Seminar:  Fairness in the Resolution of Social Conflict (PSYCH 3166x)
 Spring, 2005



                                                                    Thursday, 2:10 - 4:00                                                                                                              Larry Heuer
                                                                    Room:  227 Milbank Hall                                                                                                       Department of Psychology
                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Barnard College
                                                                                                                                                                                                                    854-7507
                                                                                                                                                                                                                    LBH3@Columbia.edu
                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Office Hours: Thursday, 4:15 - 5:30


This seminar will focus on research concerning procedural fairness.  Among the questions we will investigate are ones asking about the meaning of procedural fairness and its social and psychological consequences.  We will rely almost entirely on published research reports to advance our inquiry, and we will draw most heavily from research designed to test psychological theories of procedural fairness.

Students are expected to read the core articles prior to our weekly meetings, and to write a brief "reaction paper" about the readings.  Each week three students will be responsible for leading our discussion of that week's readings.  The students responsible for a particular week's discussion will be expected to come to class prepared to summarize one of our assigned readings and  to stimulate our discussion if necessary.

Final grades will be based on class participation  and a final paper.  There will be no exams.

Class participation:

(1)    Students should be familiar with all assigned readings each week, and come to class prepared to discuss their thoughts on the material;

(2)    By 12 noon on Wednesday of each week, you will be required to to contribute to an online discussion concerning the current week's assigned articles.  This discussion will take place through the  Columbia University Courseworks link to his course.  You should include at least 3 comments or questions--one on each of that week's readings.  Comments might include criticisms of the research, ideas for future research, or general thoughts on integrating the current week's reading with other assigned materials.   Basically, these are notes of thoughts that occur to you as you read the materials, and that you might bring up in our class discussion.  

(3)    Each week, two students will be responsible for leading our class discussion.  This will require that you read the assigned article very carefully, with an eye toward discussion topics you might introduce in the event that our discussion wanes. You should also study the week's online discussion to assist you in thinking about ways to expand our classroom discussion on each of our assigned articles. You should complete your preparation by the Wednesday preceding our class meeting, so that you can direct any questions to me before class.

(4)    Students will be allowed two un-excused absences during the semester.  No additional absences will be permitted.  Arriving for class more than 10 minutes late, or failure to turn in a reaction paper by the designated time, or a failure to participate in our weekly discussion will be counted as an absence.  No excuses will be accepted.

Final paper.

A central goal of this course is to identify areas in which the current state of theorizing and research on the psychology of fairness leaves important theoretical issues unresolved or applied questions unanswered.  Our discussions will be geared toward identifying fruitful avenues for research which addresses these limitations.  Consistent with this approach, each student is required to write a paper in which some area of the research relevant to this class is reviewed, a problem is identified, and a study is proposed which addresses this problem.  This paper should be written in a format consistent with the guidelines set out in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association--it should begin with an abstract, followed by an introduction, method section, and references.

The paper may not exceed 15 pages in length, and it must include as least 4 references to work published in the years 2003-2005.


All final papers are due by 5 p.m. on April 29.  No final paper will be accepted unless it has been proposed during class in week 11 or 12 (see syllabus) and a brief written summary of your proposal has been approved by me.  All proposals must  be approved by week 12 (April 7) or the final paper will receive a late penalty.

You are encouraged to use my office hours and class time to discuss the development of your ideas and the methods you will employ to test them.

 

 



Week 1.  (1-20)      Course Introduction, Historical Overview

No Assigned Readings
Week 2.  (1-27)      Distributive Justice and the Justice Motive

Lerner, M. J. (1977). The justice motive: Some hypotheses as to its origins and forms. Journal of Personality, 45, 1-52.

Lerner, M. J. (2003). The justice motive: Where psychologists found it, how they lost it, and why they may not find it again. Personality and Social Psychology Review,7, 388-399.

Montada, L. (2002). Doing justice to the justice motive. In M. Ross Michael & D. T. Miller (Eds.), The justice motive in everyday life (pp. 41-62). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Walster, E., & Walster, G. W. (1975). Equity and social justice. Journal of Social Issues, 31(3), 21-43.

Week 3.  (2-3)      Relational Theories of Procedural Justice

Tyler, T. R., & Blader, S. L. (2003). The Group Engagement Model: Procedural Justice, Social Identity, and Cooperative Behavior. Personality & Social Psychology Review, 7(4), 349-361.

Tyler, T. R., & Lind, E. (1992). A relational model of authority in groups. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology, Vol 25 (pp. 115-191). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Tyler, T. R. (1989). The psychology of procedural justice: A test of the group-value model. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 57(5), 830-838.

