ISJR - Newsletter

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17th Issue - Summer 2008 , edited by Manfred Schmitt

1st Issue; June 2001, edited by Ron Cohen
2nd Issue; November 2001, edited by Ron Cohen
3rd Issue; February 2003, edited by Dahlia Moore
4th Issue; July 2003, edited by Dahlia Moore
5th Issue; November 2003, edited by Dahlia Moore
6th Issue; March 2004, edited by Dahlia Morre
7th Issue; December 2004, edited by Sampson Lee Blair
8th Issue; March 2005, edited by Sampson Lee Blair
9th Issue; June 2005, edited by Sampson Lee Blair
10th Issue; September 2005, edited by Sampson Lee Blair
11th Issue; February 2006, edited by Sampson Lee Blair
12th Issue; May 2006, edited by Sampson Lee Blair
13th Issue; Winter 2006, edited by Manfred Schmitt
14th Issue; Winter 2006, edited by Manfred Schmitt
15th Issue; Fall 2007, edited by Manfred Schmitt
16th Issue; Spring 2008, edited by Manfred Schmitt

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In this Issue

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·               News from the President

·               News from the Treasurer

·               12^th Conference of the International Society for Justice Research: ISJR 2008 Program Shapes Up for August!

·           Morton Deutsch Award 2007

·           Essays in Honor of Robyn Dawes

·           Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters Awarded to Norm Feather           

·           Conference on Behavioral Ethics at Tilburg University

·           Special Issue of Advances in Group Processes devoted to Justice      

·           Special Issue of Wirtschaftspsychologie (Economic Psychology) on Justice in Organizations

·           Recent publications of ISJR members

·           Grants to ISJR Members

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News from the President

There is considerable excitement about the 2008 conference of the Society to be held in Adelaide, Australia in August—see the announcement from our conference organizers later in this newsletter for additional details. As we approach this meeting, we are also approaching a transition in the executive committee. At the end of the conference, the presidency of ISJR will transition to Carolyn Hafer, who I know will lead us to even bigger and greater things. As we approach this transition, however, I want to take some time to acknowledge the many efforts of those who have contributed so much to ISJR in the last two years. Claudia Dalbert (former ISJR President) deserves considerable credit for serving as an important source of institutional memory, for er deep caring about the organization, and for ensuring that I dotted my i’s and crossed by t’s during my first year in office. Thanks, Claudia! Larry Heuer has done an amazing job as treasurer, and I am incredibly grateful for his willingness to step in and take over this role. He has done a terrific job updating our books, membership lists, subscriptions to SJR, and arranging the best way to handle dues payments, and is currently negotiating tax-exempt status for the organization in the U.S. Thanks, Larry! Manfred Schmitt deserves a big thank you as well for his service as newsletter editor. He has professionally produced every issue in a timely manner, and does a wonderful job presenting the news of society members. Perhaps less known, Manfred has also served as ISJR’s liaison with the German government and tax authorities. ISJR is registered in Germany, and there is a certain amount of bureaucratic paperwork and details that are best dealt with by someone familiar with the system and language. Manfred therefore provides many forms of service for the society—not all (ok, not any) of which are included in the job description of newsletter editor. Many, many thanks, Manfred, for the many things you do for the society! Tom Tyler has served as secretary for ISJR, and among other things, did a masterful job coordinating of the nomination materials and award committees for the Young Investigator and Lifetime Achievement Awards. Thanks, Tom! The executive committee of ISJR also includes the editor of Social Justice Research and the chair of the forthcoming ISJR conference. As most of us know, John Jost has done an exemplary job stewarding SJR as editor. A more detailed report on the journal will appear in the next newsletter as the editorship of the journal transitions from John to our new editor (Curtis Hardin). Simply said, John done everything and then some to promote and strengthen SJR. Well done, John. Last but certainly not least, I want to thank Michael Wenzel, who has tirelessly worked to make the 2008 meeting in Adelaide a reality. Hosting our conference is no small challenge, and there certainly was no precedent to guide expectations about whether many of our members would be willing to travel to Australia for our meeting. Our members are definitely enthusiastic about the Australian venue, and more importantly, hosting the conference in Australia has helped the society become even more of the international presence it aspires to be. We have a many attendees from countries that will be represented for the first time at this meeting. Thanks, Michael, and also to Tyler Okimoto and everyone else at Flinders and elsewhere who have worked so hard to set up this conference—everyone is looking forward to a fantastic meeting and welcoming many new members to our society!

