The Influence of Perceived Injustice on the Endorsement of Political Leaders¹

Abstract

Recent public opinion polls have suggested that there is a striking lack of public support for national political leaders and institutions. The two studies discussed in this paper explore why public evaluations of political leaders and institutions are low. In particular, they examine the role of perceived injustice in creating dislike for and distrust of leaders and institutions. This focus upon justice is contrasted with the more traditional focus upon the level of outcomes received from the political system and upon congruence in citizen-leader policy preferences. The results strongly support a focus upon justice by showing that judgments of injustice exercise an influence upon leadership evaluations and institutional endorsements which is independent of beliefs about the level of outcomes the political system is providing to citizens or of public support for government policies. In fact, both studies suggest that judgments of justice or injustice have more influence upon the endorsement of political leaders and institutions than do outcome-related concerns.

A Test of the Relationships among Perceptions of Justice, Job Satisfaction, Affective Commitment and Organizational Citizenship Behavior

“…Folger and Konovsky (1989) also showed similar findings that pay rise and job satisfaction significantly related to the perception of distributive justice. Tyler et al (1985) reported that both procedural and distributive justice contribute significantly to variance in outcome satisfaction. Even though both of justice contribute to variance in satisfaction, but contribution of distributive justice is nearly twice that of procedural justice.…”

Voice is Sometimes Enough: Voice, Influence, and the Moderating Impact of Descriptive Representation

“…While the basic finding about the importance of decision control has been reiterated over the years (see Lind and Tyler 1988), subsequent research has also illustrated that control over the process can rank as more important than control over decisions, and that process control can be important even in the absence of decision control (Lind, Lissak, and Conlon 1983;Tyler, Rasinski, and Spodick 1985;Tyler 1987Tyler , 1990). Thus, not only is voice important as an instrumental means of influencing decisions, but voice can have value in its own right.…”

Protected Values and Their Influences on Perceived Procedural Fairness in Highway Project: A Field Survey in South Sulawesi, Indonesia

“…This is different from the concept of outcome fairness, which relates to the distribution of the costs and benefits within society [15]. Much evidence suggesting that people are more likely to accept policy decisions that come from fair procedures than those from unfair procedures has accumulated within the field of social psychology [14,16,17]. For example, Tyler et al [17] found that the endorsement of the Reagan administration's tax policies in the United States was more strongly influenced by judgments of procedural fairness than by other outcome-related concerns.…”