When will grievants desire voice?: A test of situational, motivational, and attributional explanations

Justice research has established that voice enhances procedural justice-a p henomenon known as the "voice effect"-through both instrumental and non-ins trumental mechanisms. However limited research attention has been devoted t o the underlying motivational bases for the operation of one or the other e xplanatory mechanism in a given situation. We report the findings of two la boratory studies examining situational, motivational, and attributional und erpinnings for the voice effect. We found that motivation to voice varied w ith characteristics of the authority to whom a grievance is directed. In bo th studies, an interaction revealed that non-instrumental motivation for Vo ice is more important when instrumental motivation is lacking or unavailabl e. In Study 2, we introduce the role of social attributions into research o n the voice effect, finding that grievants' judgments about their objective s in using voice vary with the attributions they make about the motives beh ind the authority's actions. We discuss implications of our findings for bo th theory and practice.