Question

Can you give an example of a situation that is distributively fair but procedurally unfair OR can you give an example of a situation that is distributively unfair but procedurally fair?

Answer 1

Ans.

An essential part of morality involves determining what is “right” or “fair” in social interaction. We want things to be fair, we try to be fair ourselves, and we react negatively when we see things that are unfair. And we determine what is or is not fair by relying on another set of social norms, appropriately called social fairness norms, which are beliefs about how people should be treated fairly (Tyler & Lind, 2001; Tyler & Smith, 1998).

The preference for fairness has been proposed to be a basic human impulse (Tyler & Blader, 2000), and when we perceive unfairness, we also experience negative emotional responses in brain regions associated with reward and punishment (Tabibnia, Satpute, & Lieberman, 2008). The experience of unfairness is associated with negative emotions, including anger and contempt, whereas fairness is associated with positive emotions.

One type of social fairness, known as distributive fairness, refers to our judgments about whether or not a party is receiving a fair share of the available rewards. Distributive fairness is based on our perceptions of equity—the belief that we should each receive for our work a share proportionate to our contributions. If two people work equally hard on a project, they should get the same grade on it. But if one works harder than the other, then the more hardworking partner should get a better grade. Things seem fair and just when we see that these balances are occurring, but they seem unfair and unjust when they do not seem to be.

A second type of fairness doesn’t involve the outcomes of the work itself but rather our perceptions of the methods used to assign those outcomes. Procedural fairness refers to beliefs about the fairness (or unfairness) of the procedures used to distribute available rewards among parties (Schroeder, Steele, Woodell, & Bernbenek, 2003). Procedural fairness is important because in some cases we may not know what the outcomes are, but we may nevertheless feel that things are fair because we believe that the process used to determine the outcomes is fair.

For example, in courtrooms people receive favorable and unfavorable verdicts. Distributive justice addresses the perceived fairness of those verdicts. Generally speaking, individuals judge the fairness of their outcomes with respect to some referent standard . People do not always divide things the same way. For this reason, allocations can be judged against the outcomes produced by certain allocation rules. Three rules in particular have received a great deal of attention: equality, need, and equity . When using an equality rule, distributive fairness occurs when every member of a given social group receives the same outcomes. When using a need rule, distributive fairness occurs when the most needy receive the most compensation.