CURRENT SOCIETAL CONCERNS ABOUT JUSTICE

CRITICAL ISSUES IN SOCIAL JUSTICE Published in association with the International Center for Social Justice Research, Department of Psychology, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri.

Series Editors: MELVIN J. LERNER and RIEL VERMUNT University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

Recent volumes in this series:

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CURRENT SOCIETAL CONCERNS ABOUT JUSTICE Leo Montada and Melvin J. Lerner

ENTITLEMENT AND THE AFFECTIONAL BOND Justice in Close Relationships

Edited by Melvin J. Lerner and Gerold Mikula

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Donna K. Nagata

LIVING AND DYING WELL Lewis Petrinovich

NEW DIRECTIONS IN THE STUDY OF JUSTICE, LAW, AND SOCIAL CONTROL

Prepared by the School of Justice Studies Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona

SOCIAL JUSTICE IN HUMAN RELATIONS Volume 1: Societal and Psychological Origins of Justice

Edited by Riel Vermunt and Herman Steensma Volume 2: Societal and Psychological Consequences

of Justice and Injustice Edited by Herman Steensma and Riel Vermunt

THE SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF PROCEDURAL JUSTICE E. Allan Lind and Tom R. Tyler

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CURRENT SOCIETAL CONCERNS ABOUT JUSTICE

Edited by

Leo Montada University of Trier Trier, Germany

and

Melvin J. Lerner University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario, Canada

SPRINGER SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, LLC

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ISBN 978-1-4757-9929-3 ISBN 978-1-4757-9927-9 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4757-9927-9

© 1996 Springer Science+Business Media New York Originally published by Plenum Press, New York in 1996 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1996

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Contributors

C. Daniel Batson, Department of Psychology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045

Susan Clayton, Department of Psychology, The College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio 44691

Karen S. Cook, Department of Sociology, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27708

Faye J. Crosby, Department of Psychology, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts 01063

Shawn Donnelly, Department of Sociology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195

Russell Hardin, Department of Politics, New York University, 715 Broadway, New York, New York 10003

Elisabeth Kals, FbI- Psychologie, UniversWi.t Trier, D-54286 Trier, Ger­many

Melvin J. Lerner, Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario NZL 3G1, Canada

James R. Meindl, School of Management, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York 14260

Dale T. Miller, Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Green Hall, Princeton, New Jersey 08544-1010

Leo Montada, FbI- Psychologie, Universitat Trier, D-54286 Trier, Germany

Susan Opotow, Graduate Program in Dispute Resolution, University of Massachusetts-Boston, Boston, Massachusetts 02125-3393

v

vi Contributors

Rebecca K. Ratner, Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Green Hall, Princeton, New Jersey 08544-1010

Barbara Reichle, Fb I - Psychologie, Universitiit Trier, D-54286 Trier, Ger­many

Karen J. Thompson, School of Management, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York 14260

Janet Todd, College of Education, University of Kentucky, 245 Dickey Hall, Lexington, Kentucky 40506-0017

Judith Worell, College of Education, University of Kentucky, 245 Dickey Hall, Lexington, Kentucky 40506-0017

Preface

What role does justice play in the formation of public opinion and the scholarly debates about social problems? Does the perception of injustice force problems to appear on the political agenda? Does the perception of an injustice give momentum to social change? Or are violations of self-interest or threats to one's material welfare the more important factors? Or are empathy-driven concerns for the needy and the disadvan­taged motivations to solve societal problems? What is known about the role justice concerns play in leadership? In several chapters of this volume, justice concerns and justice motives are viewed in relation to other concerns and motivations; welfare, self-interest, altruism. It is argued that the consensus of political theorists converges on mutual advantage as the main criterion of acceptable solutions to solving socie­tal problems. In economics, self-interest is considered the driving force and provides the criterion of acceptable solutions. Sociological and social psychological exchange theories share these basic assumptions. Thus, questions are raised and answered concerning how justice and these other important motives appear in the analyses of societal prob­lems and the search for solutions.

