Justice Sensitivity Among Worker Representatives

Abstract

Within conflict management as well as in organizational psychology the crucial impact of different aspects of perceived (in)justices, e.g. with regard to distributive decisions or to decision procedures, has been demonstrated in many studies (e.g. Mikula & Wenzel, 2000; Montada, 2003; Nowakowski & Conlon, 2005). They stress the influence of these situational justice-related judgments - and there is broad consensus on the great inter- as well as intraindividual variance of these subjective appraisals.

At the same time, evidence is growing for person-related consistencies within these justice appraisals. For example, Schmitt and colleagues could show that there are individual differences in justice sensitivity in terms of a personality trait (Schmitt, Baumert, Gollwitzer & Maes, 2010). They differentiate between different perspectives, like justice sensitivity from the perspective of the victim, the observer, the perpetrator or of the one, who benefits from befallen injustices and demonstrate their specific influences on behavioral decisions. Justice sensitivity from the perspective of a victim, for example, correlates positively with more selfish behavior and tends to comes along with a lack of solidarity, whereas the other perspectives correlate with prosocial behavior.

This contribution should shed some light on the justice sensitivity of workers representatives in Germany (N=507), who are due to their role supposed to be actively engaged in a kind of prosocial behavior. The crucial questions are whether there are differences in the degree of justice sensitivity and what is its impact on self-reported behavior, like work engagement, affective commitment or conflict management strategies. Thereby, direct influences as well as indirect influences of justice sensitivity are tested, especially with regard to moderating effects on the impact of situational justice appraisals and other relevant variables (e.g. trust).