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Lay Evaluations of Encounters with Government Officials

Do Expectations Serve as Filters and Standards?

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Applications of Heuristics and Biases to Social Issues

Part of the book series: Social Psychological Applications to Social Issues ((SPAS,volume 3))

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.

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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

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  • 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

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