Trained as an experimental social psychologist, now doing behavioral ethics research. Also read related material in philosophy of science, ethical philosophy, and law.
Dissertation: Distributive and procedural justice: Combined impact of "voice" and improvement on ... more Dissertation: Distributive and procedural justice: Combined impact of "voice" and improvement on experienced inequity. (Committee Chair: J. Stacy Adams) M.A., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1973) A.B, cum laude, Davidson College (1971)
Are threats and assaults committed by employees a reflection of aggression found in society at la... more Are threats and assaults committed by employees a reflection of aggression found in society at large or of faulty management practices? Analyses of large-scale longitudinal data showed that local violent crime rates predicted both threats and assaults. Organizational climates predicted only assaults.
We propose that the process of abduction is a useful tool for how management scholars can better ... more We propose that the process of abduction is a useful tool for how management scholars can better develop new explanatory hypotheses and theories. In doing so, we differentiate abduction from the more commonly studied methods of deduction and induction. We briefly explain the various research streams on abductive reasoning and propose a version that is focused more on the process of abductive reasoning and less on the outcomes. We argue that by using contrastive reasoning and by recognizing different triggers of abduction, this process can help guide researchers to the types of causal explanations that are interesting. We conclude with some examples of abduction in the history of management research and a discussion of features of the reasoning processes involved.
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2011
This research empirically examines the underlying mechanisms of fairness theory (Folger & Cropanz... more This research empirically examines the underlying mechanisms of fairness theory (Folger & Cropanzano, 1998, 2001), namely counterfactual thought processes. Study 1 used a policy-capturing design to examine the relative importance of contextual variables in predicting counterfactual thoughts and fairness perceptions. Study 2 utilized a between-subjects design and asked participants to generate their own counterfactuals in response to an unfortunate event. Results of both studies showed that fairness perceptions are influenced by contextual variables (i.e., outcome severity, target knowledge and expertise, sin of commission vs. omission) and counterfactual thinking. Counterfactual thoughts partially mediated the effects of contextual variables and fairness perceptions in Study 1. Exploratory analyses from Study 3 revealed that the measurement of counterfactual thoughts (frequency vs. strength) may capture different underlying constructs. Implications are discussed.
Evolutionary biologists often refer to a distinction between ultimate and proximate explanation. ... more Evolutionary biologists often refer to a distinction between ultimate and proximate explanation. On the one hand, such a distinction points to important issues for social psychologists, especially in terms of what it means to say that people experience emotions such as guilt and shame. On the other hand, the value of the ultimate/proximate distinction depends on how it is understood because its application can be problematic. We illustrate the use and possible misuse of the distinction in terms of its application to the differentiation of the self-conscious emotions guilt and shame.
Argues that the crucial cognitive band in L. Festinger and J. Carlsmith's (1959) par... more Argues that the crucial cognitive band in L. Festinger and J. Carlsmith's (1959) paradigm situation is as follows: The self (+) is responsible for (?) arguing that the task is enjoyable (-). Following an analysis of meaning of the term responsibility, it is concluded that responsibility will most likely be accepted when there is both high choice and low reward. A study was conducted with 126 female undergraduates to examine the reinforcement effect found by B. J. Calder et al . The prediction that a manipulation of investment time--as opposed to reward--along with choice and consequences would produce a triple interaction was confirmed. A balance explanation of other forced-compliance situations and an analysis of free-choice situations are presented. (42 ref)
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1977
Distributive justice (outcome fairness) was distinguished from procedural jus- tice (fairness of ... more Distributive justice (outcome fairness) was distinguished from procedural jus- tice (fairness of the processes whereby outcomes are allocated). Sixth-grade boys, tested individually, served as workers performing a card sorting task for 10 work periods. A manager (allegedly ...