Linda Skitka

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News from the Treasurer

As we reach the midpoint of the 2008 year, I take this opportunity to remind anyone who has not yet renewed their 2008 ISJR memberships to please do so. Anyone who joins or renews before the end of the year will still receive the entire year’s issues of Social Justice Research, and of course the Society will benefit from a strong membership. You can renew your membership by pointing your browser to: http://www.isjr.org/. From there, choose “Members”, and then “Renew your dues.” Alternatively, you can go directly to the ISJR’s Membership Information page: http://study.psch.uic.edu/ISJR/ISJR_membership.htm. If you have any problems with renewing your membership, feel free to write to me at LBH3@Columbia.edu.

 Larry Heuer

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12^th Conference of the International Society for Justice Research

I am happy to report that the program for our 12^th Biennial Conference in Adelaide, Australia, 14-17 August, is coming together. A total of 225 abstracts were submitted to our conference, including 135 individual paper submissions, 16 symposium proposals, and 15 poster submissions. Many thanks to my fellow members of the program committee for their invaluable assistance in reviewing these submissions: Karen Hegtvedt, Mark Nolan, Tyler Okimoto, Joe Oppenheimer, Michael Platow, Linda Skitka, and Bernd Wegener.

Topically, every relevant academic discipline was covered by the submissions (including history), although the majority were psychology or closely related, followed by sociology, legal studies, philosophy, and political science. In our submissions, 32 countries were represented, from 6 continents (although we can't explain at this point why there were none from Antarctica). Researchers from the USA and Australia contributed the most submissions, with Canada and Germany close behind. A fair number (5 or more) were also received from New Zealand, the UK, India, and Israel. Even more impressive is the fact that over 50% of the submissions were from non-members, attesting to the growing interest in ISJR and the research questions which our society strives to understand.

From these submissions, the conference program will include 90 individual paper presentations, 15 symposia, and 24 posters. Highlights will include two symposia on justice and emotions, two symposia on forgiveness at interpersonal and intergroup levels, a double-length symposium session exploring indigenous social justice issues, a second double-length symposium session comparing justice across cultures, a three-session symposium on legitimacy, and more. Thanks to those ISJR members who have taken it upon themselves to organize these and other fantastic symposia.

The program also reflects an abundance of individual paper presentation sessions, with popular topics covering issues of inequality, belief in a just world, procedural justice, responses to injustice, and legal decision-making, among others. This year’s conference also includes a dedicated poster session that all delegates can attend, combined with a cocktail reception. Despite the variety and number of submissions, we have restricted the program to have only 4 or 5 concurrent sessions at a time.

Conference attendees this year will also have the opportunity to meet before the conference on one of the optional pre-conference tours, visiting either the local wildlife park (to pet the kangaroos and cuddle the koalas) or the local wine region of McLaren Vale (for wine tasting and lunch). And as always, the conference Gala Dinner on Saturday night will be well attended, providing great food in a fun and informal atmosphere (in the true Aussie spirit).

Finally, we can also look forward to provocative keynote addresses on topics of peace and reconciliation, Islamic ideology and thought, and discrimination of Indigenous peoples, as well as the presidential address from our own Linda Skitka. The program also includes an address from our Young Researcher Award winner, David De Cremer, and the presentation of the Lifetime Achievement Awards to Morton Deutsch and Mel Lerner.

Follow the ‘Program’ links on the ISJR 2008 conference website to preview the full list of scheduled presenters and topic areas. Registration is still available on the website until July 15^th. We have also put together a wealth of information to help you make your final travel plans, including links to online hotel bookings, visa information, and suggestions for tourism. http://www.isjr.org/2008

See you “down-under” at the conference, just one short month away!

Michael Wenzel

ISJR 2008 Conference Chair

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       Morton Deutsch Award 2007

The Morton Deutsch award is given annually by ISJR for the best article published in Social Justice Research every year, with preference given to contributions from investigators who are relatively early in their research careers. The 2007 winners are Jonathan Haidt and Jesse Graham for their article entitled "When Morality Opposes Justice: Conservatives Have Moral Intuitions that Liberals May Not Recognize" (published in the March 2007 issue of SJR).

The committee also decided to name an honorable mention, which goes to Mitchell J. Callan, Nathaniel G. Powell, and John H. Ellard for their article entitled "The Consequences of Victim Physical Attractiveness on Reactions to Injustice: The Role of Observers' Belief in a Just World" (published in the December 2007 issue).

Congratulations to both sets of authors! They will be officially recognized at the ISJR conference in Australia. The committee this year was comprised of Aaron C. Kay, Kees van den Bos, and John T. Jost (Chair).