Moreover, in addition to the issue of conflicting motives-self­interest, altruism, justice-it is commonly recognized that the definition of what is just and what is unjust is open to question. In public as well as in scientific dialogues, diverging views about justice have to be integrated or decided upon. These conflicting concerns are true for all current societal problems selected as issues to be addressed in this volume: protection of natural ecology and resources, unemployment, gender inequalities in the household and at the workplace, and the intergenerational contract. Thoughtful analyses of these societal issues and theoretical approaches to the relations among motivations and value orientations that often compete with justice motives provide the focus for the chapters in this volume.

vii

viii Preface

Acknowledgments

The Fourth Conference on Social Justice Research at Trier, Federal Republic of Germany, provided the occasion to select the issues and authors for this volume. These biennial conferences are organized by the International Center for Justice Research. The conferences offer a forum for the presentation and discussion of new developments in all fields of justice research. The conference, which took place in Trier in 1993, was sponsored by the ADIA Foundation, the Deutsche Forschungsgemein­schaft\German Research Foundation, the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, and the Universitaet Potsdam. The preparation of the manuscript was sponsored by the Ministerium fuer Wissenschaft und Weiterbildung des Landes Rheinland-Pfalz. We are grateful to all these institutions, to the authors for their contributions, to all reviewers for their valuable and insightful comments, and especially to Maria Haas, whose extraordinary and creative efforts enables both the conference and this volume to become a reality.

Contents

Chapter 1 Doing Justice to the Justice Motive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Melvin f. Lerner

Reference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Chapter 2 Distributive Justice in a Real World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Russell Hardin

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 2. The Structures of Moral Theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 3. Coherence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 4. Institutional Fallability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 5. Other Pragmatic Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 6. Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 3

Chapter 3 The Power ofthe Myth of Self-Interest . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Dale T. Miller and Rebecca K. Ratner

1. The Layperson's Belief in the Power of Self-Interest . . . . . . . 26 1.1. Estimated Impact of Gender on Support for Abortion

Coverage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 1.2. Estimated Impact of Racial Status on Concern for

Minority Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 1.3. Estimated Impact of Payment on Willingness to

Donate Blood. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

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X Contents

1.4. Estimated Impact of Payment on Willingness to Participate in Future Experiments.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

1.5. Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 2. Paths by Which the Myth of Self-Interest Exerts Power . . . . 31

2.1. We Normalize Behavior Congruent with Self-Interest and Pathologize Behavior Incongruent with Self-Interest 31

2.2. We Experience Discomfort When We Take Action Incongruent with Our Self-Interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

2.3. We Fear Social Isolation When We Take Actions Incongruent with Our Self-Interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

2.4. We Justify Our Behavior in Terms of Self-Interest . . . . . 38 2.5. Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

3. Implications of the Myth of Self-Interest for Social Justice. . 40 3.1. The Source of Social Inaction: Lack oflncentive or

Lack of Justification?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 3.2. Committing Altruism Under the Cloak of Self-Interest . 43

4. Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Chapter 4 Empathy, Altruism, and Justice: Another Perspective on Partiality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

C. Daniel Batson

1. Moral Philosophers' Love of Justice: A Universal and Impartial Moral Principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

2. Two Ways to Think about Partiality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 2.1. Multiple Moralities, Multiple Justices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 2.2. Multiple Motives: Altruism and Justice as Two

Distinct Prosocial Motives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 2.3. The Problem of Partiality as a Conflict between

Altruism and Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 3. Some Empirical Evidence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

3.1. Experiment 1: Empathy in a Social Dilemma......... 55 3.2. Experiment 2: Assigning Workers to Tasks. . . . . . . . . . . 57 3.3. Experiment 3. Playing God. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 3.4. Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

4. Implications: Problems and Promise for Justice of Empathy-Induced Altruism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Contents xi

