 24, 41–74.
Festinger, L. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes. Human
Relations, 7, 117–140.
Feygina, I., Goldsmith, R., & Jost, J. T. (in press). System justification and
the disruption of environmental goal-setting: A self-regulatory per-
spective. In R. Hassin, K. Ochsner, & Y. Trope (Eds.), Social cogni-
tive and neuroscientific approaches to self-control. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Fischer, R., & Smith, P. B. (2003). Reward allocation and culture: A meta-
analysis. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 34, 251–268.
Fiske, A. P., & Tetlock, P. E. (1997). Taboo trade-offs: Reactions to transactions
that transgress the spheres of justice. Political Psychology, 18, 255–297.
Fiske, S. T. (1998). Stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination. In
D. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social
psychology (4th ed., pp. 357–414). Boston: McGraw-Hill.
1156 Social Justice
Fiske, S. T. (2004). Social beings: A core motives approach to social psy-
chology. New York: Wiley.
Flanagan, O. (1991). Varieties of moral personality: Ethics and psycho-
logical realism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Foels, R., & Pappas, C. J. (2004). Learning and unlearning the myths we
are taught: Gender and social dominance orientation. Sex Roles, 50,
743–757.
Folger, R. (1977). Distributive and procedural justice: Combined impact
of “voice” and improvement on experienced inequity. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 108–119.
Folger, R. (1986). A referent cognitions theory of relative deprivation. In
J. M. Olson, C. P. Herman, & M. P. Zanna (Eds.), Social comparison
and relative deprivation: The Ontario Symposium (Vol. 4, pp. 33–55).
Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Folger, R., & Bies, R. J. (1989). Managerial responsibilities and procedural
justice. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 2, 79–90.
Folger, R., Rosenfield, D., Grove, J., & Corkran, L. (1979). Effects
of “voice” and peer opinions on responses to inequity. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 2253–2261.
Ford, T. E., Boxer, C. F., Armstrong, J., & Edel, J. R. (2008). More than
“just a joke”: The prejudice-releasing function of sexist humor.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 159–170.
Foster, M. D., & Matheson, K. (1995). Double relative depriva-
tion: Combining the personal and political. Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, 21, 1167–1177.
Fox, D. R. (1999). Psycholegal scholarship’s contribution to false con-
sciousness about injustice. Law and Human Behavior, 23, 9–30.
Frankena, W. K. (1962). The concept of social justice. In R. B. Brandt
(Ed.), Social justice (pp. 1–29). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Frankfurt, H. (1987). Equality as a moral ideal. Ethics, 98, 21–42.
Freeman, D., Aquino, K., & McFerran, B. (2009). Overcoming benefi-
ciary race as an impediment to charitable donations: Social dominance
orientation, the experience of moral elevation, and donation behavior.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35, 72–84.
Freudenthaler, H. H., & Mikula, G. (1998). From unfulfilled wants to the
experience of injustice: Women’s sense of injustice regarding the lop-
sided division of household labor. Social Justice Research, 11, 289–312.
Frohlich, N., & Oppenheimer, J. A. (1992). Choosing justice: An experi-
mental approach to ethical theory. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
Fujita, F., Diener, E., & Sandvik, E. (1991). Gender differences in nega-
tive affect and well-being: The case for emotional intensity. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 427–434.
Fuller, J. B., Jr., & Hester, K. (2001). A closer look at the relationship
between justice perceptions and union participation. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 86, 1096–1105.
Furgeson, J., Babcock, L., & Shane, P. (2008). Behind the mask of
method: Political orientation and constitutional interpretive prefer-
ences. Law & Human Behavior, 32, 502–510.
Furnham, A. (1985). Just world beliefs in an unjust society: a cross-cultural
comparison. European Journal of Social Psychology, 15, 363–366.
Furnham, A. (1995). The just world, charitable giving and attitudes to dis-
ability. Personality and Individual Differences, 19, 577–583.
Furnham, A. (2003). Belief in a just world: Research progress over the past
decade. Personality and Individual Differences, 34, 795–817.
Gachter, S., & Fehr, E. (1999). Collective action as a social exchange.
Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 39, 341–369.
Gamliel, E., & Peer, E. (2006). Positive versus negative framing affects
justice judgments. Social Justice Research, 19, 307–322.
Gaucher, D., Hafer, C., Kay, A. C., & Davidenko, N. (in press).
Compensatory rationalizations and the resolution of everyday under-
served outcomes. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
Gelfand, M. J., Fitzgerald, L. F., & Drasgow, F. (1995). The structure of
sexual harassment: A confirmatory analysis across cultures and set-
tings. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 47, 164–177.
Gibson, J. L. (2004). Overcoming apartheid: Can truth reconcile a divided
nation? New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Gibson, J. L. (2008). Group identities and theories of justice: An experi-
mental investigation into the justice and injustice of land squatting in
South Africa. The Journal of Politics, 70, 700–716.
Gleason, M. E. J., Iida, M., Bolger, N., & Shrout, P. E. (2003). Daily sup-
portive equity in close relationships. Personality and Social Psychology
Bulletin, 29, 1036–1045.
Goldman, A. (1992). Liaisons: Philosophy meets the cognitive and social
sciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Gollwitzer, M., Schmitt, M., Schalke, R., Maes, J., & Baer, A. (2005).
Asymmetrical effects of justice sensitivity perspectives on prosocial
and antisocial behavior. Social Justice Research, 18, 183–201.
Goodman, P. S. (1977). Social comparison processes in organizations. In
B. Staw & G. Salancik (Eds.), New directions in organizational behav-
ior (pp. 97–132). Chicago: St. Clair.
Green, D. P., & Shapiro, I. (1994). Pathologies of rational choice theory:
A critique of applications in political science. New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press.
Greenberg, J. (1980). Attentional focus and locus of performance causality
as determinants of equity behavior. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 38, 579–585.
Greenberg, J. (1984). On the apocryphal nature of inequity distress.
In R. Folger (Ed.), The sense of injustice (pp. 167–188). New York:
Plenum.
Greenberg, J. (1993). Stealing in the name of justice: Informational and
interpersonal moderators of theft reactions to underpayment inequity.
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 54, 81–103.
Greenberg, J., Bies, R. J., & Eskew, D. E. (1991). Establishing fairness
in the eye of the beholder: Managing impressions of organizational
justice. In R. A. Giacalone & P. Rosenfeld (Eds.), Applied impression
management: How image-making affects managerial decisions (pp.
111–132). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Greenberger, E. (1984). Defining psychosocial maturity in adolescence.
Advances in Child Behavioral Analysis & Therapy, 3, 1–37.
Greene, J. D. (2003). From neural “is” to moral “ought”: What are the
moral implications of neuroscientific moral psychology? Nature
Reviews Neuroscience, 4, 846–849.
Greene, J. D., & Cohen, J. (2004). For the law, neuroscience changes noth-
ing and everything. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of
London B (Special Issue on Law and the Brain), 359, 1775–17785.
Greene, J. D., Morelli, S. A., Lowenberg, K., Nystrom, L. E., & Cohen, J. D.
(2008). Cognitive load selectively interferes with utilitarian moral
judgment. Cognition, 107, 1144–1154.
Greene, J. D., Sommerville, R. B., Nystrom, L. E., Darley, J. M., &
Cohen, J. D. (2001). An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement
in moral Judgment. Science, 293, 2105–2108.
Greenwald, A. G., & Krieger, L. H. (2006). Implicit bias: Scientific foun-
dations. California Law Review, 94, 945–967.
Gromet, D. M., & Darley, J. M. (2006). Restoration and retribution: How
including retributive components affects the acceptability of restorative
justice procedures. Social Justice Research, 19, 395–432.
Guimond, S., & Dambrun, M. (2002). When prosperity breeds intergroup
hostility: The effects of relative deprivation and relative gratification on
prejudice. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 900–912.
Guimond, S., Dambrun, M., Michinov, N., & Duarte, S. (2003). Does
social dominance generate prejudice? Integrating individual and con-
textual determinants of intergroup cognitions. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 84, 697–721.

Guimond, S., & Dubé-Simard, L. (1983). Relative deprivation theory and
the Quebec nationalist movement: The cognition–emotion distinction
and the personal–group deprivation issue. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 44, 526–535.
Gurney, P., & Tierney, K. (1982). Relative deprivation and social move-
ments: A critical look at twenty years of theory and research.
Sociological Quarterly, 23, 33–47.
Gurr, T. (1970). Why men rebel. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Gustafsson, M., Biel, A., & Gärling, T. (1999). Outcome-desirability bias in
resource management problems. Thinking & Reasoning, 5, 327–337.
Güth, W., Schmittberger, R., & Schwarze, B. (1982). An experimental
analysis of ultimatum bargaining. Journal of Economic Behavior and
Organization, 3, 367–388.