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1979
Two experiments investigated the effects of "voice" (participating in allocation decision making ... more Two experiments investigated the effects of "voice" (participating in allocation decision making by expressing one's own opinion about the preferred allocation) on responses to an inequitable allocation. In addition to subjects' (female college students) either having or not having voice, Experiment 1 manipulated (a) whether the allocation made by a "decision maker" (supposedly another subject but actually the experimenter) was or was not biased (due to selfinterest) and (b) whether the subject did or did not learn that a "co-worker" believed the allocation to be inequitable. Experiment 2 (with female high school students) manipulated the presence or absence of voice and involved only a self-interested decision maker; also, a note from a co-worker either supported the decision maker's allocation or confirmed the subject's opinion that the allocation was inequitable. In both experiments, the impact of voice was mediated by knowledge about the co-worker's opinion. When subjects had no knowledge of the co-worker's opinion (Experiment 1) or knew that the co-worker's opinion coincided with the decision maker's allocation (Experiment 2), there was evidence for a "fair process effect": Voice subjects expressed greater satisfaction than those with no voice. How do people know that they have been treated fairly? According to equity theory (Adams, 1965; Walster, Berscheid, & Walster, 1973), a distribution of outcomes is considered fair (equitable) if the ratio of outcomes to inputs is constant across people. Apart from considerations of equity, however, fairness judgments may also be affected by whether a distribution is the result of an acceptable decision-making procedure (see the distinction between distributive and procedural justice in Folger, 1977; Leventhal, 1976; and Thibaut & Walker, 1975). Deutsch (1975), in discussing how "injustice of decision-making procedures" affects the perception of justice, makes the following argument: "There is much social psychological research
In this paper we explore the self-interest motive. Speculation concerning this motive has long be... more In this paper we explore the self-interest motive. Speculation concerning this motive has long been at the heart of several fields of study. The question before management scientists, as well as before all of those interested in the causes of human behavior, can be framed as ...
According to research, unfairness leads to such things as theft, sabotage, and even violence. Why... more According to research, unfairness leads to such things as theft, sabotage, and even violence. Why do some employees respond in such an extreme and sometimes risky fashion? Such matters raise one of the core questions still not conclusively answered in ...
The present research contributes to a growing literature on observer reactions to injustice exper... more The present research contributes to a growing literature on observer reactions to injustice experienced by others. In particular, we separated two variables that have previously been confounded in prior research, namely perpetrator intent to cause harm and victim perception of harm. We expected that injustice intent and injustice perceptions would have both unique and joint effects on observer reactions. The results of three experiments in which we manipulated perpetrator injustice intent and victim injustice perceptions supported our predictions. First, we found that observers had more negative reactions toward superiors who intended to inflict high versus low levels of interpersonal injustice toward a subordinate. Second, the injustice intent of the superior influenced observers' reactions more than did victim perceptions of injustice. Third, most novel, we found that the mere intent to cause injustice generated negative reactions in observers, even in the absence of a "true" victim-that is, when the subordinate perceptions of injustice were low. Together, our results emphasize the importance of examining observers' reactions to injustice and incorporating perpetrator intentions into the study of organizational justice.
Within the realm of management and the other social sciences, many scholars have used self-intere... more Within the realm of management and the other social sciences, many scholars have used self-interest explanations to account for individual judgment, decision making, and behavior with respect to a variety of issues in the domains of ethics and justice. In this article, the authors address the descriptive claim that all human behavior can ultimately be traced to underlying self-interest. Reviewing arguments from the philosophical literatures and evidence from management, social psychology, and behavioral economics, the authors argue that exclusively relying on self-interest explanations is a bad scientific strategy that discourages researchers from considering other determinants of how people behave.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publi... more This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
Relative deprivation and social comparison: the …, 1986
... l976: Crosby & Gonzalez-Intal. ... are taken as a given, and future conse-quences are ext... more ... l976: Crosby & Gonzalez-Intal. ... are taken as a given, and future conse-quences are extrapolated itypically with respect to an end state after some ... an indication of the respondent's willingness to endorse the status quotake into account considerations that extend beyond the ...
This study contrasts community violence and an organization's procedural justice climate (or lack... more This study contrasts community violence and an organization's procedural justice climate (or lack thereof) as explanations for employee-instigated workplace aggression in the geographically dispersed plants of a nationwide organization. The findings showed that violent crime rates in the community where a plant resided predicted workplace aggression in that plant, whereas the plant's procedural justice climate did not. We would like to express our gratitude to Maureen Ambrose and three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments. We also would like to thank Judi McLean Parks for her comments on earlier versions, and
York: Random House. Tangney, J. P. 1989. A quantitative assessment of phenomenological difference... more York: Random House. Tangney, J. P. 1989. A quantitative assessment of phenomenological differences between shame and guilt. Poster presented at the 97th Annual Gonvention of the American Psychological Association, New Orleans.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
Dissertation: Distributive and procedural justice: Combined impact of "voice" and improvement on ... more Dissertation: Distributive and procedural justice: Combined impact of "voice" and improvement on experienced inequity. (Committee Chair: J. Stacy Adams) M.A., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1973) A.B, cum laude, Davidson College (1971)
Are threats and assaults committed by employees a reflection of aggression found in society at la... more Are threats and assaults committed by employees a reflection of aggression found in society at large or of faulty management practices? Analyses of large-scale longitudinal data showed that local violent crime rates predicted both threats and assaults. Organizational climates predicted only assaults.