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       Essays in Honor of Robyn Dawes

Rationality and Social Responsibility: Essays in Honor of Robyn Mason Dawes, edited by Joachim I. Krueger, was published on 5/27/08 by Psychology Press, Taylor and Francis Group. This festschrift is a collection of essays from a diverse group of authors who have been associated with Prof. Dawes through his career. Topics include Prof. Dawes wide-ranging impact on psychological theory and empirical practice. The book addresses the issue of how far psychological science has progressed in its effort to reconcile what is true with what is good.

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      Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters Awarded to Norm Feather

Norm Feather was awarded the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters by the University of New England in Armidale, N.S.W., in recognition of his contributions to psychology and to the university. Norm Feather spent the earlier part of his career at the University of New England before taking up the Foundation Chair at Flinders University where he is now Emeritus Professor of Psychology.

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        Conference on Behavioral Ethics at Tilburg University

The Center of Justice and Social Decision Making (JuST), which is headed by Prof. David De Cremer, organized the first JuST-meeting on "behavioral ethics", May 14-15, 2008 at Tilburg University. To take a look at the program go to: www.centerofjust.com. Based on this conference, both a book on "Psychological Perspectives on Ethical Behavior and Decision Making" (Publisher: Information Age Publishing) and a special issue on "Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Behavioral Ethics" in the journal Business Ethics Quarterly will be published next year. People interested in the topic of behavioral ethics are free to contact David De Cremer.

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          Special Issue of Advances in Group Processes Devoted to Justice

Karen A. Hegtvedt and  Jody Clay-Warner are editors of a special issue of Advances in Group Processes (2008, Volume 25) that is devoted to justice. Table of contents:

PREFACE (Karen A. Hegtvedt and Jody Clay-Warner)

MORALITY AND JUSTICE: AN EXPANDED THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE AND EMPIRICAL REVIEW (Linda J. Skitka, Christopher W. Bauman, and Elizabeth Mullen)

EGOCENTRISM IN PROCEDURAL JUSTICE EFFECTS (Jan-Willem van Prooijen)

CONFLICT AND JUSTICE AFTER THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR; INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION IN THE RECONSTRUCTION AND JIM CROW ERAS (Susan Opotow)

INEQUITY AMONG INTIMATES: APPLYING EQUITY THEORY TO THE FAMILY (Kathryn J. Lively, Brian Powell, Claudia Geist, and Lala Carr Steelman)

THE CONTENTED FEMALE WORKER: STILL A PARADOX? (Charles W. Mueller and Sang-Wook Kim)

INJUSTICE AND EMOTIONS USING IDENTITY THEORY (Jan E. Stets and Shelley N. Osborn)

SYSTEM JUSTIFICATION THEORY AND THE ALLEVIATION OF EMOTIONAL DISTRESS: PALLIATIVE EFFECTS OF IDEOLOGY IN AN ARBITRARY SOCIAL HIERARCHY AND IN SOCIETY (John T. Jost, Cheryl J. Wakslak, and Tom R. Tyler)

TOWARDS A MORE JUST WORLD: WHAT MAKES PEOPLE PARTICIPATE IN SOCIAL ACTION (Dahlia Moore)

ATTENDING TO IDENTITIES: IDEOLOGY, GROUP MEMBERSHIPS, AND PERCEPTIONS OF JUSTICE (Susan Clayton)

IS PROCEDURAL JUSTICE ENOUGH? AFFECT, ATTRIBUTION, AND CONFLICT IN ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION (Jessica L. Collett)

THE SYMBOLIC MEANING OF TRANSGRESSIONS: TOWARDS A UNIFYING FRAMEWORK OF JUSTICE RESTORATION (Tyler G. Okimoto and Michael Wenzel)

SHALL WE KILL OR ENSLAVE CAESAR? ANALYZING THE CAESAR MODEL (Guillermina Jasso)

MODULARIZING AND INTEGRATING THEORIES OF JUSTICE (Barry Markovsky, Lisa M. Dilks, Pamela Koch, Shannon McDonough, Jennifer Triplett, and Leia Velasquez)

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          Special Issue of Wirtschaftspsychologie (Economic Psychology) on Justice in Organizations

In issue (2) 2008, the German journal Wirtschaftspsychologie (Economic Psychology) will publish a special issue on Justice in Organizations edited by Gabriele Jacobs and Claudia Dalbert with a strong applied focus. The ten contributions cover topics from the role of justice in the application process to justice in change processes.

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Recent Publications of ISJR Members

Brockner, J., De Cremer, D., Fishman, A. Y., & Spiegel, S. (2008). When does high procedural fairness reduce self-evaluations following unfavorable outcomes? The moderating effect of prevention focus. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 187-200.

De Cremer, D., & Sedikides, C. (2008). Reputational implications of procedural fairness for personal and relational self-esteem. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 30, 66-75.