Hafer, C. L. (2000a). Do innocent victims threaten the belief in a just
world? Evidence from a modified Stroop task. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 79, 165–173.
Hafer, C. L. (2000b). Investment in long-term goals and commitment to
just means drive the need to believe in a just world. Personality and
Social Psychology Bulletin, 26, 1059–1073.
Hafer, C. L., & Bègue, L. (2005). Experimental research on just-world
theory: Problems, developments, and future challenges. Psychological
Bulletin, 131, 128–167.
Hafer, C. L., Bègue, L., Choma, B. L., & Dempsey, J. L. (2005). Belief in
a just world and commitment to long-term deserved outcomes. Social
Justice Research, 18, 429–444.
Hafer, C. L., & Olson, J. M. (1993). Beliefs in a just world, discontent,
and assertive actions by working women. Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, 19, 30–38.
Hafer, C. L., & Olson, J. M. (2003). An analysis of empirical research on
the scope of justice. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 7,
311–323.
Haidt, J. (2001). The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuition-
ist approach to moral judgment. Psychological Review, 108, 814–834.
Haidt, J., & Graham, J. (2007). When morality opposes justice:
Conservatives have moral intuitions that liberals may not recognize.
Social Justice Research, 20, 98–116.
Haidt, J., & Graham, J. (2009). Planet of the Durkheimians, where commu-
nity, authority, and sacredness are foundations of morality. In J. T. Jost,
A. C. Kay, & H. Thorisdottir (Eds.), Social and psychological bases
of ideology and system justification (pp. 371–401). New York: Oxford
University Press.
Haines, E. L., & Jost, J. T. (2000). Placating the powerless: Effects of legit-
imate and illegitimate explanation on affect, memory, and stereotyping.
Social Justice Research, 13, 219–236.
Haney, C. (1993). Psychology and legal change: The impact of a decade.
Law and Human Behavior, 17, 371–398.
Hanson, J., & Yosifon, D. (2004). The situational character: A critical real-
ist perspective on the human animal. The Georgetown Law Journal,
93, 1–179.
Hardin, C. D., & Higgins, E. T. (1996). Shared reality: How social veri-
fication makes the subjective objective. In R. M. Sorrentino & E. T.
Higgins (Eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition, (Vol. 3, pp.
28–84). New York: Guilford.
Hardin, G. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. Science, 162,
1243–1248.
Hare, R. M. (1981). Moral thinking: Its levels, method, and point.
New York: Clarendon Press.
Harman, G. (1999). Moral philosophy meets social psychology: Virtue
ethics and the fundamental attribution error. Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society, 99, 315–331.
Harris, N. (2006). Reintegrative shaming, shame, and criminal justice.
Journal of Social Issues, 62, 327–346.
References 1157
Hatfield, E., & Sprecher, S. (1984). Equity theory and behavior in organi-
zations. Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 3, 95–124.
Hayek, F. A. (1976). Law, legislation, and liberty: Volume 2—The mirage
of social justice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hegtvedt, K. A. (1990). The effects of relationship structure on emotional
responses to inequity. Social Psychology Quarterly, 53, 214–228.
Henrich, J., Boyd, R., Bowles, S., Camerer, C., Fehr, E., Gintis, H., &
McElreath, R. (2001). In search of homo economicus: Behavioral
experiments in 15 small-scale societies. The American Economic
Review, 91, 73–78.
Heuer, L., Blumenthal, E., Douglas, A., & Weinblatt, T. (1999). A deserv-
ingness approach to respect as a relationally based fairness judgment.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 1279–1292.
Higgins, E. T., & Kruglanski, A. W. (Eds.) (2000). Motivational science:
Social and personality perspectives. New York: Psychology Press.
Ho, R., ForsterLee, L., ForsterLee, R., & Crofts, N. (2002). Justice versus
vengeance: Motives underlying punitive judgements. Personality and
Individual Differences, 33, 365–378.
Hoffman, C., & Hurst, N. (1990). Gender stereotypes: Perception or
rationalization? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58,
197–208.
Hogue, M., & Yoder, J. D. (2003). The role of status in producing depressed
entitlement in women’s and men’s pay allocations. Psychology of
Women Quarterly, 27, 330–337.
Homans, G. C. (1974). Social behavior: Its elementary forms. Oxford:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. (Original work published 1961).
Horwitt, S. D. (1989). Let them call me rebel: Saul Alinsky, his life and
legacy. New York: Knopf.
Houlden, P., LaTour, S., Walker, L., & Thibaut, J. (1978). Preference for
modes of dispute resolution as a function of process and decision con-
trol. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 14, 13–30.
Huo, Y. J. (2002). Justice and the regulation of social relations: When and
why do group members deny claims to social goods? British Journal of
Social Psychology, 41, 535–562.
Husami, Z. (1980). Marx on distributive justice. In M. Cohen, T. Nagel, &
T. Scanlon (Eds.), Marx, justice, and history (pp. 42–79). Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1978).
Jackson, J. M., & Harkins, S. G. (1985). Equity in effort: An explanation of
the social loafing effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
49, 1199–1206.
Janoff-Bulman, R. (1992). Shattered assumptions: Towards a new psychol-
ogy of trauma. New York: Free Press.
Janoff-Bulman, R. (2007). Erroneous assumptions: Popular belief in the
effectiveness of torture interrogation. Peace and Conflict: Journal of
Peace Psychology, 13, 429–435.
Jasso, G. (1999). How much injustice is there in the world? Two new jus-
tice indexes. American Sociological Review, 64, 133–168.
Johnson, J. D., Whitestone, E., Jackson, L. A., & Gatto, L. (1995). Justice
is still not colorblind: Differential racial effects of exposure to inad-
missible evidence. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21,
893–898.
Jones, E. E. (1998). Major developments in five decades of social psychol-
ogy. In D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of
social psychology (4th ed., Vol. 2, pp. 3–57). Boston: McGraw Hill.
(Original work published 1985).
Jones, H. B., Jr. (1997). The Protestant ethic: Weber’s model and the
empirical literature. Human Relations, 50, 757–778.
Jost, J. T. (1995). Negative illusions: Conceptual clarification and psycho-
logical evidence concerning false consciousness. Political Psychology,
16, 397–424.
Jost, J. T. (1997). An experimental replication of the depressed–entitlement
effect among women. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 21, 387–393.
1158 Social Justice
Jost, J. T. (2009). “Elective affinities”: On the psychological bases of left–
right differences. Psychological Inquiry, 20, 129–141.
Jost, J. T., & Azzi, A. E. (1996). Microjustice and macrojustice in the allo-
cation of resources between experimental groups. Journal of Social
Psychology, 136, 349–365.
Jost, J. T., & Banaji, M. R. (1994). The role of stereotyping in system-
justification and the production of false consciousness. British Journal
of Social Psychology, 33, 1–27.
Jost, J. T., Banaji, M. R., & Nosek, B. A. (2004). A decade of system jus-
tification theory: Accumulated evidence of conscious and unconscious
bolstering of the status quo. Political Psychology, 25, 881–920.
Jost, J. T., Blount, S., Pfeffer, J., & Hunyady, Gy. (2003). Fair market
ideology: Its cognitive-motivational underpinnings. In R. M. Kramer &
B. M. Staw (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior (Vol. 25, pp.
53–91). Oxford: Elsevier.
Jost, J. T., & Burgess, D. (2000). Attitudinal ambivalence and the conflict
between group and system justification motives in low status groups.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26, 293–305.
Jost, J. T., Glaser, J., Kruglanski, A. W., & Sulloway, F. J. (2003). Political
conservatism as motivated social cognition. Psychological Bulletin,
129, 339–375.
Jost, J. T., & Hunyady, O. (2002). The psychology of system justification
and the palliative function of ideology. European Review of Social
Psychology, 13, 111–153.
Jost, J. T., & Hunyady, O. (2005). Antecedents and consequences of
system-justifying ideologies. Current Directions in Psychological
Science, 14, 260–265.
Jost, J. T., & Jost, L. J. (2009). Virtue ethics and the social psychology
of character: Philosophical lessons from the person-situation debate.
Journal of Research in Personality, 43, 253–254.
Jost, J. T., & Kay, A. C. (2005). Exposure to benevolent sexism and com-
plementary gender stereotypes: Consequences for specific and dif-
fuse forms of system justification. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 88, 498–509.
Jost, J. T., Ledgerwood, A., & Hardin, C. D. (2008). Shared reality, system
justification, and the relational basis of ideological beliefs. Social and
Personality Psychology Compass, 2, 171–186.
Jost, J. T., Liviatan, I., van der Toorn, J., Ledgerwood, A., Mandisodza, A., &
Nosek, B.A. (2009). System justification: How do we know it’s moti-
vated? In A.C. Kay et al. (Eds.), The psychology of justice and legiti-
macy: The Ontario symposium (Vol. 11). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Jost, J. T., & Major, B. (Eds.) (2001). The psychology of legitimacy:
Emerging perspectives on ideology, justice, and intergroup relations.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Jost, J. T., Nosek, B. A., & Gosling, S. D. (2008). Ideology: Its resur-
gence in social, personality, and political psychology. Perspectives on
Psychological Science, 3, 126–136.
