Procedural Justice: Social Science Perspectives

Dispute Resolution

John W. Thibaut and Laurens Walker were the first to develop the concept of procedural justice. Their research showed that disputants' attitudes were more positive to the extent that disputants were given “voice,” or the opportunity to express their views, and they used the term process control to refer to voice in this sense. Although they focused on the application of the theory in legal settings, it is relevant in nonlegal settings as well. Thibaut and Walker contrasted the legal procedures used in an adversarial system, in which the court functions as an impartial referee between opposing parties, with those used in an inquisitorial system, in which the court participates in the process of gathering information. They found that their research participants preferred the adversarial system, which allows the decision maker only minimal control over the process of evidence gathering and presentation and gives more control to the disputants with respect to the process of evidence gathering and presentation. Thibaut and Walker found that disputants who have an opportunity to provide input into the decisionmaking process are more likely to perceive it as fair. Numerous studies supported their finding that there is a positive relationship between process control and perceived fairness.

Allocation

Gerald S. Leventhal developed a broader model of procedural justice, in which he identified six characteristics that individuals consider when deciding whether a process is fair: consistency, bias suppression, accuracy, correctability, representativeness, and ethicality. Turning from the dispute resolution context to the allocation of benefits and resources, Leventhal and his colleagues argued that procedural justice is an important consideration in allocation decisions. They developed the allocation preference theory, which holds that allocators will favor procedures by which their goals can be achieved, including the achievement of distributive justice. The authors of the allocation preference theory indicate that justice in allocation can be attained through seven components of allocative

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