Principles of the Just Distribution of Benefits and Burdens: The 'Basic Social Justice Orientations' Scale for Measuring Order-Related Social Justice Attitudes

36 Pages Posted: 12 May 2016

See all articles by Stefan Liebig

Stefan Liebig

Bielefeld University - Department of Sociology; German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) - German Socio Economic Panel

Sebastian Hülle

Bielefeld University - Department of Sociology

Meike May

Bielefeld University - Department of Sociology

Date Written: April 2016

Abstract

The paper introduces a short scale for measuring attitudes to four fundamental principles of the just distribution of benefits and burdens in a society. The Basic Social Justice Orientations (BSJO) scale is an eight-item scale that measures agreement with the equality, equity, need, and entitlement principle. In contrast to comparable other scales that have been used in justice research in the past, the BSJO scale is consistent with the current state of empirical justice research and allows for the study of the constructs distinguished by studies in that area and, more specifically, in the context of population surveys and with respect to societal distribution conflicts. The paper reports the methodological aspects of the construction and use of the scale in population surveys, as well as results concerning reliability and validity. The study uses data from three general social surveys that have been conducted in Germany: LINOS-1, SOEP Innovation Sample 2012, and ALLBUS 2014. The analysis of these three data sets confirms the assumed four-factorial structure of the justice dimensions, and the construct validation supports the hypothesized relationships between the dimensions of the BSJO scale and socio-structural characteristics, political attitudes, and other justice related attitudes.

Keywords: Social justice, justice attitudes, distributive justice, justice ideologies, attitude measurement, survey research, equity, equality, entitlement, need

Suggested Citation

Liebig, Stefan and Hülle, Sebastian and May, Meike, Principles of the Just Distribution of Benefits and Burdens: The 'Basic Social Justice Orientations' Scale for Measuring Order-Related Social Justice Attitudes (April 2016). SOEPpaper No. 831, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2778031 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2778031

Stefan Liebig (Contact Author)

Bielefeld University - Department of Sociology ( email )

Fakultaet fuer Soziologie
Universitaetsstr. 25
33613 Bielefeld, DE 33613
Germany

HOME PAGE: http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/soz/personen/liebig/

German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin) - German Socio Economic Panel ( email )

DIW Berlin
Berlin, Berlin 14191
Germany

Sebastian Hülle

Bielefeld University - Department of Sociology ( email )

Universitätsstraße 25
Bielefeld, 33501
Germany

Meike May

Bielefeld University - Department of Sociology ( email )

Universitätsstraße 25
Bielefeld, NRW 33501
Germany

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