Jost, J. T., Pelham, B. W., & Carvallo, M. R. (2002). Non-conscious forms of
system justification: Implicit and behavioral preferences for higher sta-
tus groups. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 586–602.
Jost, J. T., & Ross, L. (1999). Fairness norms and the potential for mutual
agreements involving majority and minority groups. In E. Mannix,
M. Neale, & R. Wageman (Eds.), Research on managing groups and
teams/Volume 2: Context (pp. 93–114). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Jost, J. T., & Thompson, E. P. (2000). Group-based dominance and opposi-
tion to equality as independent predictors of self-esteem, ethnocentrism,
and social policy attitudes among African Americans and European
Americans. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 36, 209–232.
Jost, J. T., Wakslak, C., & Tyler, T.R. (2008). System justification theory
and the alleviation of emotional distress: Palliative effects of ideol-
ogy in an arbitrary social hierarchy and in society. In K. Hegtvedt &
J. Clay-Warner (Eds.), Justice: Advances in group processes (Vol. 25,
pp. 181–211). Bingley, England: JAI/Emerald.
Jost, L. J., & Jost, J. T. (2007). Why Marx left philosophy for social
science. Theory & Psychology, 17, 297–322.
Kahneman, D., Diener, E., & Schwarz, N. (Eds.). (1999). Well-being:
The foundations of a hedonic psychology. New York: Russell Sage
Foundation.
Kahneman, D., Knetsch, J.L., & Thaler, R.H. (1986). Fairness as a con-
straint on profit seeking: Entitlement in the market. American Economic
Review, 76, 728–741.
Kahneman, D., Schkade, D., & Sunstein, C. R. (1998). Shared outrage and
erratic awards: The psychology of punitive damages. Journal of Risk
and Uncertainty, 16, 49–86.
Kahneman, D., Slovic, P., & Tversky, A. (Eds.) (1982). Judgment under
uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Kang, J. (2005). Trojan horses of race. Harvard Law Review, 118,
1489–1593.
Kang, J., & Banaji, M. R. (2006). Fair measures: A behavioral realist revi-
sion of “affirmative action.” California Law Review, 94, 1063–1118.
Kant, I. (1952). The science of right. (W. Hastie, Trans.). In R. Hutchins
(Ed.), Great books of the Western world (pp. 397–446). Edinburgh:
T. & T. Clark. (Original work published 1790).
Kant, I. (1993). Grounding for the metaphysics of morals (3rd edition,
J. W. Ellington, Trans.). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. (Original work pub-
lished 1785).
Katz, I., & Hass, R. G. (1988). Racial ambivalence and American value
conflict: Correlational and priming studies of dual cognitive structures.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 893–905.
Kay, A. C., Gaucher, D., Napier, J. L., Callan, M. J., & Laurin, K. (2008).
God and the Government: Testing a compensatory control mechanism
for the support of external systems. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 95, 18–35.
Kay, A. C., Gaucher, D., Peach, J. M., Laurin, K., Friesen, J., Zanna, M. P., &
Spencer, S. J. (2009). Inequality, discrimination, and the power
of the status quo: Direct evidence for a motivation to see is
the way things are as the way they should be. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 97, 421–434.
Kay, A.C., & Jost, J.T. (2003). Complementary justice: Effects of “poor
but happy” and “poor but honest” stereotype exemplars on system
justification and implicit activation of the justice motive. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 823–837.
Kay, A. C., Jost, J. T., Mandisodza, A. N., Sherman, S. J., Petrocelli, J. V., &
Johnson, A. L. (2007). Panglossian ideology in the service of system
justification: How complementary stereotypes help us to rational-
ize inequality. In M. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social
Psychology (pp. 305–358). San Diego, CA: Academic Press/Elsevier.
Kay, A. C., Jost, J. T., & Young, S. (2005). Victim derogation and victim
enhancement as alternate routes to system justification. Psychological
Science, 16, 240–246.
Kay, A. C., & Ross, L. (2003). The perceptual push: The interplay of
implicit cues and explicit situational construals on behavioral intentions
in the prisoner’s dilemma. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology,
39, 634–643.
Kay, A. C., Wheeler, S. C., Bargh, J. A., & Ross, L. (2004). Material prim-
ing: The influence of mundane physical objects on situational con-
strual and competitive behavioral choice. Organizational Behavior and
Human Decision Processes, 95, 83–96.
Kay, A. C., & Zanna, M. P. (2009). A contextual analysis of the social and
psychological consequences of system justification. In J. T. Jost, A. C.
Kay, & H. Thoristtodor (Eds.), Social and psychological bases of ideol-
ogy and system justification. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kelln, B. R. C., & Ellard, J. H. (1999). An equity theory analysis of the
impact of forgiveness and retribution on transgressor compliance.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 864–872.

Kelman, H. C. (2001). Reflections on the social and psychological pro-
cesses of legitimization and delegitimization. In J. T. Jost & B. Major
(Eds.), The psychology of legitimacy: Emerging perspectives on ideol-
ogy, justice, and intergroup relations (pp. 54–73). Cambridge, England:
Cambridge University Press.
Kelman, H. C., & Hamilton, V. L. (1989). Crimes of obedience: Toward
a social psychology of authority and responsibility. New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press.
Kernan, M. C., & Hanges, P. J. (2001). Survivor reactions to reorganiza-
tion: Antecedents and consequences of procedural, interpersonal, and
informational justice. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 916–928.
Kessler, T., & Mummendey, A. (2001). Is there any scapegoat around?
Determinants of intergroup conflicts at different categorization levels.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 1090–1102.
Kinder, D. R., & Sears, D. O. (1985). Public opinion and political action.
In G. Lindzey & E. Aronson (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology
(3rd ed., pp. 659–741). New York: Random House.
Klandermans, B., Van der Toorn, J., & Van Stekelenburg, J. (2008).
Embeddedness and identity: How immigrants turn grievances into
action. American Sociological Review, 73, 992–1012.
Klineberg, O. (1940). Social psychology. New York: Holt.
Kluegel, J. R., & Smith, E. R. (1986). Beliefs about inequality: Americans’
views of what is and what ought to be. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de
Gruyter.
Koenigs, M., Young, L., Adolphs, R., Tranel, D., Cushman, F., & Hauser, M.
et al. (2007). Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral
judgements, Nature, 446, 908–911.
Kohlberg, L. (1969). Stage and sequence: The cognitive-developmental
approach to socialization. In D. Goslin (Ed.), Handbook of socializa-
tion theory and research (pp. 347–480). Chicago: Rand-McNally.
Kohlberg, L. (1978). Revisions in the theory and practice of moral develop-
ment. In W. Damon (Ed.), New directions for child development: Moral
development (Vol. 2, pp. 83–87). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Kollock, P. (1998). Social dilemmas: The anatomy of cooperation. Annual
Review of Sociology, 24, 183–214.
Komorita, S. S., & Parks, C. D. (1995). Interpersonal relations: Mixed-
motive interaction. Annual Review of Psychology, 46, 183–207.
Komorita, S. S., & Parks, C. D. (1996). Social dilemmas. Boulder, CO:
Westview.
Konow, J. (2003). Which is the fairest one of all? A positive analysis of
justice theories. Journal of Economic Literature, 41, 1188–1239.
Kornblith, H. (Ed.) (1999). Naturalizing epistemology. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press.
Kramer, R. M., & Brewer, M. B. (1984). Effects of group identity on
resource use in a simulated commons dilemma. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 46, 1044–1057.
Kramer, R. M., McClintock, C. G., & Messick, D. M. (1986). Social values
and cooperative response to a simulated resource conservation crisis.
Journal of Personality, 54, 576–592.
Kraut, R. (2002). Aristotle: Political philosophy. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Krebs, D. L. (2008). How selfish by nature? In C. Crawford & D. L. Krebs
(Eds), Foundations of evolutionary psychology (pp. 293–312). New
York: Taylor & Francis.
Krebs, D., & Miller, D. T. (1985). Altruism and aggression. In G. Lindzey &
E. Aronson (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (3rd ed., pp. 1–71).
New York: Random House.
Kreps, D. M. (1990). A course in microeconomic theory. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Krieger, L. H. (1995). The content of our categories: A cognitive bias
approach to discrimination and equal employment opportunity.
Stanford Law Review, 47, 1161–1248.
References 1159
Krieger, L. H., & Fiske, S. T. (2006). Behavioral realism in employment
discrimination law: Implicit bias and disparate treatment. California
Law Review, 94, 997–1062.
