Motivation and emotion/Book/2024/Justice motivation

Justice Motivation:
What is justice motivation, what causes it, and how is it pursued and satisfied?

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Overview

Imagine...

You are sitting at home watching the news, a segment comes on about a person who has been falsely accused of a crime and is currently in prison awaiting their fate to be decided. They have no control over the outcome. They may be punished for a crime they never committed or they may happily be allowed to return to their loved ones.

After the segment finishes how do you feel? Maybe you notice your blood is boiling with anger, how dare they put an innocent person in prison!? Maybe you are so distraut you immediately open your laptop to research how you can help this poor person? Or maybe you simply turn off the TV and move on with your day? Through the digital age, we are much more exposed to the injustices happening all around us, which makes it more prevalent how differently each person reacts when exposed to such injustices. Some people are able to go on with their daily lives not allowing the injustices they see to get to them, others dedicate their whole life trying to provide solutions to the injustices they are passionate about. But what dictates whether a person will turn off the TV or sign the petition?

Justice motivation has been analysed through many theories and models. Some see it as a part of certain personality traits, a part of how we are all socialised, a result of evolution, or the way we are programmed to behave genetically. Throughout this chapter we will explore the theories that provide explanations for justice motivation and will look at other involving factors that can shape how we behave when exposed to injustice.

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Engage the reader with a scenario, example, or case study, and an accompanying image
Explain the problem and why it is important
Outline how psychological science can help
Present focus questions

Focus questions:

What influences us to have justice?
What role does empathy play in justice motivation?
How do sociocultural factors impact justice motivation?
How has the digital age impacted justice motivation?

Main theories

Let's have a look at the main theories around justice motivation to get an idea of it's background...

Justice sensitivity theory

Justice sensitivity is considered a trait variable and reflects an individual's concern for justice and is an important predictor of justice-related emotions and behaviour (Decety and Yoder, 2015).
People high in justice sensitivity tend to perceive injustices more frequently, think about them more, react to them with stronger emotions, and take more steps to restore justice compared to those with lower justice sensitivity (Baumert, Gollwitzer, Staubach, and Schmitt, 2011).

Branches of justice sensitivities

Victim sensitivity

An individual's response when experiencing unjust disadvantages or treatment onself. Victim sensitive persons are highly aware of cues indicating threat or exploition and will react to signs of untrustworthiness even if slight. This can sometimes result in antisocial behaviour through the motivation to prevent unjust victimisation (Baumart, Adra, and Li, 2022)

Perpetrator sensitivity

Perpetrator sensitivity - Involved an individual's heightened awareness and concern regarding injustices or unfairness perpetrated by others (Baumert, Adra, and Li, 2022).
Those high in beneficiary and perpetrator sensitivity are seen to experience more guilt around benefiting from or committing injustices and show a strong motivation to restore justice from which one benefited from or committed (Baumart, Adra, and Li, 2022).

Beneficiary sensitivity

Beneficiary sensitivity - Refers to awareness and concern of profiting from unjust events onself (Baumart, Adra, and Li, 2022).

Observer sensitivity

Observer sensitivity - Individual's reaction when witnessing injustices between others (Baumert, Adra, and Li, 2022).
Those high in observer sensitivity have been found to intervene in unfair situations, even despite any costs they may experience (Baumart, Adra, and Li, 2022).

Social exchange theory

Social exchange theory acts as a way for people to gain goals that they would not be able to achieve on their own (Lawler and Thye, 1999).
The process of exchanges may cause individuals to feel good and satisfied. (Lawler and Thye, 1999)
Joint activity reaffirms and strengthens social solidarity because of the shared emotions and feelings that it produces. (Lawler and Thye, 1999).
Sensory-information approaches cast emotions as signals within the exchange process, revealing the intentions and trustworthiness of exchange partners (Lawler and Thye, 1999).

Equity theory

Equity theory was developed by Adams in the 60s. It provides an explanation as to why people allocate more rewards to people who do more work (Hook and Cook, 1979).
When people are confronted with a problem of justice, they compare the person under two dimensions, the inputs and outcomes. Inputs = their labour or education level, outcomes = payment or appreciation. The ratio of these two dimensions is used to judge the equity of the situation. If someone's input and outcome is equal, equity obtains and if not, inequity is assumed. (Hook and Cook, 1979).
Adam's assumed that if someone recognises inequity in a situation, they feel discomfort, which then motivates them to restore equity either directly or by cognitive distortion (Hook and Cook, 1979).
Adam's equity theory incorporates the value principle that there should be a relationship of proportionality between inputs and outcomes, reward should be allocated according to merit. (Hook and Cook, 1979)

Justice theory

Focuses on how perceptions of fairness and deservingness drive human behaviour (Lerner and Cowell, 2015).
Centred around the idea that individuals are motivated by a desire to see justice done rather than adhering to social norms or maximising personal gain (Lerner and Cowell, 2015).
Justice theory posits that people are concerned with whether others deserve that they receive. Actions are often evaluated based on whether they contribute to a fair distribution of rewards and punishment. People are more likely to help those who they believe deserve assistance and are less likely to help those who they think do not (Lerner and Cowell, 2015).