Chapter 5 lntergenerational Relations, Inequality, and Social Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 7

Karen S. Cook and Shawn Donnelly

1. Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 2. The Exchange Model and Intergenerational Relations. . . . . . 69

2.1. The Basic Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 2.2. The Basic Model and Intergenerational Relations. . . . . . 73

3. Extensions of the Social Exchange Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 3.1. Forms ofExchange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

3.1.1. Forms of Exchange and Intergenerational Relations..... 77 4. Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Chapter 6 Have Feminists Abandoned Social Activism? Voices from the Academy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Faye f. Crosby, Janet Todd and Judith Worell

1. Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 1.1. Overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 1.2. Sample. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 1.3. Data Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 1.4. Instruments: Measures and Coding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

1.4.1. Developing the Protocol. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 1.4.2. Extent of Activism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 1.4.3. Nature of Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 1.4.4. Correlates of Activism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

2. Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 2.1. Preliminary.................................... 91 2.2. Extent of Activism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 2.3. Nature of Activism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 2.4. Correlates of Activism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

3. Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

Chapter 7 From Is to Ought and the Kitchen Sink: On the Justice ofDistributions in Close Relationships ...... 103

Barbara Reichle

1. Introduction ....................................... 103

xii Contents

2. Distributions among Spouses and Parents: Objects, Subjects, and Norms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

2.1. Objects and Goods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 2.2. Actor, Victim, and Responsibility .................. 107 2.3. Rules and Norms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

(1) Allocation Rules. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 (2) Procedural Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114 (3) Distributional Rules .................................. 117

2.4. Normative Patterns .............................. 119 2.5. From Ought to Is: Norms and Practise ............... 121

3. Is-Ought-Discrepancies: Do They Matter? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 3.1. Emotional Reactions to Injustice ................... 124

3.1.1. The Victim....................................... 125 3.1.2. The Bystanding Observer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 3.1.3. The Harmdoer.................................... 127

3.2. Emotions and Relationship Satisfaction ............. 127 4. Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 Refurences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

Chapter 8 Justice and Leadership: A Social Co-Constructionist Agenda ..................... 137

fames R. Meindl and Karen f. Thompson

1. The Social Construction of Leadership ................. 139 2. The Forms of Justice ................................ 141 3. Distributive versus Procedural Justice .................. 144 4. Justice Motives ..................................... 147 5. Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149 Refurences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Chapter 9 Victims without Harmdoers: Human Casualties in the Pursuit of Corporate Efficiency ................................... 155

Melvin f. Lerner

1. Corporate Restructuring: What Happens when "Good" Managers Harm "Good" Employees for "Good" Reasons? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

Contents xiii

2. Employees Reactions to Their Victimization: To Believe or Not to Believe in a Just World ............ 158

3. The Survivors' Reactions to the Victimization: The Paradoxical Effects of Procedural Fairness without Distributive Justice .......................... 160

4. Managers: The Entrapped Victims of a Hidden Moral Dilemma ......................................... 162

5. The Next Generation of Employees: Young People Coping with the Injustice of Relative Deprivation .............. 165

6. Concluding Thoughts ............................... 168 References .......................................... 168

Chapter 10 Mass Unemployment under Perspectives of Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Leo Montada

1. Unemployment-A Personal Hardship and a Social Evil ... 171 2. Is Mass Unemployment an Injustice? ................... 173 3. The Claim for a Civil Right to Employment and

Responsibility Attribution to the State ................. 174 4. Responsibility Reconsidered .......................... 175

4.1. Causes of Mass Unemployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176 4.2. Who is Responsible? The Construction of Reality ..... 177

5. The (Social) Construction ofJustice .................... 178 6. The (In-)Justice of Occupational Policies ................ 181

6.1. General Reduction of Working Hours ............... 181 6.2. Creating More Part-time Positions .................. 182 6.3. Flexibilization of Working Times ................... 183 6.4. Moderate Increases or Reduction in Wage Levels

and Additional Wage Related Labor Costs ............ 183 6.5. Spread of Wages at the Lower End of the Income

