Chapter 5: The Role of Emotions in Cross-Cultural Justice Research

Justice is an important, universal concern. Across cultures, people seem to feel strongly about endorsing norms about fair distributions or procedures (Tyler, Boeckmann, Smith, & Huo, 1997). At the same time, however, there is considerable cross-cultural variation in the content of justice norms (Morris & Leung, 2000). Behaviors or procedures that are considered just in one culture can be considered unjust in others. This discrepancy between justice as a universal concern on the one hand and as a culturally situated norm on the other poses questions about the psychological processes underlying justice judgments. Often, it is difficult to delineate exactly when culture influences these processes and various interpretations of cross-cultural differences can be given. In the current chapter, we describe how the incorporation of emotions in cross-cultural justice can help explaining when and why cultural differences in justice judgments are found. We argue that the incorporation of emotions as process measures in justice research enables more detailed explanations of cultural variation and thus furthers our understanding of the role that justice processes play in shaping human behavior.