Krech, D., & Crutchfield, R. S. (1948). Theory and problems of social psy-
chology. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Kristiansen, C. M., & Giulietti, R. (1990). Perceptions of wife abuse: Effects
of gender, attitudes toward women, and just-world beliefs among col-
lege students. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 14, 177–189.
Kuhlman, D. M., Camac, C., & Cunha, D. A. (1986). Individual differ-
ences in social orientation. In H. Wilke, D. Messick, & C. Rutte (Eds.),
Experimental social dilemmas (pp. 151–176). New York: Verlag Peter
Lang.
Kulik, C. T., & Ambrose, M. L. (1992). Personal and situational deter-
minants of referent choice. Academy of Management Review, 17,
212–237.
Kurzban, R., & Houser, D. (2001). Individual differences in cooperation
in a circular public goods game. European Journal of Personality, 15,
37–52.
Kurzban, R., & Leary, M. R. (2001). Evolutionary origins of stigmatiza-
tion: The functions of social exclusion. Psychological Bulletin, 127,
187–208.
Lamm, H., & Schwinger, T. (1980). Norms concerning distributive jus-
tice: Are needs taken into consideration in allocation decisions? Social
Psychology Quarterly, 4, 425–429.
Lane, K. A., Kang, J. & Banaji, M. R. (2007). Implicit social cognition and
the law. Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 3, 427–451.
Latimer, J., Dowden, C., & Muise, D. (2005). The effectiveness of restor-
ative justice practices: A meta-analysis. The Prison Journal, 85,
127–144.
Lavine, H., Lodge, M., & Freitas, K. (2005). Threat, authoritarianism, and
selective exposure to information. Political Psychology, 26, 219–244.
Lawrence, C.R. (2008). Unconscious racism revisited: Reflections on
the impact and origins of “the id, the ego, and equal protection.”
Connecticut Law Review, 40, 931–978.
Leach, C. W., Iyer, A., & Pedersen, A. (2007). Angry opposition to gov-
ernment redress: When the structurally advantaged perceive them-
selves as relatively deprived. British Journal of Social Psychology, 46,
191–204.
Leith, K. P., & Baumeister, R. F. (1998). Empathy, shame, guilt, and nar-
ratives of interpersonal conflicts: Guilt-prone people are better at per-
spective taking. Journal of Personality, 66, 1–37.
Lerner, M. J. (1974). The justice motive: “Equity” and “parity” among
children. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 29, 539–550.
Lerner, M. J. (1975). The justice motive of social behavior: Introduction.
Journal of Social Issues 31, 1–19.
Lerner, M. J. (1977). The justice motive: Some hypotheses as to its origins
and forms. Journal of Personality, 45, 1–52.
Lerner, M. J. (1980). The belief in a just world: A fundamental delusion.
New York: Plenum Press.
Lerner, M. J. (1987). Integrating societal and psychological rules of entitle-
ment: The basic task of each social actor and the fundamental problem
for the social sciences. Social Justice Research, 1, 107–121.
Lerner, M. J. (2003). The justice motive: Where social psychologists found
it, how they lost it, and why they may not find it again. Personality and
Social Psychology Review, 7, 388–399.
Lerner, M. J., & Miller, D. T. (1978). Just world research and the attri-
bution process: Looking back and ahead. Psychological Bulletin, 85,
1030–1051.
Lerner, M. J., Miller, D. T., & Holmes, J. G. (1976). Deserving and the
emergence of forms of justice. In L. Berkowitz & E. Walster (Eds.),
Advances in experimental social psychology (pp. 133–162). New York:
Academic Press.
1160 Social Justice
Lerner, M. J., & Simmons, C. H. (1966). Observer’s reaction to the “innocent
victim”: Compassion or rejection? Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 4, 203–210.
Lerner, M. J., & Whitehead, L. A. (1980). Procedural justice viewed in the
context of justice motive theory. In G. Mikula (Ed.), Justice and social
interaction: Experimental and theoretical contributions from psycho-
logical research (pp. 219–256). Bern, Austria: Huber.
Leung, K., & Stephan, W. G. (2000). Conflict and injustice in intercul-
tural relations: Insights from the Arab-Israeli and Sino-British disputes.
In S. Renshon & J. Duckitt (Eds.), Political psychology: Cultural and
cross-cultural perspectives (pp. 128–145). New York: McMillan.
Leventhal, G. S. (1980). What should be done with equity theory? New
approaches to the study of fairness in social relationships. In K. Gergen,
M. Greenberg, & R. Willis (Eds.), Social exchange (pp. 27–55). New
York: Plenum Press.
Leventhal, G. S., & Anderson, D. (1970). Self-interest and the maintenance
of equity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 15, 57–62.
Leventhal, G. S., Karuza, J., & Fry, W. R. (1980). Beyond fairness: A the-
ory of allocation preferences. In G. Mikula (Ed.), Justice and social
interaction (pp. 167–218). New York: Springer-Verlag.
Levine, J. M., & Moreland, R. L. (1987). Social comparison and outcome
evaluation in group contexts. In J. C. Masters & W. P. Smith (Eds.),
Social comparison, social justice, and relative deprivation: Theoretical,
empirical, and policy perspectives (pp. 105–127). Hillsdale, NJ:
Erlbaum.
Lewin, K. (1948a). Experiments in social space. In K. Lewin (Ed.),
Resolving social conflicts (pp. 71–83). New York: Harper. (Original
work published 1939).
Lewin, K. (1948b). Self-hatred among Jews. In K. Lewin (Ed.), Resolving
social conflicts (pp. 186–200). New York: Harper. (Original work pub-
lished 1941).
Lewin, K. (1951). Problems of research in social psychology. In K. Lewin
(ed.), Field theory in social science: Selected theoretical papers (pp.
155–169). New York: Harper & Row. (Original work published 1944).
Liberman, V., Samuels, S. M., & Ross, L. (2004). The name of the game:
Predictive power of reputations versus situational labels in determining
prisoner’s dilemma game moves. Personality and Social Psychology
Bulletin, 30, 1175–1185.
Liebrand, W. B., Jansen, R. W., Rijken, V. M., & Suhre, C. J. (1986). Might
over morality: Social values and the perception of other players in experi-
mental games. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 22, 203–215.
Lind, E. A., Kanfer, R., & Earley, P. C. (1990). Voice, control, and pro-
cedural justice: Instrumental and noninstrumental concerns in fair-
ness judgments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59,
952–959.
Lind, E. A., & Tyler, T. R. (1988). The social psychology of procedural
justice. New York: Plenum.
Lind, E. A., & Van den Bos, K. (2002). When fairness works: Toward
a general theory of uncertainty management. In B. M. Staw &
R. M. Kramer (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior
(pp. 181–223). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Link, B. G., & Phelan, J. C. (2001). Conceptualizing stigma. Annual
Review of Sociology, 27, 363–385.
Lipkus, I. M., & Bissonnette, V. L. (1996). Relationships among belief
in a just world, willingness to accommodate, and marital well-being.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22, 1043–1056.
Lipkus, I. M., Dalbert, C., & Siegler, I. C. (1996). The importance of
distinguishing the belief in a just world for self versus for others:
Implications for psychological well-being. Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, 22, 666–677.
Loewenstein, G. F., Thompson, L., & Bazerman, M. H. (1989). Social
utility and decision making in interpersonal contexts. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 426–441.
Lupfer, M. B., Weeks, K. P., Doan, K. A. & Houston, D. A. (2000). Folk
conceptions of fairness and unfairness. European Journal of Social
Psychology, 30, 405–428.
Maass, A., Cadinu, M., Guarnieri, G., & Grasselli, A. (2003). Sexual
harassment under social identity threat: The computer harassment para-
digm. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 853–870.
Maes, J. (1998). Immanent justice and ultimate justice: Two ways of
believing in justice. In L. Montada & M. J. Lerner (Eds.), Responses to
victimizations and belief in a just world (pp. 9–40). New York: Plenum
Press.
Major, B. (1994). From social inequality to personal entitlement: The role
of social comparisons, legitimacy appraisals, and group membership.
In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol.
26, pp. 293–355). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Major, B., Gramzow, R. H., McCoy, S. K., Levin, S., Schmader, T., &
Sidanius, J. (2002). Perceiving personal discrimination: The role of
group status and legitimizing ideology. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 82, 269–282.
Major, B., Quinton, W. J., & McCoy, S. K. (2002). Antecedents and con-
sequences of attributions to discrimination: Theoretical and empirical
advances. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psy-
chology (Vol. 34, pp. 251–330). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Maner, J. K., Luce, C. L., Neuberg, S. L., Cialdini, R. B., Brown, S.,
Sagarin, B. J. (2002). The effects of perspective taking on helping: Still
no evidence for altruism. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin,
28, 1601–1610.
Mansbridge, J. (2005). Cracking through hegemonic ideology: The logic of
formal justice. Social Justice Research, 18, 335–347.
