Confusing the Expression of Social Norms and Justice Motivation

While I was a Russell Sage resident located in the basement of Cubberly Hall at Stanford for 2 years, I was invited, “persuaded” to design social psychology experiments on two occasions. I learned a great deal from both experiences. In one, I needed to temporarily raise or lower participants’ “self-esteem” just prior to their receiving subtle suggestions. In the other, we attempted to influence participants acceptance and use of the “Johnny Rocco” sad story. Both experiences taught me the importance of generating a compelling scenario for the participants: “good theater.” Ever since, in various ways, I have been complaining about the attempts to study the justice motive using “top of the head” methods such as simulations and role playing. Experiments using those methods could not reproduce the compelling experiences and consequences we reported in our early experiments on the justice motive and belief in a just world. More recently, I put together the work of Langer (in: Harvey, Ickes, Kidder (eds) New directions in attribution research, Erlbaum, Potomac, 1978) who compellingly described how people in the normal course of events respond automatically, thoughtlessly, in familiar encounters, and cognitive theory exploring two distinct processes: Kahneman termed them System 1 (fast) intuitive cognitions and System 2 (slow), thoughtful controlled processes. This scholarship provides insight into how context shapes justice judgments. Finally, Bazerman et al. (Curr Dir Psychol Sci 4:39–42, 1995) in a series of experiments revealed how subtle cues can lead participants to shift from Type 1 justice preferences to Type 2, more rational norm-based judgments.