Research
In their daily lives, people often orientate towards guidelines of justice, they suffer from injustice, demand justice in various social environments and emphasize the importance of justice for human coexistence in general. On the other hand, apparently there are big differences in the individual importance of justice. Hence, justice psychology has been discussing the construct of a "justice motive" for a long time. Even though there is much evidence demonstrating the value of such an assumed justice motive, there is still no systematic research on the justice motive from a motivational perspective.
Dissociation of the Justice Motive
In psychology, human motives are often explored assuming motives of achievement, attachment and power. An addition to this differentiation is the assumption of a justice motive, which comprises the striving for justice as an end in itself (Dalbert, 2001). Furthermore, this motive can be differentiated into an implicit and an explicit (or self-attributed) justice motive.
Concerning the justice motives it is interesting which human reactions they predict. It can be expected that the implicit justice motive, operating on an intuitive level outside a subject's awareness, rather explains unconscious human reactions and profits from automatic information processing. In turn, the explicit justice motive operates via controlled processes and rather predicts conscious human reactions.
Conscious and Unconscious Information Processing in Deciscion-Making
As we know from our everyday experiences, there are situations in which we are repeatedly confronted with difficult or complex decisional problems. On these occasions we ask ourselves how to cope with the decision or how to make it. Maybe one should carefully deliberate on the decision before making it? People often tend to believe that strategies like using a balance sheet and assigning pluses and minuses will lead to a better or even the best decision. But what happens when we delay a decision because it is too difficult? We then perhaps suddenly strike on a great idea after a certain time, enabling us to solve the problem optimally or to make the right choice.
Under which circumstances should humans rather consciously think before making decisions, or when should they avoid doing just that? And how is it possible to predict the quality especially of decisions related to justice by referring to the implicit or the explicit justice motive? In trying to answer this, the theoretical and empirical connection of the Justice Motive Theory (Dalbert, 2001) with the Unconscious Thought Theory (Dijksterhuis & Nordgren, 2006) becomes especially important.
- Bullying and students' transgressive behavior in relation to their belief in a just world and well-being