March, J. G., & Simon, H. A. (1958). Organizations. Oxford: Wiley.
Markowski, B. (1988). Injustice and arousal. Social Justice Research, 2,
223–233.
Martin, J. (1986). The tolerance of injustice. In J. M. Olson, C. P. Herman, &
M. P. Zanna (Eds.), Relative deprivation and social comparison: The
Ontario Symposium (pp. 217–242). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Martin, J., Scully, M., & Levitt, B. (1990). Injustice and the legitimation of
revolution: Damning the past, excusing the present, and neglecting the
future. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 281–290.
Masterson, S. S., Lewis, K., Goldman, B. M., & Taylor, M. S. (2000).
Integrating justice and social exchange: The differing effects of fair pro-
cedures and treatment on work relationships. Academy of Management
Journal, 43, 738–748.
Matania, E. & Yaniv, I. (2007). Resource priority, fairness, and equality-
efficiency compromises. Social Justice Research, 20, 497–510.
McClintock, C. G., & Allison, S. T. (1989). Social value orientation and
helping behavior. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 19, 353–362.
McCoy, S. K., & Major, B. (2007). Priming meritocracy and the psy-
chological justification of inequality. Journal of Experimental Social
Psychology, 43, 341–351.
McFatter, R. M. (1982). Purposes of punishment: Effects of utilities of
criminal sanctions on perceived appropriateness. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 67, 255–267.
McGuire, W. J. (1965). Discussion of William N. Schoenfeld’s paper.
In O. Klineberg & R. Christie (Eds.), Perspectives in social psychology
(pp. 135–140). New York: Holt.
McGuire, W J. (1985). Attitudes and attitude change. In G. Lindzey &
E. Aronson (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (3rd ed., Vol. 2, pp.
233–346). New York: Random House.
McKee, I. R., & Feather, N. T. (2008). Revenge, retribution, and values:
Social attitudes and punitive sentencing. Social Justice Research, 21,
138–163.
McPhail, C. (1971). Civil disorder participation: A critical examination of
recent research. American Sociological Review, 36, 1058–1073.

Messick, D. M., & McClintock, C. G. (1968). Motivational bases of choice
in experimental games. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 4,
1–25.
Messick, D. M., Wilke, H., Brewer, M. B., Kramer, R. M., Zemke, P. E., &
Lui, L. (1983). Individual adaptations and structural change as solu-
tions to social dilemmas. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
44, 294–309.
Michelbach, P. A., Scott, J. T., Mattland, R. E., & Bornstein, B. H. (2003).
Doing Rawls justice: An experimental study of income distribution
norms. American Journal of Political Science, 47, 523–539.
Mikula, G. (1984). Justice and fairness in interpersonal relations: Thoughts
and suggestions. In H. Tajfel (Ed.), The social dimension (pp. 204–
227). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Mikula, G., & Wenzel, M. (2000). Justice and social conflict. International
Journal of Psychology, 35, 126–135.
Miles, E. W., Hatfield, J. D., & Huseman, R. C. (1994). Equity sensitiv-
ity and outcome importance. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 15,
585–596.
Mill, J. S. (1869). On liberty. London: Longman, Roberts, & Green.
(Original work published 1859.)
Mill, J. S. (1910). Utilitarianism, liberty and representation. New York:
E.P. Dutton.
Miller, D. (1999). Principles of social justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Miller, D. T. (1977). Personal deservingness versus justice for others:
An exploration of the justice motive. Journal of Experimental Social
Psychology, 13, 1–13.
Miller, D. T. (2001). Disrespect and the experience of injustice. Annual
Review of Psychology, 52, 527–553.
Miller, F. D., Jr. (1995). Nature, justice, and rights in Aristotle’s politics.
New York: Oxford.
Mishel, L., Bernstein, J., & Allegretta, S. (2005). The state of working
America 2004/2005. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Mitchell, G., & Tetlock, P. E. (2006). Antidiscrimination law and the perils
of mindreading. Ohio State Law Journal, 67, 1023–1121.
Mitchell, G., Tetlock, P. E., Mellers, B. A., & Ordóñez, L. D. (1993).
Judgments of social justice: Compromises between equality and effi-
ciency. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 629–639.
Mitchell, G., Tetlock, P. E., Newman, D. G., & Lerner, J. S. (2003).
Experiments behind the veil: Structural influences on judgments of
social justice. Political Psychology, 24, 519–547.
Monroe, K. R. (2004). The hand of compassion: Portraits of moral choice
during the Holocaust. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Montada, L. (2002). Doing justice to the justice motive. In M. Ross &
D. T. Miller (Eds.), The justice motive in everyday life (pp. 41–62).
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Montada, L. (2003). Justice, equity, and fairness in human relations.
In T. Millon & M. J. Lerner (Eds.), Handbook of psychology:
Personality and social psychology (Vol. 5, pp. 532–568). Hoboken, NJ:
John Wiley & Sons.
Montada, L., & Schneider, A. (1989). Justice and emotional reactions to
the disadvantaged. Social Justice Research, 3, 313–344.
Moore, B. Jr. (1978). Injustice: The social bases of obedience and revolt.
White Plains, NY: Sharpe.
Mowday, R. T. (1991). Equity theory predictions of behavior in organi-
zations. In R. M. Steers & L. W. Porter (Eds.), Motivation and work
behavior (3rd ed., pp. 91–112). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Mulder, L. B., van Dijk, E., De Cremer, D., & Wilke, H.A.M. (2006).
Undermining trust and cooperation: The paradox of sanctioning sys-
tems in social dilemmas. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology,
42, 147–162.
References 1161
Mullen, E., & Skitka, L. J. (2006). Exploring the psychological underpin-
nings of the moral mandate effect: Motivated reasoning, group differ-
entiation, or anger? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90,
629–643.
Murphy, K., & Harris, N. (2007). Shaming, shame and recidivism: A test of
reintegrative shaming theory in the white-collar crime context. British
Journal of Criminology, 47, 900–917.
Nagel, T. (1991). Equality and partiality. New York: Oxford University
Press.
Napier, J. L., & Jost, J. T. (2008a). Why are conservatives happier than
liberals? Psychological Science, 19, 565–572.
Napier, J. L., & Jost, J. T. (2008b). The “antidemocratic personality” revis-
ited: A cross-national investigation of working-class authoritarianism.
Journal of Social Issues, 64, 595–617.
Napier, J. L., Mandisodza, A. N., Andersen, S. M., & Jost, J. T. (2006).
System justification in responding to the poor and displaced in the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Analyses of Social Issues and Public
Policy, 6, 57–73.
Napier, J. L., & Tyler, T. R. (2008). Does moral conviction really override
concerns about procedural justice? A reexamination of the value pro-
tection model. Social Justice Research, 21, 509–528.
Neuberg, S. L., Cialdini, R. B., Brown, S. L., Luce, C., Sagarin, B. J., &
Lewis, B. P. (1997). Does empathy lead to anything other than superfi-
cial helping? Comment on Batson et al. (1997). Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 73, 510–516.
Nielsen, K. (1985). Equality and liberty: A defense of radical egalitarian-
ism. Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allanheld.
Nisbett, R., & Ross, L. (1980). Human inference: Strategies and shortcom-
ings of social judgment. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Nosek, B. A., Banaji, M. R., & Jost, J. T. (2009). The politics of intergroup
attitudes. In J. T. Jost, A. C. Kay, & H. Thorisdottir (Eds.), Social and
psychological bases of ideology and system justification (pp. 480–506).
New York: Oxford University Press.
Nozick, R. (1974). Anarchy, state, and utopia. Oxford: Blackwell.
O’Neill, B. S., & Mone, M. A. (1998). Investigating equity sensitivity as a
moderator of relations between self-efficacy and workplace attitudes.
Journal of Applied Psychology, 83, 805–816.
O’Brien, L. T., & Major, B. (2005). System-justifying beliefs and psycho-
logical well-being: The roles of group status and identity. Personality
and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31, 1718–1729.
Olson, J. M., & Hafer, C. L. (2001). Tolerance of personal deprivation.
In J. T. Jost & B. Major (Eds.), The psychology of legitimacy: Emerging
perspectives on ideology, justice, and intergroup relations. (pp. 157–
175). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Olson, J. M., & Hazlewood, J. D. (1986). Relative deprivation and social
comparison: An integrative perspective. In J. M. Olson, C. P. Herman,
& M. P. Zanna (Eds.), Relative deprivation and social comparison: The
Ontario symposium (Vol. 4, pp. 1–15). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Olson, J. M., Roese, N. J., Meen, J., & Robertson, D. J. (1995). The pre-
conditions and consequences of relative deprivation: Two field studies.
Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 25, 944–964.
