Procedural justice and compliance behaviour: the mediating role of emotions

Abstract

Procedural justice researchers have consistently found that if authorities treat people with trust, fairness, respect and neutrality, people will not only be more willing to cooperate with authorities, but they will also be more likely to comply with authority decisions and rules. New research in this area has gone on to explore the role that emotions play in response to procedural justice and injustice. What this new research has neglected to do, however, is examine whether emotions mediate the effect of procedural justice on subsequent compliance behaviour in real life settings. Using longitudinal survey data collected in two real-life contexts (Study 1: a taxation dispute (N ¼ 652), and Study 2: workplaces (N ¼ 2366)), the present study will show that perceptions of procedural justice influence the emotions experienced by people, but more importantly these emotional reactions (i.e. anger and happiness) mediate the effect of justice on subsequent compliance behaviour. In other words, it is these positive and negative emotional reactions to perceived justice or injustice that go on to predict who will and will not comply with authority decisions and rules.

Power, justice, and trust: A moderated mediation analysis of tax compliance among Ethiopian business owners

“…As noted, fairness heuristic theory predicts that taxpayers will attend to the fairness of decisions enacted by the tax authority in order to assess whether this authority can be trusted not to POWER, JUSTICE, AND COMPLIANCE 11 take advantage of them (Murphy & Tyler, 2008;Van Dijke & Verboon, 2010). This assessment of the authority's trustworthiness is then used as information in deciding whether or not to comply with the authority.…”

“…Procedural justice has been studied previously as an antecedent of voluntary tax compliance (Murphy, 2004;Murphy & Tyler, 2008). The unique moderating roles of legitimate and coercive power on the part of the tax authority in the relationship of procedural justice with voluntary tax compliance, however, present a nuanced perspective on integration between the two literatures.…”

“…Yet it should be noted that experimental (e.g. Doyle et al, 2009;Van Dijke & Verboon, 2010) and longitudinal (Murphy & Tyler, 2008) studies already revealed the causal effect of procedural justice on voluntary tax compliance.…”

Procedural justice and its role in promoting voluntary compliance

“…In other words, perceptions of an authority's legitimacy, in addition to emotional experiences and identity processes, need to be considered together to fully understand the different effects that procedural justice can have on different people across different contexts. Using empirical data, Murphy and her colleagues demonstrated how unjust treatment by authorities could elicit negative emotions in individuals (for example, Murphy and Tyler 2008;Barkworth and Murphy 2015). These negative emotional reactions subsequently produced a variety of retaliatory behaviours in response to unfair treatment, including reactance, defiance towards authorities and subsequent noncompliance with the law.…”

Collaborative practice in statutory in child protection practice: Parental agreements and procedural justice

“…The procedural justice literature indicates that being listened to by an authority demonstrates that the person has status and that the authority values his or her opinion. It is widely supported that people have more positive fairness judgements when they have been provided with an opportunity for voicing their perspectives (Berman & Gold, 2012;Blader & Tyler, 2009;Goodman-Delahunty, 2010;Hollander-Blumff & Tyler, 2008;Murphy & Tyler, 2008).…”