THE JUSTICE AND INJUSTICE OF LIFE EVENTS

An experiment employing a sample (N=280) of undergraduates from an urb an university was designed to test the general hypothesis that the per ception of justice and injustice in life events depends upon the relat ionship between two variables that are part of the stimulus situation: the valence of the person being observed (good or bad), and the valen ce of the outcome experienced by that person (positive or negative). T he findings from both qualitative (analysis of spontaneous comments) a nd quantitative scale ratings supported the prediction that justice an d injustice perceptions depend respectively on whether the signs of th e person-outcome valences are the same or different. Two perceptual bi ases were revealed by the analysis. The first was a positive outcome b ias: respondents rated as more just outcomes that were positive regard less of the goodness or badness of the person in the life event. The s econd was a justice bias: respondents in both measures found the just life events to be more just than unjust life events to be unjust. Fina lly the more religious respondents perceived the life events as more j ust regardless of the patterns of person-outcome valences than did the less religious, suggesting a third, religiosity bias. A number of the oretical implications and questions for future research were discussed , including the quantification of the hypothesis and its cross-cultura l generality.