A happy person is prone to feeling justice?A quantitative research of affectivity and organizational justice perceptions

Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2012, Vol. 35 ›› Issue (5) : 1207-1212.

Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2012, Vol. 35 ›› Issue (5) : 1207-1212.

A happy person is prone to feeling justice?A quantitative research of affectivity and organizational justice perceptions

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Research interest in relationship between affect/affectivity and organizational justice has grown substantially in recently years. The affect’s role in perception of organizational justice has received much attention. From an organizational psychology perspective, affect is conceptualized as two bipolar dimensions (i.e., factors), namely positive and negative affects. The trait affect is expressed by the tendency to see things in positive or negative ways. People with high positive affectivity tend to perceive things through “pink lens” while people with high negative affectivity tend to perceive things with “black lens”. As an important perception in organizations, would organizational justice be influenced by person’s affectivity? This study explored the direct and indirect influences of affectivity on organizational justice and overall justice. According to Affect Infusion Model, affectively loaded information exerted an influence on and becomes incorporated into the judgmental process, entering into the judge's deliberations and eventually coloring the judgmental outcome. Furthermore, as Affective Events Theory expressed, one’s emotion and mood influence job performance and job satisfaction. Three hypotheses were put forward based on the affect infusion model and affective events theory. H1: Trait positive affect will have a significant positive effect on justice judgment. H2: Trait negative affect will have a significant negative effect on justice judgment. H3: Trait affect and job characteristic will have a significant interactive effect on justice judgment. Among the major measures, four scales were used including the 20-items PANA scale designed by Wason & Tellegen (1988),organizational justice scale from Colquitt (2001), perceived overall justice scale from Maureen & Marshall(2009)and job content questionnaire adopted from Karasek et.al (1998). In total, 260 employees in 9 organizations from a big city in eastern China were sampled. Most of the participants were coming from public sectors with a mean tenure of 9.8 years. Correlation analysis and moderated multiple regression were employed to analyze the data. Results show that (1) trait affect showed significant main effects on organizational justice and perceived overall justice after controlling job requirement and job demands. (2) when we introduced the interaction terms of job characteristic and trait positive affect into the regression, the explanation of the equation was not been enhanced. (3) but the interaction effect of job characteristic and trait negative affect on perceived overall justice was significant. In sum, the study explored the role of trait affect on organizational justice and perceived overall justice. Results obtained from analyses indicated that positive trait affect and negative trait affect might have the different functions on organizational justice and perceived overall justice. Positive trait affect leads to organizational justice more directly, but people with negative trait affect tend to consider the work environment more carefully when making justice judgment. This study also had some implications for organizations and the society. For instance, managers should not only carry out emotional management, but also make great efforts to set up a transparent and unbiased environment.

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A happy person is prone to feeling justice?A quantitative research of affectivity and organizational justice perceptions[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2012, 35(5): 1207-1212

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