Opotow, S. (1995). Drawing the line: Social categorization, moral exclu-
sion, and the scope of justice. In B. Bunker & J. Z. Rubin (Eds.),
Conflict, cooperation, and justice: Essays inspired by the work of
Morton Deutsch (pp. 347–369). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Orbell, J. M., van de Kragt, A. J. C., & Dawes, R. M. (1988). Explaining
discussion-induced cooperation. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 54, 811–819.
Pancer, S. M. (1988). Salience of appeal and avoidance of helping situa-
tions. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 20, 133–139.
Parfit, D. (1998). Equality and priority. In A. Mason (Ed.), Ideals of equal-
ity (pp. 1–20). Oxford: Blackwell.
1162 Social Justice
Park, J. H., Schaller, M., & Van Vugt, M. (2008). Psychology of human
kin recognition: Heuristic cues, erroneous inferences, and their impli-
cations. Review of General Psychology, 12, 215–235.
Payne, B. K., & Cameron, C. D. (in press). Divided minds, divided mor-
als: How implicit social cognition underpins and undermines our sense
of social justice. In B. Gawronski & B.K. Payne (Eds.), Handbook of
implicit social cognition: Measurement, theory, and applications. New
York: Guilford.
Pelham, B. W., & Hetts, J. J. (2001). Underworked and overpaid: Elevated
entitlement in men’s self-pay. Journal of Experimental Social
Psychology, 37, 93–103.
Perugini, M., & Gallucci, M. (2001). Individual differences and social
norms: The distinction between reciprocators and prosocials. European
Journal of Personality, 15, 19–35.
Peters, S. L., Van den Bos, K., & Bobocel, D. R. (2004). The moral supe-
riority effect: Self versus other differences in satisfaction with being
overpaid. Social Justice Research, 17, 257–273.
Pettigrew, T. F. (1967). Social evaluation theory: Convergences and appli-
cations. Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, 15, 241–311.
Pettigrew, T. F. (2002). Summing up: Relative deprivation as a key social
psychological concept. In I. Walker & H. J. Smith (Eds.), Relative depri-
vation: Specification, development, and integration. (pp. 351–373).
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Pettigrew, T. F., Christ, O., Wagner, U., Meertens, R. W., van Dick, R., &
Zick, A. (2008). Relative deprivation and intergroup prejudice. Journal
of Social Issues, 64, 385–401.
Pettigrew, T. F., & Meertens, R. W. (1995). Subtle and blatant prejudice in
Western Europe. European Journal of Social Psychology, 25, 57–75.
Piaget, J. (1965). The moral judgment of the child. New York: Free Press.
(Original work published 1932).
Piven, F. F., & Cloward, R. A. (1978). Poor people’s movements: Why they
succeed, how they fail. New York: Vintage Books.
Pojman, L. P., & Westmoreland, R. (Eds.). (1997). Equality: Selected read-
ings. New York: Oxford University Press.
Pratto, F., Sidanius, J., Stallworth, L. M., & Malle, B. F. (1994). Social
dominance orientation: A personality variable predicting social and
political attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67,
741–763.
Puhl, R., & Brownell, K. D. (2003). Ways of coping with obesity stigma:
Review and conceptual analysis. Eating Behaviors, 4, 53–78.
Quine, W. V. O. (1969). Epistemology naturalized. In Ontological relativity
and other essays. New York: Columbia University Press.
Quinn, D. M., & Crocker, J. (1999). When ideology hurts: Effects of belief
in the Protestant ethic and feeling overweight on the psychological
well-being of women. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
77, 402–414.
Rabin, M. (1993). Incorporating fairness into game theory and economics.
American Economic Review, 83, 1281–1302.
Rawls, J. (1971). A theory of justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rawls, J. (1993). Political liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.
Reich, W. (1970). The mass psychology of fascism (V. R. Carfagno, Trans.).
New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. (Original work published 1946).
Reichle, B., & Schmitt, M. (2002). Helping and rationalization as alterna-
tive strategies for restoring the belief in a just world: Evidence from
longitudinal change analyses. In M. Ross & D. T. Miller (Eds.), The
justice motive in everyday life (pp. 127–148). New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Reis, H. T. (1984). The multidimensionality of justice. In R. Folger (Ed.),
The sense of injustice: Social psychological perspectives (pp. 25–61).
New York: Plenum Press.
Rim, Y. (1988). Attitudes and the confluence model. Small Group Behavior,
19, 153–161.
Ring, K. (1967). Experimental social psychology: Some sober ques-
tions about some frivolous values. Journal of Experimental Social
Psychology, 3, 113–123.
Roberts, J. V., & Stalans, L. J. (2004). Restorative sentencing: Exploring
the views of the public. Social Justice Research, 17, 315–334.
Roch, S. G., & Samuelson, C. D. (1997). Effects of environmental uncer-
tainty and social value orientation in resource dilemmas. Organizational
Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 70, 221–235.
Roche, D. (2006). Dimensions of restorative justice. Journal of Social
Issues, 62, 217–238.
Rodriguez, N. (2007). Restorative justice at work: Examining the impact
of restorative justice resolutions on juvenile recidivism. Crime &
Delinquency, 53, 355–379.
Ross, L., & Ward, A. (1996). Naïve realism in everyday life: Implications
for social conflict and misunderstanding. In E. S. Reed, E. Turiel, &
T. Brown (Eds.), Values and knowledge (pp. 103–135). Hillsdale, NJ:
Erlbaum.
Rossi, P. H. & Berk, R. A. (1997). Just punishments: Federal guidelines
and public views. New York: De Gruyter.
Rubin, Z., & Peplau, L. A. (1975). Who believes in a just world? Journal
of Social Issues, 31, 65–89.
Rudman, L. A., & Ashmore, R. D. (2007). Discrimination and the Implicit
Association Test. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 10,
359–372.
Rudman, L. A., Feinberg, J., & Fairchild, K. (2002). Minority members’
implicit attitudes: Automatic ingroup bias as a function of group status.
Social Cognition, 20, 294–320.
Rummel, R. J. (1997). Death by government. New Brunswick, NJ:
Transactions.
Runciman, W. G. (1966). Relative deprivation and social justice: A study
of attitudes to social inequality in twentieth-century England. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Ryan, W. (1971). Blaming the victim. New York: Pantheon Books.
Sampson, E. E. (1983). Justice and the critique of pure psychology. New
York: Plenum.
Samuelson, C. D. (1991). Perceived task difficulty, causal attributions, and
preferences for structural change in resource dilemmas. Personality
and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17, 181–187.
Sandel, M. J. (1998). Liberalism and the limits of justice (2nd ed.). New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Schaller, M., & Cialdini, R. B. (1988). The economics of empathic help-
ing: Support for a mood-management motive. Journal of Experimental
Social Psychology, 24, 163–181.
Schmitt, M., Behner, R., Montada, L., Müller, L., & Müller-Fohrbrodt, G.
(2000). Gender, ethnicity, and education as privileges: Exploring
the generalizability of the existential guilt reaction. Social Justice
Research, 13, 313–337.
Schmitt, M., & Dorfel, M. (1999). Procedural injustice at work, justice
sensitivity, job satisfaction and psychosomatic well-being. European
Journal of Social Psychology, 29, 443–453.
Schroeder, D. A., Steel, J. E., Woodell, A. J., & Bembenek, A. F. (2003).
Justice within social dilemmas. Personality and Social Psychology
Review, 7, 374–387.
Schulz, U., & May, T. (1989). The recording of social orientations with
ranking and pair comparison procedures. European Journal of Social
Psychology, 19, 41–59.
Schwinger, T. (1986). The need principle of distributive justice. In
H. W. Bierhoff, R. L. Cohen, & J. Greenberg (Eds.), Justice in social
relations (pp. 211–226). New York: Plenum.
Scott, J. T., Matland, R. E., Michelbach, P. A., & Bornstein, B. H. (2001).
Just deserts: An experimental study of distributive justice norms.
American Journal of Political Science, 45, 749–767.

Sears, D. O., van Laar, C., Carrillo, M., & Kosterman, R. (1997). Is it really
racism? The origins of White Americans’ opposition to race-targeted
policies. Public Opinion Quarterly, 61, 16–53.
Sen, A. (1979). The welfare basis of real income comparisons. Journal of
Economic Literature, 17, 1–45.
Shah, J. Y., & Gardner, W. L. (Eds.). (2008). Handbook of motivation sci-
ence. New York: Guilford Press.
Shapiro, D. L., & Brett, J. M. (2005). What is the role of control in organi-
zational justice? In J. Greenberg & J. A. Colquitt (Eds.), Handbook of
organizational justice. (pp. 155–177). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Shapiro, I. (2003). The moral foundations of politics. New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press.
Shnabel, N., & Nadler, A. (2008). A needs-based model of reconciliation:
Satisfying the differential emotional needs of victim and perpetrator as
a key to promoting reconciliation. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 94, 116–132.
