Abstract
People often evaluate the actions of government institutions and officials in their own encounters with officials and in encounters described by members of their social network. Research suggests people form separate evaluations of the fairness of the process used in making decisions (commonly known as procedural justice) and the fairness of final outcomes (commonly known as distributive justice). For supportive research see Thibaut and Walker (1978), Lind and Tyler (1988). This chapter addresses the decision-making process underlying lay evaluations of procedural fairness. This examination serves two purposes: First, it explores the application of cognitive heuristics and biases in the real world. Second, it addresses a gap in the procedural justice literature which has been more concerned with the content of evaluations than with how people form evaluations.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Brockner, J., Tyler, T. R., & Cooper-Schneider, R. (1992). The influence of prior commitment to an institution on reactions to perceived unfairness: The higher they are, the harder they fall. Administrative Science Quarterly, 37, 241–261.
Bittner, E. (1967). The police on skid row: A study of peace keeping. American Sociological Review, 32, 699–715.
Casper, J. (1978). Having their day in court: Defendant evaluations of the fairness of their treatment. Law and Society Review, 22, 483–507.
Cohen, J. (1977). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences. New York: Academic Press.
Cohen, R. L. (1985). Procedural justice and participation. Human Relations, 38, 643–663.
Deutsch, M. (1982). Interdependence and psychological orientation. In V. J. Derlega & J. Gzelak (Eds.), Cooperation and helping behavior: Theories and research (pp. 15–24). New York: Academic Press.
Easton, D. (1965). A systems analysis of political life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Fazio, R. H., & Zanna, M. P. (1981). Direct experience and attitude behavior consistency. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology, (Vol. 14, pp. 161–202). New York: Academic Press.
Fiske, S. T., & Neuberg, S. L. (1990). A continuum model of impression formation from category-based to individuating responses: Influence of information and motivation on attention and interpretation. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 23, pp. 1–74). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Jussim, L. (1991). Social perception and social reality: A reflection-construction model. Psychological Review, 98, 54–73.
Kahneman, D., & Miller, D. T. (1986). Norm theory: Comparing reality to its alternatives. Psychological Review, 93, 136–153.
Kruglanski, A. W. (1989). The psychology of being “right”: The problem of accuracy in social perception and cognition. Psychological Bulletin, 106, 395–409.
Laver, M. (1981). The politics of private desires. New York: Penguin.
Lind, E. A. (1992a). Procedural justice and procedural preferences: Evidence for a fairness heuristic. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Association of Conflict Management, Minneapolis, MN.
Lind, E. A., & Tyler, T. R. (1988). The social psychology of procedural justice. New York: Plenum.
Lind, E. A., MacCoun, R. J., Ebener, P. A., Felstiner, W. L. F, Hensler, D. R., Resnik, J., & Tyler, T. R. (1990). In the eye of the beholder: Tort litigants’ evaluations of their experience in the civil justice system. Law and Society Review, 24, 953–996.
McEwen, C. A., & Maiman, R. J. (1984). Mediation in small claims court: Achieving compliance through consent. Law and Society Review, 18, 11–49.
Miller, D. T., Turnball, W., & McFarland, C. (1990). Counterfactual thinking and social perception: Thinking about what might have been. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 23, 305–331.
O’Barr, W. M., & Conley, J. M. (1988). Lay expectations of the civil justice system. Law and Society Review, 22, 137–161.
Pruitt, D. G., & Rubin, J. Z. (1986). Social conflict: Escalation, stalemate, and settlement. New York: Random House.
Sarat, A. (1977). Studying American legal culture: An assessment of survey evidence. Law and Society Review, 11, 427–488.
Schwarz, N., & Bless, H. (1992). Constructing reality and its alternatives: An inclusion/exclusion model of assimilation and contrast effects in social judgment. In L. Martin & A. Tesser (Eds.), The construction of social judgments (pp. 217–245). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Shaffer, D. R., & Kerwin, J. (1992). Reply to Whitley and reaffirmation of our conclusions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18, 685–689.
Sherman, S. J., & Corty, E. (1984). Cognitive heuristics. In R. S. Wyer & T. K. Srull (Eds.), Handbook of social cognition (Vol. 1, pp. 189–286). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Smith, E. R. (1990). Content and process specificity in the effects of prior experiences. In T. K. Srull & R. S. Wyer (Eds.), Advances in social cognition (Vol. 3, pp. 1–59). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Stalans, L. J. (1988). Sentencing in ambiguous cases: Prototypes, perceived similarity, and anchoring. Unpublished Master’s thesis, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Chicago.
Stalans, L. J. (1992a). Citizens’ procedural expectations for an upcoming tax audit: Their nature and formation. Social Justice Research, 5, 93–107.
Stalans, L. J. (1992b). The group-value model and politeness effects: The implications for social status depend on the context. Paper presented at the Southeastern Psychological Association Annual Meeting, Knoxville, TN.
Stalans, L. J. (1993). Citizens’ crime stereotypes, biased recall and punishment preferences in abstract cases: The educative role of interpersonal sources. Law and Human Behavior, 17, 451–470.
Stalans, L. J. (in press). Forming procedural expectations about unfamiliar legal arenas: Do people generalize from loosely related past legal experiences. Psychology, Crime and Law.
Stalans, L. J., & Smith, K. W (1992). Procedural criteria in taxpayers’ evaluations of their audit process: Differences across persons and situations. (American Bar Foundation, Working Paper #9205). Chicago, IL: American Bar Foundation.
Taylor, S. E. (1982). The availability bias in social perception and interaction. In D. Kahneman, P. Solvic, & A. Tversky (Eds.), Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases (pp. 190–200). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Thibaut, J., & Walker, L. (1978). A theory of procedure. California Law Review, 66, 541–566.
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science, 185, 1124–1131.
Tyler, T. R. (1988). What is procedural justice? Criteria used by citizens to assess the fairness of legal procedures. Law and Society Review, 22, 103–188.
Tyler, T. R. (1989). The psychology of procedural justice: A test of the group-value model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 333–344.
Tyler, T. R. (1990). Why people follow the law: Procedural justice, legitimacy, and compliance. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Tyler, T. R. (1992). Using procedures to justify outcomes: Managing conflict and allocating resources in work organizations (American Bar Foundation Working Paper #8910). Chicago, IL: American Bar Foundation.
Tyler, T. R., & Lind, E. A. (1992). A relational model of authority in groups. In M. Zunna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology, 25, 115–192. New York: Academic Press.
Tyler, T. R., Casper, J. D., & Fisher, B. (1989). Maintaining allegiance toward political authorities: The role of prior attitudes and the use of fair procedures. American Journal of Political Science, 33, 629–652.
Upshaw, H. S. (1969). The personal reference scale: An approach to social judgment. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (pp. 315–371). New York: Academic Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1994 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Stalans, L.J. (1994). Lay Evaluations of Encounters with Government Officials. In: Heath, L., et al. Applications of Heuristics and Biases to Social Issues. Social Psychological Applications to Social Issues, vol 3. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9238-6_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9238-6_8
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4757-9240-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-9238-6
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive