Distributive justice research from an interactionist perspective II : The effects of reducing social control and reducing subject`s responsibility

A review of interactionist studies in the domain of distributive justice is given. The general assumption of this research is that attitudes toward distribution principles and functionally equivalent situation factors interact, i.e., affect distribution behavior and justice judgments synergetically. This means that the variation of situational characteristics such as relative achievement has a stronger impact on distribution behavior for individuals with a favorable attitude towards the corresponding distribution principle (equity) than for subjects with an unfavorable attitude. Research results are inconsistent regarding this general hypothesis. The present research was designed to test the conjecture that person-situation-interactions can only be expected in situations which to not impose normative constraints on individuals, i.e., which do not suggest strongly a particular distribution or judgment. Continuing previous research, two studies were conducted in which normative constraints were reduced (1) by leaving the corecipient anonymous to the subject and (2) by having subjects distribute chances to win money instead of money. The first strategy had no effects. The latter procedure, which reduces the ´subject´s responsibility for the final result, was successful in removing behavioral constraints present in earlier studies. Some, but not all, of the expected person-situation-interactions were found. Subjects with a positive attitude towards equality tended more than subjects with a negative attitude to disregard achievement differences when distributing rewards. A similar interaction effect was not found, however, for attitude towards equity.