Experiments in justice theory

Justice theory centres around the idea that people are motivated to ensure fair treatment and posits that people are concerned with whether others deserve what they receive (Lerner, 1977).
Experiments showed that children are more likely to share rewards when they believe their recipient deserves it (Lerner, 1977).

Moral foundations theory

Kohlberg proposed that moral development in all cultures is driven forward by the process of role-taking, as children get more pratice in taking each other's perspectives, they learn to transcend their own position and appreciate when and why an action, practice or custom is fair on unfair (Graham, Haidt, Koleva, Motyl, Iyer, Wokcik, and Ditto, 2013).
As the theory developed it started to combine evolutionary and cultural explanations for moral behaviour (Graham et al, 2013)
Argues that there are five basic moral foundations: harm/care. fairness/reciprocity, ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect and purity/sactity (Graham et al, 2013).

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is a moral theory that posits that actions should be evaluated based on their capacity to enhance or diminish human-wellbeing (Basheer, Amal, Fourat, and Nour, 2024).
Utalitarianism underscores the importance of prioritising actions that contrubute to the greatest good, emphasising the equal evaluation of all individual's wellbeing (Basheer et al, 2024).
Utalitarian ethical frameworks have found application in addressing global issues, such as the poverty crisis, the consumption of animal products, and the domain of social welfare economics (Basheer et al, 2024).

Self-determination theory

The theory is particularly concerned with how socio-contextual factors support or thwart people’s thriving through the satisfaction of their basic psychological needs for competence, relatedness, and autonomy (Ryan and Deci, 2017).
The theory examines how biological, social, and cultural conditions either enhance or undermine the inherent human capacities for psychological growth, engagement, and wellness, both in general and in specific domains and endevors (Ryan and Deci, 2017).
Self-determination theory is practical as it points to how features of contexts more or less facilitate or undermine the motivations and satisfactions underlying effective self-regulation and wellness (Ryan and Deci, 2017).

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Key Points:

Justice motivation has expanded and grown to be explained through many theories.
Lots of theories combine cultural, environmental, evolutionary factors to explain justice motivation.
Justice motivation has been vastly studied in sociology.

Nature vs. nurture

Now that we have a good idea of the theories and ideas behind justice motivation, let's look at the scientific evidence behind justice motivation.

Evolutionary roles

Justice motivation evolved in the ecological context of pressure to stabalise cooperative groups (Decety and Yoder, 2016).
Primates demonstrate inequity aversion (Decety and Yoder, 2016).
Primates inequity aversion has been observed only in species that regularly cooperate with non-kin, suggesting that inequality aversion may have evolved as a means of motivating individuals to adhere to mutually beneficial outcomes in social groups that are genetically heterogenous (Decety and Yoder, 2016).

Developmental factors

Children from early ages are seen to have an innate sense of fairness (Decety and Yoder, 2016).
Experiments show that children who feel they have been overcompensated in their reward are more likely to help others, showing an awareness of being fair (Lerner, 1977).
Around four years old children start to take into account merit and wealth when distributing resources (Decety and Yoder, 2016).

Key Points:

Primates have been seen to demonstrate justice motivation behaviours.
Around four years old, children begin to demonstrates signs of understanding fairness and merit.
Evolutionary psychology takes into account our innate social needs to understand justice motivation.

Empathy

I'm sure you're wondering if empathy has anything to do with justice motivation, let's explore that...

Types of empathy

Affective
Motivational
Cognitive
High empathy + low psychopathy scores correlated with higher sensitivity to justice (Decety and Yoder, 2015).
Empathy is a multifaceted construct used to account for the capacity to share and understand the thoughts and feelings of others (Decety and Yoder, 2015).

Key Points:

Empathy allows us to gain a better understanding of the perspectives, thoughts, and feelings of those aound us.
There are three branches of empathy.
Those with high empathy and low psychopathology scores have higher justice sensitivity.

Justice motivation throughout the ages

Are younger people more justice-conscious?

