Explaining the procedural justice–perceived legitimacy relationship: Relying on relational concern or instrumental concern?

Abstract

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

Beyond Justice Perceptions: The Role of Interpersonal Justice Trajectories and Social Class in Perceived Legitimacy of Authority Figures

“…The traditional explanation of the relationship between justice and perceived legitimacy is that when a person believes that the authority is treating them fairly, they may also believe that they have a high-quality relationship with the authority and a good status within the group (Tyler, 2006). This relational information thus represents a kind of exchange resource that the authority provides in interactions with the person (Tyler, 1997;Colquitt et al, 2012;Liang and Li, 2019). In order to ensure and strengthen the relationship (Chen et al, 2014), the individual may reciprocate by legitimating the authority (Tyler, 1996) and thus perceive high legitimacy (Tyler, 1996;Liang and Li, 2019).…”

“…When authorities use fair procedures to make decisions (i.e., procedural justice), make fairly distributive decisions (i.e., distributive justice), or treat individuals with dignity (i.e., interpersonal justice), individuals are more likely to perceive high legitimacy (e.g., Tyler and Jackson, 2014). This empirical relationship between fairness and perceived legitimacy is evident in many contexts, such as political (e.g., Van der Toorn et al, 2011;Murphy, 2014), organizational (e.g., Blader and Tyler, 2005;Treviño et al, 2014), legal (e.g., Tyler and Jackson, 2014), and educational settings (e.g., Treviño et al, 2014;Liang and Li, 2019). Despite the wealth of research focused on issues of justice and perceived legitimacy, considerably less is understood about whether past experiences of fairness influence legitimacy perceptions.…”

How Interpersonal Justice Shapes Legitimacy Perceptions: The Role of Interpersonal Justice Trajectories and Current Experience

“…Following the logic of social exchange theory, when an authority treats people with respect and dignity (i.e., interpersonal justice), people may feel that they have a high-quality relationship with the authority, which represents a kind of exchange resource (Basu and Green, 1997;Tyler, 1997;Colquitt et al, 2012;Liang and Li, 2019). In order to maintain and strengthen this highquality relationship (Mitchell et al, 2012;Chen et al, 2014), individuals may reciprocate with compliance to the authority (Tyler, 1996;Colquitt et al, 2012;Liang and Li, 2019). With repeated exchanges, there is increasing investment (Cropanzano and Mitchell, 2005;Fortin et al, 2014;Rubenstein et al, 2019), and the relationship matures over time (Blau, 1964;Colquitt et al, 2013).…”

“…Specifically, we assume that individuals will evaluate an improving interpersonal justice trajectory as a signal of the authority's increasing contributions to the exchange relationship, such as increased respect and care (Rubenstein et al, 2019). This evaluation may induce individuals' feelings of gratitude and indebtedness, which strengthen the reciprocal interpersonal relations (Colquitt et al, 2007;Chen et al, 2014) and increase compliance to authority, thus strengthening the perception that the authority is legitimate (Tyler, 1996;Colquitt et al, 2012;Liang and Li, 2019). Conversely, a declining interpersonal justice trajectory could suggest that the individual's situation is becoming progressively bleaker (Lindsley et al, 1995;Ariely and Carmon, 2000).…”

“…The process of forming legitimacy perceptions can be regarded as a form of social exchange (Blau, 1964) between the individual and the authority. These exchanges are reciprocal (Liang and Li, 2019) and recur over time (Colquitt and Zipay, 2015). Moreover, the individual's experience of justice can fluctuate during individualauthority interactions over time, and this change in information is meaningful to the individual (Hausknecht et al, 2011;Rubenstein et al, 2019).…”