Week 4.  (2-10)    Cognitive Theories of Procedural Justice

van den Bos, K., & Miedema, J. (2000). Toward understanding why fairness matters: The influence of mortality salience on reactions to procedural fairness. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 79(3), 355-366. 

van den Bos, K. (2001). Uncertainty management: The influence of uncertainty salience on reactions to perceived procedural fairness. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 80(6), 931-941.

van den Bos, K., & Lind, E. (2002). Uncertainty management by means of fairness judgments. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology, 34, 1-60. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, Inc.

van den Bos, K., & Lind, E.  (2002).  Advances (2-1)

Week 5.  (2-17)    Placing social justice theories in a broader social psychological context

Tetlock, P. E. (2002). Social functionalist frameworks for judgment and choice: Intuitive politicians, theologians, and prosecutors. Psychological Review, 109(3), 451-471.

Fiske, A. P. (1992). The four elementary forms of sociality: Framework for a unified theory of social relations. Psychological Review, 99(4), 689-723.

Rozin, P., Lowery, L., Imada, S., & Haidt, J. (1999). The CAD triad hypothesis: A mapping between three moral emotions (contempt, anger, disgust) and three moral codes (community, autonomy, divinity). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99(4), 574-586.

Week 6.  (2-24)     Distributive versus procedural versus interactional justice.

Bobocel, D. R., & Holmvall, C. M. (2001). Are interactional justice and procedural justice different? Framing the debate. In S. Gilliland, D. Steiner, & D. Skarlicki (Eds.), Research in social issues in management: Theoretical and cultural perspectives on organizational justice (Vol. 1, pp. 85-108). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.

Lupfer, M. B., Weeks, K. P., Doan, K. A., & Houston, D. A. (2000). Folk conceptions of fairness and unfairness.  European Journal of Social Psychology, 30, 405-428.

Heuer, L., Blumenthal, E., Douglas, A., & Weinblatt, T. (1999).  A deservingness approach to respect as a relationally based fairness judgment. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 1279-1292.

Ambrose, M. L., & Cropanzano, R. (2003). A longitudinal analysis of organizational fairness: An examination of reactions to tenure and promotion decisions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 266-275.  

Week 7.  (3-3)    When do fair procedures matter?

De Cremer, D., & Alberts, H. (2004). When procedural fairness does not influence how positive i feel: The effects of voice and leader selection as a function of belongingness need. European Journal of Social Psychology, 34 (3), 333-344.

van Prooijen, J. W., van den Bos, K., & Wilke, H. A. M. (2004). Group Belongingness and Procedural Justice: Social Inclusion and Exclusion by Peers Affects the Psychology of Voice. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 87(1), 66-79.

Huo, Y. J. (2003). Procedural justice and social regulation across group boundaries: Does subgroup identity undermine relationship-based governance. Personality & Social     Psychology Bulletin, 29(3), 336-348.

van Prooijen, J.W., van den Bos, K., &Wilke, H. A. M. (2002). Procedural justice and status: Status salience as antecedent of procedural fairness effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 1353–1361.

Week 8.    (3-10)    When do fair procedures matter? (II)

Chen, Y.-R., Brockner, J., & Greenberg, J. (2003). When is it "a pleasure to do business with you?" the effects of relative status, outcome favorability, and procedural fairness. Organizational Behavior & Human Decision Processes, 92(1-2), 1-21.

Flynn, F. J., & Brockner, J. (2003). It's different to give than to receive: Predictors of givers' and receivers' reactions to favor exchange. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(6), 1034-1045.

        Ståhl, T., Van Prooijen, J. W., & Vermunt, R. (2004). On the psychology of procedural justice: Reactions to procedures of ingroup vs. outgroup authorities. European Journal of Social Psychology, 34, 173–189.       

        Skitka, L. J. (2002). Do the means always justify the ends, or do the ends sometimes justify the means? A value model of justice reasoning. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 28(5), 588-597.

        Additional readings:

Heuer, L. Penrod, S., Gefen, S., & Saks, M.   (In progress).  Judicial decision making in cases regarding the prediction of criminality:  The role of societal benefits and fairness concerns.

 Smith, H. J., Tyler, T. R., Huo, Y. J., Ortiz, D. J., & Lind, E. A. (1998). The self-relevant implications of the group-value model: Group membership, self-worth, and treatment quality. Journal of Experimental Social         Psychology,   34, 470–493.

Tyler, T. R., Lind, E. A., Ohbuchi, K. I., Sugawara, I., & Huo, Y. J.  (1998). Conflict with outsiders: Disputing within and across cultural boundaries. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24, 137–146.