Scale ......................................... 184 6.6. Second Labor "Market" .......................... 185 6.7. Promoting and Supporting New Ventures ............ 186 6.8. Deregulation ................................... 186

7. The Distribution of Costs ............................ 187 7.1. Is it Just to Defend Acquired Entitlements? ........... 188 7.2. A Look at the Hidden Reservoir of Communitarian

Attitudes and Feelings ........................... 188 References .......................................... 189

xiv Contents

Chapter 11 What Is Fair in the Environmental Debate? ....... 195

Susan Clayton

1. What Is Fair in the Environmental Debate? .............. 195 2. Justice Arguments .................................. 197

2.1. The Justice ofthe Marketplace ..................... 199 2.2. Equality ....................................... 199 2.3. Procedural Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200 2.4. Rights ........................................ 202 2.5. Responsibility .................................. 202

3. Relevance of Different Values to Appeal of Different Positions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

4. Implications for Environmental Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 Refurences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

Chapter 12 Is Justice Finite? The Case of Environmental Inclusion ................................... 213

Susan Opotow

1. The Scope of Justice ................................ 213 1.1. The Scope ofJustice and the Natural World .......... 214 1.2. Broadening the Environmental Constituency ......... 215

2. The Environmental Movement: Enlarging the Scope of Justice ......................................... 215

2.1. Background .................................... 215 2.2. Societal Arrangements that Influence Environmental

Behavior. ...................................... 216 2.2.1. Deep Ecology ..................................... 216 2.2.2. Ecofeminism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217 2.2.3. Social Ecology .................................... 217 2.2.4. Environmental Justice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

3. Typologies of Environmental Inclusion ................. 219 3.1. Self-Centered Environmental Values ................ 219 3.2. Human-Centered Environmental Values. . . . . . . . . . . . . 220 3.3. Planet-Centered Environmental Values .............. 220

4. Dynamics of Inclusion ............................... 221 4.1. Limits to Environmental Inclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

4.1.1. Situational Limits oflnclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221 4.1.2. Perceptual Biases: The Illusion of Inclusiveness . . . . . . . . 222

4.2. Expanding Environmental Inclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 4.2.1. Helping .......................................... 223 4.2.2. Pluralism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

Contents XV

5. Summary: Challenges of Environmental Inclusion ........ 225 References .......................................... 226

Chapter 13 Are Proenvironmental Commitments Motivated by Health Concerns or by Perceived Justice? . . . . . . 231

Elisabeth Kals

1. Research in the Context of "Socioecological Justice" 231 1.1. Basic Appraisals of the Extent, the Causes, and

the Reduction of Environmental Problems ........... 231 1.2. The Field of Socioecological Justice ................ 233 1.3. Overview of Empirical Justice Relevant

Psychological Contributions to the Promotion of Proenvironmental Behavior ..................... 235

2. A Structural Model to Explain Proenvironmental Behavior ......................................... 236

3. First Study ........................................ 240 3.1. Research Questions ............................. 240 3.2. Sample and Measurement Instruments .............. 242 3.3. Summary ofthe Main Predictive Results ............ 243

4. Second Study ...................................... 244 4.1. Research Questions .............................. 244 4.2. Sample and Research Method ..................... 246 4.3. Results on the Predictive Power of Justice versus

Health Relevant Predictors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246 5. Summary and Discussion of the Results of Both Studies ... 250 6. Outlook on Future Research .......................... 254 References .......................................... 256

Chapter 14 Trade-offs between Justice and Self-Interest. ...... 259

Leo Montada

1. Justice or Justices? .................................. 259 2. Self-Interest and the Justice Motive .................... 262 3. Linking Justice and Welfare Criteria .................... 268 4. Procedural Fairness in Value Conflicts and the Social Construction of Value Orientations ....................... 2 73 References .......................................... 274

Name Index ............................................. 277

Subject Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283