Distributive Justice

Distributive justice, or distributive fairness, refers to the extent to which an outcome or a distribution of outcomes conforms to norms of propriety or fairness. The recognition that people might want not simply to maximize their own payoffs and rewards but also to see goods distributed in a fair fashion has a long history. As a concept in philosophy, notions of fair distribution go back at least to Aristotle's Ethics, in which distributive justice is said to exist when each person's outcomes are proportional to his or her merits (or, as we now more often phrase it, outcomes are [Page 218]proportional to each person's contributions to the production of the outcomes). That is, for a favorable outcome from a joint project, the rewards should be divided among those who contributed to the project in proportion to their contributions, their skill, and their effort. When a joint undertaking has a negative outcome, the costs should similarly be borne in proportion to each person's contribution to the failure of the enterprise. In either case, distributive justice exists when proportionality exists. However, when outcomes are not proportional to contributions, when one party to a distribution receives or gives either too much or too little, then distributive injustice exists.

In social psychology, one of the earliest explorations of distributive justice as a topic in its own right is seen in J. Stacey Adams's equity theory and in research associated with that theory. Adams suggested that people experience inequity distress when they receive or are associated with distributions of outcomes that violate norms of fairness, and in particular, outcomes that violate the Aristotelian rule that outcomes should be proportional to contributions. According to the theory, inequity distress motivates the individual in question either to change the reality of the situation or to alter his or her perception of the situation in such a way as to restore equity.

Consider, for example, a worker who is being paid more than others who are working equally hard and who bring similar skills to the job at hand. According to Adams, the worker in question, if he or she knows about the mismatch of skills and payment, should experience inequity distress and should be motivated to restore equity. The worker might, for example, increase his or her effort so that the now-higher contributions will be proportional to the relatively higher payment he or she is receiving. This is an action that changes the objective ratio of contributions and outcome, but there are also psychological solutions to the underpayment inequity. The worker in question can come to perceive the discrepancy in payment as fair, and thereby reduce equity distress, by altering his or her perceptions of the contributions and outcomes of those involved. Thus, the worker might decide that he or she in fact has special skills that justify the higher payment. Alternatively, the worker might decide that there are other positive outcomes that the other workers are experiencing as a result of being in this job (e.g., the worker might think, “This job is an especially good match for them because the working hours fit their lifestyles, so they have benefits that I do not.”).

...