Foschi, M., & Jerilee, V. (2008). Selecting job applicants: Effects from gender, self-presentation, and decision type. Social Science Research, 3, 1022-1038.

Ham, J., & Van den Bos, K. (2008). Not fair for me! The influence of personal relevance on social justice inferences. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 699-705. (In this paper, we argue that the personal relevance of a situation primarily influences spontaneous inferences about social justice, and not necessarily affects explicit justice judgments. To test this hypothesis, two studies manipulated personal relevance and assessed justice inferences and judgments: Participants read descriptions of fair or unfair events happening to stimulus persons referred to with first-person versus third-person pronouns (Experiment 1) or as “a friend” versus “a stranger” (Experiment 2). We then measured spontaneous justice inferences (using the probe recognition paradigm) and explicit justice judgments (using rating scales). As predicted, both studies showed stronger spontaneous justice inferences for high personal relevance descriptions, of unjust events specifically, whereas explicit justice judgments were not significantly influenced by our personal relevance manipulations. These findings suggest that especially the spontaneous component of the justice judgment process is sensitive to personal relevance.)

Herrmann, M., Dalbert, C. & Stoll, O. (2008). Fairness im Fußball: Zusammenhänge mit Gerechtigkeitsmotiv und Ungerechtigkeitserfahrungen [Fairness in soccer: Relation to the justice motive and perceived injustice]. Zeitschrift für Sportpsychologie, 15, 1-13.

Konow, J. and Earley, J. (2008). The Hedonistic Paradox: Is Homo Economicus Happier? Journal of Public Economics, 92 (1-2), 1-33.

Maier G. W., Streicher, B., Jonas, E. & Woschée, R. M. (2007). Gerechtigkeitseinschätzungen in Organisationen: Die Validität einer deutschsprachigen Fassung des Fragebogens von Colquitt (2001) [Perceptions of justice in organizations: The validity of a German version of the questionnaire by Colquitt (2001)]. Diagnostica, 53, 97-108.

Peters, S. L., & Van den Bos, K. (2008). When fairness is especially important: Reactions to being inequitably paid in communal relationships. Social Justice Research, 21, 86-105. (This paper focuses on when justice is especially important to people and, in doing so, explores the social conditions under which the importance of justice may change in social interactions. More specifically, the authors examine how different types of relationships affect evaluations of equitable and inequitable situations. It is argued that when people are confronted with friends as interaction partners, as opposed to unknown others, they are motivated to attend to the needs of their friends (Clark & Mills, 1979) and therefore, they are not only concerned with their own outcomes but also with their friends’ outcomes. As predicted on the basis of this line of reasoning, two experiments demonstrate that when people's interaction partners are friends, people are indeed more satisfied with being underpaid and less satisfied with being overpaid compared to when their interaction partners are unknown others. In the discussion, it is argued that these findings suggest that justice is in particular important to people when they are in communal relationships.)

Skitka, L. J., & Bauman, C. W. (2008). Moral conviction as a political motivator: Does it lead to a conservative electoral advantage? Political Psychology, 29, 29-54.

Streicher, B., Jonas, E., Maier, G. W., Frey, D., Woschée, R. & Wa*mer, B. (2008). Test of the construct validity and criteria validity of a German measure of organizational justice. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 24, 131-139.

Van den Bos, K., Ham, J., Lind, E. A., Simonis, M., Van Essen, W. J., & Rijpkema, M. (2008). Justice and the human alarm system: The impact of exclamation points and flashing lights on the justice judgment process. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 201-219. (Extending theory within the justice domain and work on the human alarm system, the current paper argues that the process by which justice judgments are formed may be influenced reliably by the activation of psychological systems that people use to detect and handle alarming situations. Building on this analysis, it is further proposed that if this line of reasoning is true then presenting alarm-related stimuli, such as exclamation points and flashing lights, to people should lead to more extreme judgments about subsequent justice-related events than not presenting these alarming stimuli. Findings collected using different experimental paradigms provide evidence supporting these predictions both inside and outside the psychology lab. Implications for the social psychology of justice and the human alarm system literature are discussed.)

Van Dijke, M., & De Cremer, D. (2008). Leader prototypicality and identification effects on status judgments: Procedural fairness as a mediator. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 17, 226-250.

 

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      Grants to ISJR Members

Detlef Fetchenhauer (University of Cologne, Germany) and Manfred Schmitt (University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany) received a grant from the German Research Foundation for a series of 11 studies on Justice Sensitivity, Information Processing, and Behavior.

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Click here! (PDF Document)

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Manfred Schmitt, Newsletter Editor (schmittm@uni-landau.de)

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