We propose that the process of abduction is a useful tool for how management scholars can better ... more We propose that the process of abduction is a useful tool for how management scholars can better develop new explanatory hypotheses and theories. In doing so, we differentiate abduction from the more commonly studied methods of deduction and induction. We briefly explain the various research streams on abductive reasoning and propose a version that is focused more on the process of abductive reasoning and less on the outcomes. We argue that by using contrastive reasoning and by recognizing different triggers of abduction, this process can help guide researchers to the types of causal explanations that are interesting. We conclude with some examples of abduction in the history of management research and a discussion of features of the reasoning processes involved.
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2011
This research empirically examines the underlying mechanisms of fairness theory (Folger & Cropanz... more This research empirically examines the underlying mechanisms of fairness theory (Folger & Cropanzano, 1998, 2001), namely counterfactual thought processes. Study 1 used a policy-capturing design to examine the relative importance of contextual variables in predicting counterfactual thoughts and fairness perceptions. Study 2 utilized a between-subjects design and asked participants to generate their own counterfactuals in response to an unfortunate event. Results of both studies showed that fairness perceptions are influenced by contextual variables (i.e., outcome severity, target knowledge and expertise, sin of commission vs. omission) and counterfactual thinking. Counterfactual thoughts partially mediated the effects of contextual variables and fairness perceptions in Study 1. Exploratory analyses from Study 3 revealed that the measurement of counterfactual thoughts (frequency vs. strength) may capture different underlying constructs. Implications are discussed.
Evolutionary biologists often refer to a distinction between ultimate and proximate explanation. ... more Evolutionary biologists often refer to a distinction between ultimate and proximate explanation. On the one hand, such a distinction points to important issues for social psychologists, especially in terms of what it means to say that people experience emotions such as guilt and shame. On the other hand, the value of the ultimate/proximate distinction depends on how it is understood because its application can be problematic. We illustrate the use and possible misuse of the distinction in terms of its application to the differentiation of the self-conscious emotions guilt and shame.
Argues that the crucial cognitive band in L. Festinger and J. Carlsmith's (1959) par... more Argues that the crucial cognitive band in L. Festinger and J. Carlsmith's (1959) paradigm situation is as follows: The self (+) is responsible for (?) arguing that the task is enjoyable (-). Following an analysis of meaning of the term responsibility, it is concluded that responsibility will most likely be accepted when there is both high choice and low reward. A study was conducted with 126 female undergraduates to examine the reinforcement effect found by B. J. Calder et al . The prediction that a manipulation of investment time--as opposed to reward--along with choice and consequences would produce a triple interaction was confirmed. A balance explanation of other forced-compliance situations and an analysis of free-choice situations are presented. (42 ref)
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1977
Distributive justice (outcome fairness) was distinguished from procedural jus- tice (fairness of ... more Distributive justice (outcome fairness) was distinguished from procedural jus- tice (fairness of the processes whereby outcomes are allocated). Sixth-grade boys, tested individually, served as workers performing a card sorting task for 10 work periods. A manager (allegedly ...
