Not fair for me! The influence of personal relevance on social justice inferences

Abstract: In this paper, we argue that the personal relevance of a situation primarily influences spontaneous inferences about social justice, and not necessarily affects explicit justice judgments. To test this hypothesis, two studies manipulated personal relevance and assessed justice inferences and judgments: Participants read descriptions of fair or unfair events happening to stimulus persons referred to with first-person versus third-person pronouns (Experiment 1) or as "a friend" versus "a stranger" (Experiment 2). We then measured spontaneous justice inferences (using the probe recognition paradigm) and explicit justice judgments (using rating scales). As predicted, both studies showed stronger spontaneous justice inferences for high personal relevance descriptions, of unjust events specifically, whereas explicit justice judgments were not significantly influenced by our personal relevance manipulations. These findings suggest that especially the spontaneous component of the justice j

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch
• Notes: Postprint ; begutachtet (peer reviewed) ; In: Journal of Experimental Social Psychology ; 44 (2008) 3 ; 699-705

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Recht

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (where): Mannheim
• (when): 2008
• Creator: Ham, Jaap ; Bos, Kees van den

Further information

• DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2007.04.009
• URN: urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-243345
• Rights: Open Access unbekannt; Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 15.08.2025, 7:28 AM CEST