Procedural Justice and Culture

The past fifteen years have seen the development of a considerable research literature on the social psychology of procedural justice (see Lind & Tyler, 1988, for a review). Procedural justice research reveals some serious shortcomings in the exchange theories that have traditionally dominated Western analyses of the social psychology of groups, and in so doing, the procedural justice literature has important ramifications for cross‐cultural psychology. Results from a number of studies conducted in the United States and Western Europe show that individualistic, self‐interest based models of human behaviour are insufficient to explain procedural justice phenomena. Instead, procedural justice effects frequently reveal strong group‐oriented concerns and motivations even in cultural contexts generally thought to be characterized by individualistic orientations. The research literature also shows that if a group's procedures are judged to be fair, people are more likely to show group‐oriented behaviour and to hold more favourable attitudes toward the group and its leaders. These findings have led to the development of a theory of justice judgments—the Lind and Tyler group‐value theory—which is based on group norms and relations rather than on social exchange theory. We describe a general model of social behaviour that integrates group‐ and individually‐oriented behaviour, and we discuss the implications of the model for social and cross‐cultural psychology.