Reactions to procedural injustice in payment distributions: Do the means justify the ends?

Abstract

In a laboratory study, 192 undergraduate students performed a task for which they received either high, medium, or low monetary outcomes as a result of a fair or unfair procedure. Subjects reported that medium and high outcomes were fair regardless of the procedure used, but that low outcomes were only fair when they were based on a fair procedure. The outcomes received, however, had no impact on ratings of the fairness of the procedures used. These results corroborated earlier findings from the dispute-resolution literature, but extend them to reward-distribution contexts in which different manipulations of procedural justice were used. The limitations of equity theory in accounting for improprieties in organizational procedures are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)