On Fairness of Random Procedures

Journal of Social Issues, 2009

Establishing fair procedures to regulate intragroup disagreements should engender cooperation while inhibiting conflict. Yet what is a "fair" procedure might vary for members of different factions. To understand perceptions of fairness in group decision making, the present research developed and utilized the Fair Group Procedures Scale (FGPS). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed a four-factor structure along two dimensions: the means of distributing decision-making power (proportionality to equality) and the normative value of the approach (desirable to undesirable). Data suggest that deeming a particular decision-making procedure "fair" is predicted by one's majority/minority position within a group. Furthermore, experimental data suggest that social change (i.e., reversals of majority/minority positions) reduces the discrepancies between factions. Results support the socially constructed nature of fairness and its potential role in intragroup conflict.

1992

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1986

This study investigates preferences among allocation procedures available for use by those distributing rewards for individual performance in a group effort. Our first hypothesis is that allocators try to balance the payoff distribution in response to all available information about the individual members. We manipulated a target person's level of contribution to the group effort and level of financial need. Results showed a main effect for both individual characteristics, but no interaction between them, thereby supporting our hypothesis of independent additive effects. Second, we argued that group characteristics would serve only to modify the effects of the individual characteristics. We manipulated two group characteristics: morale and task outcome. As predicted, no main effects for either group level variable emerged. Further, the effect of contribution was greater under failure than success and under low than high morale. The effect of need was greater under low morale, but only for female allocators. Consider the challenge facing those responsible for allocating rewards for individual performance in a group effort. Facing a plethora of information about the group and the people comprising it, the allocator's chief concern usually is how to combine this information to devise and justify a distribution procedure that is fair. But disagreements about the relative importance of the available information and the fundamental nature of fairness can make the choice of an allocation scheme difficult. Three general procedures have emerged as the most popular: equity (to each according to input), equality (to each the same), and need (to each according to need).' The purpose of the present article is to examine preferences among allocation schemes. In particular, we base our investigation on the postulate that choices among these schemes are a function of competing concerns, which, in turn, make use of different kinds of information about the group, its members, and its task. Further, we suggest that the choice involves not so much opting exclusively for one distribution procedure, but a synthesis among all of them that comes from a balancing of several concerns. Finally, we present a retraining of the decision process that clarifies the roles of the different kinds of information available and offers a more parsimonious perspective on the search for fairness. To date, most of the research on allocation behavior has focused on the implementation of an equity scheme (e.g., Berkowitz

Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 2002

Southern Economic Journal, 2002

There has been growing interest within the economics discipline in the role of equity concerns in the distribution of resources. This paper presents empirical evidence from controlled laboratory experiments where third-party decision makers allocate resources between two individuals. The experimental results indicate that subjects view a wide range of different allocations as the fair distribution of resources. However, regression analysis indicates that both treatment effects and a few demographic variables explain some of this variation in fairness concepts. Most significantly, decision makers rewarded subjects who earned their favorable positions, and the gender of the decision maker was an important predictor of the allocation chosen.

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2011

and sharing with colleagues.

SITE Working Paper Series, 2009

We study a new type of preference. We test whether parties hold preferences purely over the procedure which generates specific outcomes. In order to characterize procedures as independent of their outcome, we design procedures which yield the same expected outcomes or carry the same information on parties' intentions while they have different outcome-invariant properties. Experimentally, individuals show preferences over these properties. The preferences we report link to attributes of individuals' moral judgement. We also illustrate that individuals alter their behaviour under procedures which violate individuals' preferred moral principles.

Research on individual concerns about procedural fairness has focussed on two aspects so far. First, on whether the mechanism determining an allocation matters when judging fairness, and second, on whether players' intentions do so. This paper inquires to what extent procedural fairness can be deflned in terms of reciprocity, that is, to which extent the fairness of a procedure may be expressed as the kindness of an opponent's act of choosing that procedure when the choice was left to her. Subsequently, we experimentally explore subjects' willingness to pay for changing the procedure when they expect intentions and outcomes to be equally fair across procedures. We thus rule out reciprocity motives and motives for equalizing expected payofis. We show that individuals display procedural preferences beyond the reasons discovered so far.

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1985

Journal of Economic Psychology, 2014

In the last two decades, experimental papers on distributive justice have abounded. Two main results have been replicated. Firstly, there is a multiplicity of fairness rules. Secondly, fairness decisions differ depending on the context. This paper studies individual consistency in the use of fairness rules, as well as the structural factors that lead people to be inconsistent. We use a within-subject design, which allows us to compare individual behavior when the context changes. In line with the literature, we find a multiplicity of fairness rules. However, when we control for consistency, the set of fairness rules is considerably smaller. Only selfishness and strict egalitarianism seem to survive the stricter requirement of consistency. We observe that this result is mainly explained by a self-serving bias. Participants select the rule that is individually optimal in each situation.

Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 1989

It has generally been assumed that increases in the concrete outcomes of a procedure will result in judgments of greater procedural and distributive fairness, but research on this topic has been inconsistent. Using a classic procedural justice paradigm (Walker, LaTour, Lind, &. Thibaut, 1974), the experiment tested the effects of four levels of outcome. Forty-eight male and female undergraduates were led to believe that their team had been wrongfully charged with cheating in a business simulation game. An adversary adjudication was held, purportedly to resolve the charge. The outcome of the adjudication was confiscation of all, two thirds, one third, or none of the subject's monetary winnings from the game. Both procedural and distributive fairness measures showed dear nonlinear outcome effects. The relationship between outcomes and both fairness measures showed some evidence of being nonmonotonic as well: A two-thirds loss resulted in less favorable reactions than did a total loss. Ratings on other scales suggest that the nonlinear effects are due to beliefs that the judge did not fully consider the evidence in the two-thirds loss and one-third loss conditions. The discussion focuses on the theoretical implications of the findings for procedural justice and social exchange processes and the practical implications for conflict resolution procedure.

2020

Supplemental material, Supplementary_material for Does process matter? Experimental evidence on the effect of procedural fairness on citizens' evaluations of policy outcomes by Aaron Martin, Gosia Mikołajczak and Raymond Orr in International Political Science Review

2004

Abstract We propose that human concern for procedural fairness is rooted in two senses:(1) a desire for social stability and (2) an opposition to abuse of power. This resolves the puzzle of how an apparently naturally selected human characteristic could arise when the conditions for it have existed for less then a few thousand years. The extent to which people are concerned about procedural fairness varies predictably with these two senses, as do tendencies toward authoritarianism, egalitarianism and anarchism.

Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 2008

Fair process research has shown that people care not only about outcomes, but also about the process that produces these outcomes. For a decision process to be seen as fair, the people affected must have the opportunity to give input and possibly to influence the decision, and the decision process and rationale must be transparent and clear. Existing research has shown empirically that fair process enhances both employee motivation and performance in execution. However, work to date has not addressed why fair process is so often violated in practice. This paper breaks new ground by analytically examining the subtle trade-offs involved. We develop a model of fair process in a principal-agent (i.e., manager-employee) context, rooted in psychological preferences for autonomy and fairness. We show that indeed fair process will not always be used, and why the hoped-for benefits may be insufficient to convince management to use fair process.