There is considerable evidence that the experience of justice is associated with perceived legitimacy of authority, but there has been no research about this association when considering past rather than current fairness. Based on the fairness heuristic theory, we tested the hypothesis that interpersonal justice trajectories positively affect perceived legitimacy of the authority; we also tested whether social class moderated this effect. Community residents (N = 111; 54 women) rated the authority's fairness on 16 consecutive weeks and rated perceived legitimacy on the 16th week. The results of latent growth modeling showed that the trajectory of interpersonal justice scores leading up to the final week significantly predicted perceived legitimacy, regardless of the current experience of interpersonal fairness. Tests of moderation showed that the legitimacy perceptions of individuals of lower subjective social class were significantly affected by interpersonal justice trajectories, whereas this was not the case among individuals of higher subjective social class. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for research on perceived legitimacy and justice, as well as their implications for understanding social class.

People can extract relational information (i.e., relational concern) as well as instrumental information (i.e., instrumental concern) from decision-making procedures. Thus, both instrumental and relational concerns are assumed to

This study explained why interpersonal injustice enacted by representatives of an authority might undermine perceived legitimacy of the actual authority. We built a moderated mediation model in which institutional trust was the mediator, and informational justice was the moderator, in the relationship between interpersonal injustice and perceived legitimacy of authority. Study 1 showed that interpersonal injustice negatively influenced perceived legitimacy of authority. Study 2 indicated that institutional trust was a significant mediator of the relationship between interpersonal injustice and perceived legitimacy of authority. Study 3 indicated that institutional trust was a significant mediator of the relationship between interpersonal injustice and perceived legitimacy of authority when an explanation was absent, whereas it was not significant when explanation was given. These findings contribute to the literature by identifying components that shape the psychological process of forming legitimacy perceptions of authority.

Many empirical studies have shown that procedural justice is the key determinant of whether an individual perceives an authority figure as legitimate. However, based on relational models of procedural justice and the uncertainty management model, there is reason to believe that the association between procedural justice and perceived legitimacy may be stronger for individuals who are uncertain about their standing as group members (moderation); this interaction might predict group identification and, in turn, perceived legitimacy (mediation). We tested this mediated moderation model in two experiments (Studies 1a and 1b) and a field study (Study 2) using different operationalizations of standing uncertainty across studies. The results of Studies 1a and 1b demonstrated that the association between procedural justice and perceived legitimacy was stronger for participants with high (vs. low) standing uncertainty. Study 2 showed that group identification mediated the association between this interaction effect and perceived legitimacy. Together, the results of the mediated moderation analysis showed that procedural justice was positively associated with perceived legitimacy through high group identification when standing uncertainty was high. The theoretical contributions and practical implications of our findings are discussed.