Studies show that young people are more likely to engage in protest activities and that it is influenced by their level of need to belong (Renstrom, Aspernas, and Back, 2017).
Evidence of cultural shifts that show political engagement more prevalent in 20th century (Restrom et al, 2017).
Solidarity count also be a factor (Restrom et al, 2017).

Key Points:

Political engagement has grown in the 20th century.
Engagement in protests could be due to a need to belong.
Young people are more likely to engage in protests.

Key points

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Conclusion

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References

Basheer, A., Amal, A., Fourat, A., and Nour, A. (2024). Batham’s utilitarianism ethical theory and its applications in the triage system: a scholarly philosophical paper. Jordan Journal of Nursing Researchi. 1-6, https://doi.org/10.14525/JJNR.v3i3.02

Baumert, A., Adra, A., and Li, M. (2022). Justice sensitivity in intergroup contexts: a theoretical framework. Social Justice Research, 35. 7-32, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-021-00378-9

Baumert, A., Gollwitzer, M., Staubach, M., and Schmitt, M. (2011). Justice Sensitivity and the Processing of Justice-related Information. European Journal of Personality, 25(5), 386-397, https://doi.org/10.1002/per.800

Baumert. A., Rothmund, T., Thomas, N., Gollwitzer, M., and Schmitt, M. (2013) Justice as a moral motive. Handbook of Moral Motivation. 159-180, https://brill.com/display/book/9789462092754/BP000013.xml

Decety, J., and Cowell, J. M. (2015). Empathy, Justice, and Moral Behaviour. AJOB Neuroscience, 6(3). 3-14, https://doi.org/10.1080/21507740.2015.1047055

Decety, J., and Yoder, K. J. (2015). Empathy and motivation for justice: cognitive empathy and concern, but not emotional empathy, predict sensitivity to injustice for others. Social Neuroscience, 11(1). 1-14. https://doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2015.1029593

Decety, J. and Yoder, K. J. (2016). The emerging social neuroscience of justice motivation. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 21(1). 6-14, https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2020.1768229

Graham, J., Haidt, J., Koleva, S., Motyl, M., Iyer, R., Wojcik, S. P., and Ditto, P. H. (2013). Chapter two - moral foundations theory: the pragmatic validity of moral pluralism. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 47. 55-130, https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-407236-7.00002-4

Hook, J. G., Cook, T. D. (1979). Equity theory and the cognitive ability of children. Psychological Bulletin, 86(3). 429-445, https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.86.3.429

Hulle, S., Liebig, S., and May. M. J. (2018). Measuring attitudes toward distributive justice: the basic social justice orientations scale. Social Indicators Research, 136(2). 663-692, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-017-1580-x

Lawler, E. J., Thye, S. R (1999). Bringing emotions into social exchange theory. Annual Review of Sociology, 25. 217-244, https://www.jstor.org/stable/223504

Lerner, J. M. (1977). The justice motive: Some hypotheses as to its origins and forms. Journal of Personality, 45(1). 1-52, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1977.tb00591.x

Martiskainen, M., Axon, S., Sovacool, B. K., Sareen, S., Del Rio, D. F., and Axon, K. (2020). Contextualizing climate justice activism: knowledge, emotions, motivations, and actions among climate strikers in six cities. Global Environmental Change, 65, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102180

Renstrom, E. A., Aspernas, J., and Back, H. (2020). The young protester: the impact of belongingness needs on political engagement. Journal of Youth Studies, 24(6). 781-798, https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2020.1768229

Ryan, R., Deci, E. L. (2017). Self-Determination Theory An Introduction and Overview. In Brown, K. W. J., Creswell, D., and Ryan, R. M (Eds), Self-Determination Theory: Basic Psychological Needs in Motivation, Development and Wellness (pp. 3-25). The Guilford Press. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/canberra/detail.action?docID=4773318.

Sabbagh, C. and Schmitt, M. (2017). Social justice through multidisciplinary lenses: a review essay. Social Justice Research, 30. 106-116, DOI 10.1007/s11211-017-0278-1

Van Lange, P. A. M. (2008). Does empathy trigger only altruistic motivation? How about selflessness or justice? Emotion, 8(6). 766-774, DOI: 10.1037/a0013967

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Motivation and emotion/Book/2024/Justice motivation

Contents

Overview

Main theories

Justice sensitivity theory

Branches of justice sensitivities

Social exchange theory

Equity theory

Justice theory

Experiments in justice theory

Moral foundations theory

Utilitarianism

Self-determination theory

Nature vs. nurture

Evolutionary roles

Developmental factors

Empathy

Types of empathy

Justice motivation throughout the ages

Are younger people more justice-conscious?

Key points

Figures

Learning features

Conclusion

See also

References

External links