Fair process revisited: differential effects of interactional and procedural justice in the presence of social comparison information

Abstract

The competing views of fairness theory (Folger and Cropanzano, 1998 and Folger and Cropanzano, 2001) and fairness heuristic theory (Van den Bos, Lind, Vermunt, & Wilke, 1997) were tested by studying the effects of interactional (IJ), procedural (PJ), and distributive justice (knowledge of others' outcomes [OO]) upon evaluations of outcome fairness and customer satisfaction. The participants, 369 undergraduates, were randomly allocated to scenario-based experimental conditions. A 2 (IJ) נ2 (PJ) נ4 (OO) MANOVA and stepdown analyses provided evidence of "fair process" across all levels of distributive justice for outcome fairness (p<.001) and satisfaction (p<.001), but only in relation to the effects of interactional justice. No such effects were found for procedural justice. Implications for the development of justice theory are discussed.