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1979
Two experiments investigated the effects of "voice" (participating in allocation decision making ... more Two experiments investigated the effects of "voice" (participating in allocation decision making by expressing one's own opinion about the preferred allocation) on responses to an inequitable allocation. In addition to subjects' (female college students) either having or not having voice, Experiment 1 manipulated (a) whether the allocation made by a "decision maker" (supposedly another subject but actually the experimenter) was or was not biased (due to selfinterest) and (b) whether the subject did or did not learn that a "co-worker" believed the allocation to be inequitable. Experiment 2 (with female high school students) manipulated the presence or absence of voice and involved only a self-interested decision maker; also, a note from a co-worker either supported the decision maker's allocation or confirmed the subject's opinion that the allocation was inequitable. In both experiments, the impact of voice was mediated by knowledge about the co-worker's opinion. When subjects had no knowledge of the co-worker's opinion (Experiment 1) or knew that the co-worker's opinion coincided with the decision maker's allocation (Experiment 2), there was evidence for a "fair process effect": Voice subjects expressed greater satisfaction than those with no voice. How do people know that they have been treated fairly? According to equity theory (Adams, 1965; Walster, Berscheid, & Walster, 1973), a distribution of outcomes is considered fair (equitable) if the ratio of outcomes to inputs is constant across people. Apart from considerations of equity, however, fairness judgments may also be affected by whether a distribution is the result of an acceptable decision-making procedure (see the distinction between distributive and procedural justice in Folger, 1977; Leventhal, 1976; and Thibaut & Walker, 1975). Deutsch (1975), in discussing how "injustice of decision-making procedures" affects the perception of justice, makes the following argument: "There is much social psychological research
In this paper we explore the self-interest motive. Speculation concerning this motive has long be... more In this paper we explore the self-interest motive. Speculation concerning this motive has long been at the heart of several fields of study. The question before management scientists, as well as before all of those interested in the causes of human behavior, can be framed as ...
According to research, unfairness leads to such things as theft, sabotage, and even violence. Why... more According to research, unfairness leads to such things as theft, sabotage, and even violence. Why do some employees respond in such an extreme and sometimes risky fashion? Such matters raise one of the core questions still not conclusively answered in ...
The present research contributes to a growing literature on observer reactions to injustice exper... more The present research contributes to a growing literature on observer reactions to injustice experienced by others. In particular, we separated two variables that have previously been confounded in prior research, namely perpetrator intent to cause harm and victim perception of harm. We expected that injustice intent and injustice perceptions would have both unique and joint effects on observer reactions. The results of three experiments in which we manipulated perpetrator injustice intent and victim injustice perceptions supported our predictions. First, we found that observers had more negative reactions toward superiors who intended to inflict high versus low levels of interpersonal injustice toward a subordinate. Second, the injustice intent of the superior influenced observers' reactions more than did victim perceptions of injustice. Third, most novel, we found that the mere intent to cause injustice generated negative reactions in observers, even in the absence of a "true" victim-that is, when the subordinate perceptions of injustice were low. Together, our results emphasize the importance of examining observers' reactions to injustice and incorporating perpetrator intentions into the study of organizational justice.
Within the realm of management and the other social sciences, many scholars have used self-intere... more Within the realm of management and the other social sciences, many scholars have used self-interest explanations to account for individual judgment, decision making, and behavior with respect to a variety of issues in the domains of ethics and justice. In this article, the authors address the descriptive claim that all human behavior can ultimately be traced to underlying self-interest. Reviewing arguments from the philosophical literatures and evidence from management, social psychology, and behavioral economics, the authors argue that exclusively relying on self-interest explanations is a bad scientific strategy that discourages researchers from considering other determinants of how people behave.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publi... more This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
Relative deprivation and social comparison: the …, 1986
... l976: Crosby & Gonzalez-Intal. ... are taken as a given, and future conse-quences are ext... more ... l976: Crosby & Gonzalez-Intal. ... are taken as a given, and future conse-quences are extrapolated itypically with respect to an end state after some ... an indication of the respondent's willingness to endorse the status quotake into account considerations that extend beyond the ...
This study contrasts community violence and an organization's procedural justice climate (or lack... more This study contrasts community violence and an organization's procedural justice climate (or lack thereof) as explanations for employee-instigated workplace aggression in the geographically dispersed plants of a nationwide organization. The findings showed that violent crime rates in the community where a plant resided predicted workplace aggression in that plant, whereas the plant's procedural justice climate did not. We would like to express our gratitude to Maureen Ambrose and three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments. We also would like to thank Judi McLean Parks for her comments on earlier versions, and
York: Random House. Tangney, J. P. 1989. A quantitative assessment of phenomenological difference... more York: Random House. Tangney, J. P. 1989. A quantitative assessment of phenomenological differences between shame and guilt. Poster presented at the 97th Annual Gonvention of the American Psychological Association, New Orleans.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
Uploads
Papers by Rob Folger