Sidanius, J., Mitchell, M., Haley, H., & Navarrete, C. D. (2006). Support
for harsh criminal sanctions and criminal justice beliefs: A social domi-
nance perspective. Social Justice Research, 19, 433–449.
Sidanius, J., & Pratto, F. (1999). Social dominance: An intergroup theory
of social hierarchy and oppression. New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Sidanius, J., Pratto, F., & Bobo, L. (1996). Racism, conservatism, affir-
mative action, and intellectual sophistication: A matter of principled
conservatism or group dominance? Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 70, 476–490.
Simon, H. A. (1957). Models of man. New York: Wiley.
Simpson, B. (2004). Social values, subjective transformations, and coop-
eration in social dilemmas. Social Psychology Quarterly, 67, 385–395.
Skitka, L. J. (2002). Do the means always justify the ends, or do the ends
sometimes justify the means? A value model of justice reasoning.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 588–597.
Skitka, L. J., Bauman, C. W., & Sargis, E. G. (2005). Moral conviction:
Another contributor to attitude strength or something more? Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 895–917.
Skitka, L. J., & Houston, D. A. (2001). When due process is of no conse-
quence: Moral mandates and presumed defendant guilt or innocence.
Social Justice Research, 14, 305–326.
Skitka, L. J. & Mullen, E. (2002). Understanding judgments of fairness
in a real-world political context: A test of the value protection model
of justice reasoning. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28,
1419–1429.
Skitka, L. J., & Tetlock, P. E. (1993). Providing public assistance:
Cognitive and motivational processes underlying liberal and conserva-
tive policy preferences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
65, 1205–1223.
Smeesters, D., Warlop, L., Van Avermaet, E., Corneille, O., & Yzerbyt, V.
(2003). Do not prime hawks with doves: The interplay of construct
activation and consistency of social value orientation on cooperative
behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 972–987.
Smith, A. (1776). An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of
nations. London: Dent.
Smith, H., Tyler, T., Huo, Y., Ortiz, D., & Lind, E. A. (1998). The self-
relevant implications of the group-value model. Journal of Experimental
Social Psychology, 34, 470–493.
Solomon, R. C., & Murphy, M. C. (Eds.). (2000). What is justice? Classic
and contemporary readings. New York: Oxford University Press.
Sprecher, S., & Schwartz, P. (1994). Equity and balance in the exchange
of contributions in close relationships. In M. J. Lerner & G. Mikula
(Eds.), Entitlement and the affectional bond: Justice in close relation-
ships. (pp. 11–41). New York: Plenum Press.
Stangor, C., & Jost, J. T. (1997). Individual, group and system levels of
analysis and their relevance for stereotyping and intergroup relations.
References 1163
In R. Spears, P. J. Oakes, N. Ellemers, & S. A. Haslam (Eds.), The social
psychology of stereotyping and group life (pp. 336–358). Malden, MA:
Blackwell Publishing.
Staub, E. (1992). The roots of evil: The origins of genocide and other group
violence. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Stenner, K. (2005). The authoritarian dynamic. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Stich, S. (1990). The fragmentation of reason. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press.
Stiglitz, J. E. (2004). The roaring nineties. New York: Norton.
Stouffer, S. A., Suchman, E. A., Devinney, L. C., Star, S. A., & Williams,
R. M., Jr. (1949). The American soldier: Adjustment during army life
(Studies in social psychology in World War II, vol. 1). Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Strang, H., Sherman, L., Angel, C. M., Woods, D. J., Bennett, S., Newbury-
Birch, D., et al. (2006). Victim evaluations of face-to-face restorative
justice conferences: A quasi-experimental analysis. Journal of Social
Issues, 62, 281–306.
Struch, N., & Schwartz, S. H. (1989). Intergroup aggression: Its predictors
and distinctness from in-group bias. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 56, 364–373.
Sunstein, C. R. (Ed.) (2000). Behavioral law and economics. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Sutton, R. M., Douglas, K. M., Wilkin, K., Elder, T. J., Cole, J. M., &
Stathi, S. (2008). Justice for whom, exactly? Beliefs in justice for the
self and various others. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin,
34, 528–541.
Sweeney, P. D., & McFarlin, D. B. (1993). Workers’ evaluations of the
“ends” and the “means”: An examination of four models of distributive
and procedural justice. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision
Processes, 55, 23–40.
Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup
behavior. In S. Worchel & W. G. Austin (Eds.), The psychology of inter-
group relations (pp. 7–24). Chicago: Nelson-Hall.
Tangney, J. P. (1995). Recent advances in the empirical study of shame and
guilt. American Behavioral Scientist, 38, 1132–1145.
Tenbrunsel, A. E., & Messick, D. M. (1999). Sanctioning systems, deci-
sion frames, and cooperation. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44,
684–707.
Thaler, R. H. (1991). Quasi rational economics. New York: Russell Sage
Foundation.
Thibaut, J., & Walker, L. (1975). Procedural justice. Hillsdale, NJ:
Erlbaum.
Thibaut, J., & Walker, L. (1986). A theory of procedure. California Law
Review, 66, 541–566.
Thompson, J. L. (1989). Deprivation and political violence in Northern
Ireland, 1922–1985. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 33, 676–699.
Tomaka, J., & Blascovich, J. (1994). Effects of justice beliefs on cognitive
appraisal of and subjective, physiological, and behavioral responses
to potential stress. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67,
732–740.
Törnblom, K. Y. & Foa, U. G. (1983). Choice of a distribution principle:
Crosscultural evidence on the effects of resources. Acta Sociologica,
26, 161–173.
Törnblom, K. Y., Mühlhausen, S. M., & Jonsson, D. R. (1991). The alloca-
tion of positive and negative outcomes: When is the equality principle
fair for both? In R. Vermunt & H. Steensma (Eds.), Social justice in
human relations (Vol. 1, pp. 59–100). New York: Plenum.
Tougas, F., Rinfret, N., Beaton, A. M., & de la Sablonnière, R. (2005).
Policewomen acting in self-defense: Can psychological disengagement
protect self-esteem from the negative outcomes of relative deprivation?
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 88, 790–800.
1164 Social Justice
Toynbee, A. (1976). The Toynbee-Ikeda dialogue: Man himself must choose
(Trans. R. L. Gage). Tokyo: Kodansha International.
Tucker, R. (1969). The Marxian revolutionary idea. New York: Norton.
Tyler, T. R. (1987). Conditions leading to value expressive effects in
judgments of procedural justice: A test of four models. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 333–344.
Tyler, T. R. (1989). The psychology of procedural justice: A test of the group-
value model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 830–838.
Tyler, T. R. (1994). Psychological models of the justice motive: Antecedents
of distributive and procedural justice. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 67, 850–863.
Tyler, T. R. (2006). Psychological perspectives on legitimacy and legitima-
tion. Annual Review of Psychology, 57, 375–400.
Tyler, T. R. (2007). Psychology and the design of legal institutions.
Netherlands: Wolf Legal.
Tyler, T. R., & Bies, R. (1990). Interpersonal aspects of procedural justice.
In J. S. Carroll (Ed.), Applied social psychology in business settings
(pp. 77–98). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Tyler, T. R., & Blader, S. L. (2000). Cooperation in groups: Procedural
justice, social identity, and behavioral engagement. New York:
Psychology Press.
Tyler, T. R., & Blader, S. L. (2003). The group engagement model:
Procedural justice, social identity, and cooperative behavior. Personality
and Social Psychology Review, 7, 349–361.
Tyler, T. R., & Boeckmann, R. J. (1997). Three strikes and you are out, but
why? The psychology of public support for punishing rule breakers.
Law & Society Review, 31, 237–265.
Tyler, T., Degoey, P., & Smith, H. (1996). Understanding why the justice
of group procedures matters: A test of the psychological dynamics of
the group-value model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
70, 913–930.
Tyler, T. R., & Jost, J. T. (2007). Psychology and the law: Reconciling
normative and descriptive accounts of social justice and system legiti-
macy. In A. W. Kruglanski & E. T. Higgins (Eds.), Social psychology:
Handbook of basic principles (pp. 807–825). New York: Guilford.
Tyler, T. R., & Lind, E. A. (1992). A relational model of authority in groups.
In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol.
25, pp. 115–191). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Tyler, T. R., & Mitchell, G. (1994). Legitimacy and the empowerment of
discretionary legal authority: The United States Supreme Court and
abortion rights. Duke Law Journal, 43, 703–814.
Tyler, T. R., Rasinski, K. A., & Spodick, N. (1985). Influence of voice on
satisfaction with leaders: Exploring the meaning of process control.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48, 72–81.
Tyler, T. R., & Smith, H. J. (1998). Social justice and social movements. In
D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), The handbook of social
psychology (4th ed., pp. 595–629). Boston: McGraw-Hill.
Uhlmann, E., Dasgupta, N., Elgueta, A., Greenwald, A. G., & Swanson, J.
