NEED NORM, DEMOGRAPHIC-INFLUENCE, SOCIAL-ROLE, AND JUSTICE JUDGMENT

The relationships of distributive justice norms (equity, equality, and need), social role, and demographic variables to judgments of fairnes s, satisfaction, employer obligation, and employee entitlement were in vestigated. Subjects functioning as recipient's coworkers, allocators, or observers responded to a need-based salary allocation situation. M ultiple regression analyses showed that endorsement of the need norm w as most important. Justice norms and demographics each predicted signi ficant unique variance in all of the criterion judgments. Social role yielded significant differences for fairness judgments. The findings i ndicate that where a situation increases the salience of nonequity fac tors other justice norms, such as recipient needs, may become more imp ortant than the equity norm. The results also suggest the importance o f respondent social roles and demographic characteristics in the study of justice judgments.