Primacy effects in justice judgments: Testing predictions from fairness heuristic theory

We tested predictions from fairness heuristic theory that justice judgments are more sensitive to early fairness-relevant information than to later fa irness-relevant information and that this primacy effect is more evident wh en group identification is higher. Participants working on a series of thre e tasks experienced resource failures that interfered with their productivi ty and always had the possibility of explaining problems to a supervisor. I n a manipulation of the timing of fairness-relevant experiences, the superv isor refused to consider explanations on the first, second, or third of thr ee work trials (but did consider explanations on the other two trials) or t he supervisor never refused to hear the explanations. Prior to the work per iods, the participants either had or had not undergone a manipulation desig ned to induce greater identification with the work group. As predicted, the timing of fairness-relevant experiences showed a primacy effect on fairnes s judgments and acceptance of authority in the high identification conditio ns and no evidence of such an effect in the low identification conditions. The implications of the findingsfor understanding the psychology of justice and for real-world justice phenomena are discussed. (C) 2001 Academic Pres s.