(2002). Subgroup prejudice based on skin color among Hispanics in the
United States and Latin America. Social Cognition, 20, 198–226.
Utne, M. K., Hatfield, E., Traupmann, J., & Greenberger, D. (1984). Equity,
marital satisfaction, and stability. Journal of Social and Personal
Relationships, 1, 323–332.
Utz, S., Ouwerkerk, J. W., & Van Lange, P. A. M. (2004). What is smart in
a social dilemma? Differential effects of priming competence on coop-
eration. European Journal of Social Psychology, 34, 317–332.
Van den Bos, K. (2001). Uncertainty management: The influence of uncer-
tainty salience on reactions to perceived procedural fairness. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 931–941.
Van den Bos, K. (2005). What is responsible for the fair process effect?
In J. Greenberg & J. A. Colquitt (Eds.), Handbook of organizational
justice. (pp. 273–300). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Van den Bos, K., & Lind, E. A. (2002). Uncertainty management by means
of fairness judgments. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimen-
tal social psychology (Vol. 34, pp. 1–60). San Diego, CA: Academic
Press.
Van den Bos, K., Lind, E. A., Vermunt, R., & Wilke, H.A.M. (1997). How
do I judge my outcome when I do not know the outcome of others? The
psychology of the fair process effect. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 72, 1034–1046.
Van den Bos, K., Wilke, H. A. M., & Lind, E. A. (1998). When do we
need procedural fairness? The role of trust in authority. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 1449–1458.
Van den Bos, K., Wilke, H. A. M., Lind, E. A., & Vermunt, R. (1998).
Evaluating outcomes by means of the fair process effect: Evidence for
different processes in fairness and satisfaction judgments. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1493–1503.
Van Dijk, E., Wilke, H., Wilke, M., & Metman, L. (1999). What infor-
mation do we use in social dilemmas? Environmental uncertainty and
the employment of coordination rules. Journal of Experimental Social
Psychology, 35, 109–135.
Van Lange, P. A. M. (2000). Cooperation and competition. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Van Lange, P. A. M., De Cremer, D., Van Dijk, E., & Van Vugt, M. (2007).
Self-interest and beyond: Basic principles of social interaction. In
A. W. Kruglanski & E. T. Higgins (Eds.), Social psychology: Handbook
of basic principles (2nd ed., pp. 540–561). New York: Guilford.
Van Prooijen, J., Karremans, J. C., & van Beest, I. (2006). Procedural jus-
tice and the hedonic principle: How approach versus avoidance moti-
vation influences the psychology of voice. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 91, 686–697.
Van Prooijen, J., Van den Bos, K., & Wilke, H. A. M. (2002). Procedural
justice and status: Status salience as antecedent of procedural fairness
effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 1353–1361.
Van Prooijen, J., Van den Bos, K., & Wilke, H. A. M. (2004). Group
belongingness and procedural justice: Social inclusion and exclusion
by peers affects the psychology of voice. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 87, 66–79.
Van Vugt, M., & De Cremer, D. (1999). Leadership in social dilemmas:
The effects of group identification on collective actions to provide pub-
lic goods. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 587–599.
Van Vugt, M., Jepson, S. F., Hart, C. M., & De Cremer, D. (2004).
Autocratic leadership in social dilemmas: A threat to group stability.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 40, 1–13.
Van Vugt, M., Meertens, R. M., & Van Lange, P. A. M. (1995). Car versus
public transportation? The role of social value orientations in a real-life
social dilemma. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 25, 258–278.
Van Yperen, N. W., & Buunk, B. P. (1990). A longitudinal study of equity
and satisfaction in intimate relationships. European Journal of Social
Psychology, 20, 287–309.
Van Zomeren, M., Postmes, T., & Spears, R. (2008). Toward an integra-
tive social identity model of collective action: A quantitative research
synthesis of three socio-psychological perspectives. Psychological
Bulletin, 134, 504–535.
Vermunt, R. (2007). Social justice and the art of reducing stress. Lecture
delivered on September 28, 2007, at the University of Leiden,
Holland.
Vidmar, N. (2000). Retribution and revenge. In J. Sanders & V. L. Hamilton
(Eds.), Handbook of justice research in law (pp. 31–63). New York:
Kluwer/Plenum.
Vidmar, N. (2002). Retributive justice: Its social context. In M. Ross &
D. T. Miller (Eds.), The justice motive in everyday life. (pp. 291–313).
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Viereck, P. (1956). Conservatism. Princeton, NJ: D. Van Nostrand.

Vlastos, G. (1997). Justice and equality. In L. P. Pojman & R. Westmoreland
(Eds.), Equality: Selected readings (pp. 120–133). New York: Oxford
University Press. (Original work published 1962).
Wakslak, C. J., Jost, J. T., Tyler, T. R., & Chen, E. S. (2007). Moral outrage
mediates the dampening effect of system justification on support for
redistributive social policies. Psychological Science, 18, 267–274.
Walker, I., & Mann, L. (1987). Unemployment, relative deprivation,
and social protest. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 13,
275–283.
Walker, I., & Pettigrew, T. F. (1984). Relative deprivation theory: An over-
view and conceptual critique. British Journal of Social Psychology, 23,
301–310.
Walker, I. & Smith, H. J. (Eds). (2002). Relative deprivation: Specification,
development, and integration. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Walker, L., Lind, E. A., & Thibaut, J. (1979). The relation between proce-
dural and distributive justice. Virginia Law Review, 65, 1401–1420.
Wallace, H. M., Exline, J. J., & Baumeister, R. F. (2008). Interpersonal con-
sequences of forgiveness: Does forgiveness deter or encourage repeat
offenses? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 453–460.
Walster, E., Berscheid, E., & Walster, G. W. (1973). New directions in
equity research. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 25,
151–176.
Walster, E., Walster, W., & Berscheid, E. (1978). Equity: Theory and
research. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Walton, G., & Dweck, C. (2009). Solving social problems like a psycholo-
gist. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4, 101–102.
Walzer, M. (1983). Spheres of justice. New York: Basic Books.
Watson, A. C., Ottati, V., & Corrigan, P. C. (2003). From whence comes
mental illness stigma? International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 49,
142–157.
Weber, J. M., Kopelman, S., & Messick, D. M. (2004). A conceptual review
of decision making in social dilemmas: Applying a logic of appro-
priateness. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 8, 281–307.
Weber, M. (1958). The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism
(T. Parsons, Trans.). New York: Scribner.
Wegener, B., & Liebig, S. (2000). Is the “inner wall” here to stay? Justice
ideologies in unified Germany. Social Justice Research, 13, 177–197.
Wegner, D. M. (2002). The illusion of conscious will. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press.
References 1165
Weick, K. E., Bougon, M. G., & Maruyama, G. (1976). The equity context.
Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 15, 32–65.
Weiner, B., Perry, R. P., & Magnusson, J. (1988). An attributional analysis
of reactions to stigmas. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
55, 738–748.
Wenzel, M. (2000). Justice and identity: The significance of inclusion
for perceptions of entitlement and the justice motive. Personality and
Social Psychology Bulletin, 26, 157–176.
Wenzel, M. (2001). A social categorization approach to distributive justice:
Social identity as the link between relevance of inputs and need for
justice. British Journal of Social Psychology, 40, 315–335.
Wenzel, M. (2002). What is social about justice? Inclusive identity and
group values as the basis of the justice motive. Journal of Experimental
Social Psychology, 38, 205–218.
Wenzel, M., Okimoto, T. G., Feather, N. T., & Platow, M. J. (2008).
Retributive and restorative justice. Law and Human Behavior, 32,
375–389.
Wenzel, M., & Thielmann, I. (2006). Why we punish in the name of jus-
tice: Just desert versus value restoration and the role of social identity.
Social Justice Research, 19, 450–470.
White, R. J. (Ed.) (1950). The conservative tradition. New York: New York
University Press.
Williams, B. (2000). Equality. In R. C. Solomon & M. C. Murphy (Eds.),
What is justice? Classic and contemporary readings (pp. 188–194).
New York: Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1976).
Wit, A., & Kerr, N. L. (2002). “Me versus just us versus us all” categoriza-
tion and cooperation in nested social dilemmas. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 83, 616–637.
Wit, A., & Wilke, H. (1998). Public good provision under environmen-
tal social uncertainty. European Journal of Social Psychology, 28,
249–256.
Wood, A. (1980). The Marxian critique of justice. In M. Cohen, T. Nagel, &
T. Scanlon (Eds.), Marx, justice, and history (pp. 3–41). Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1972).
Yamagishi, T. (1988). Seriousness of social dilemmas and the provision of
a sanctioning system. Social Psychology Quarterly, 51, 32–42.
Zagefka, H., & Brown, R. (2005). Comparisons and perceived deprivation
in ethnic minority settings. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin,
31, 467–482.