Platow, M. J., & van Knippenberg, D. A. (2001). A social identity analysis of leadership endorsement: The effects of leader in-group prototypicality and distributive intergroup fairness.  Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 1508–1519.

        Huo, Y. J., Smith, H. J., Tyler, T. R., & Lind, E. A. (1996). Superordinate identification, subgroup identification, and justice concerns: Is separatism the problem; is assimilation the answer? Psychological Science, 7,40–45.

Week 9.  (3-24)   The meaning of fair treatment

Skitka, L. J. (2003). Of Different Minds: An Accessible Identity Model of Justice Reasoning. Personality & Social Psychology Review, 7(4), 286-297.

        Heuer, L. & Stroessner, S.  (In progress).  A Multiple-Motivational Model of Procedural Justice.

        Heuer, L., Penrod, S., Hafer, C. L., & Cohn, I. (2002). The role of resource and relational concerns for procedural justice. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 28(11), 1468-1482.

        Additional readings:

        Blader, S. L., & Tyler, T. R. (2003). A four-component model of procedural justice: Defining the meaning of a "fair" process. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 29(6), 747-758.

        Hareli (1999).  Justice and deservingness judgments – refuting the interchangeability assumption. New Ideas in Psychology, Vol. 17, 1999, pp. 183-193.

 

Week 10 (3-31)  Applied Justice Research I:  Affirmative Action

Crosby, F. J., Iyer, A., Clayton, S., et al. (2003). Affirmative action:  Psychological data and the policy debates.  American Psychologist, 58(2), 93-115.

Federico, CM; Sidanius, J  (2002).  Racism, ideology, and affirmative action revisited: The antecedents and consequences of "principled objections" to affirmative action.  Journal of Personality and Social  Psychology,  82(4),  488-502.

Son Hing, L. S., Bobocel, D., & Zanna, M. P. (2002). Meritocracy and opposition to affirmative action: Making concessions in the face of discrimination. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 83(3), 493-509.

        Additional readings:

Bobocel, D., Son Hing, L. S., Holmvall, C. M., & Zanna, M. P. (2002). Policies to redress social injustice: Is the concern for justice a cause both of support and of opposition? In M. Ross & D. T. Miller (Eds.), The justice motive in everyday life (pp. 204-225). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Crosby, F. J., & Franco, J. L. (2003). Connections Between the Ivory Tower and the Multicolored World: Linking Abstract Theories of Social Justice to the Rough and Tumble of Affirmative Action. Personality & Social Psychology Review, 7(4), 362-373.

Elkins, T. J., Bozeman, D. P., Phillips, J. S.  (2003).  Promotion decisions in an affirmative action environment: Can social accounts change fairness perceptions?  Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 33(6): 1111-1139.

 

 Week 11.  (4-7)  Applied Justice Research II: Social Movements

 Sturmer, B., & Simon, S. (2004). The role of collective identification in social movement participation: A panel study in the context of the German gay movement. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30(3), 263-277.

Wright, S. C. (2001). Restricted intergroup boundries: Tokenism, ambiguity, and the tolerance of injustice. In J. T. Jost & B. Major (Eds.), The psychology of legitimacy: Emerging perspectives on ideology, justice, and intergroup relations (pp. 223-254). New York: Cambridge University Press.

van Zomeren, M., Spears, R., Leach, C. W., & Fischer, A. H. (2004). Put your money where your mouth is: Explaining collective action tendencies through group-based anger and group efficacy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87(5), 649-664.

Additional readings:

        Klandermans, B. (2001).  Why social movements come into being and why people join them. In J. R. Blau (Ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Sociology (pp. 268-281). Malden, MA: Blackwell.

        Klandermans, B., Sabucedo, J. M., & Rodriguez, M. (2004). Inclusiveness among identification of farmers in the Netherlands and Galicia (Spain). European Journal of Social Psychology, 34, 279-295.

 

Week 12.  (4-14)    Final Paper Presentations (I)   

 

Week 13.  (4-21)    Belief in a Just-World

        Hafer, C.  (2004).  Experimental Research on Just-World Theory: Problems, Developments, and Future Challenges.  Psychological Bulletin.

        Kay, A.C., Jost, J. T., & Young, S. (in press). Victim-derogation and victim-enhancement as alternate routes to system justification. Psychological Science.

Kaiser, C. R., Vick, S. B., & Major, B. (2004). A prospective investigation of the relationship between just-world beliefs and the desire for revenge after september 11, 2001. Psychological Science, 15(7), 503-506.

 

Week 14.  (4-28)    Final Paper Presentations (II)