oa We zijn druk, druk, druk

What's left of justice issues in today's busy society?

S.L. Peters & K. van den Bos, Gedrag & Organisatie, volume 20, November 2007, nr. 4, pp. 382-391

In today's busy society, people have less and less time. In the current paper we argue that busy people are more influenced by egocentric issues than by issues that are justice related. Several social psychological experiments support this suggestion. Furthermore, we discuss in this paper the mechanism that may explain people's reactions to being overpaid. We suggest a two-phase model of reactions to the conflict between justice and egoism. Specifically, we propose that when people are better paid than comparable other persons, judging the advantage of receiving an advantageous outcome is quick and easy as preferences are primary. We further propose that adjusting this appraisal requires cognitive resources as it entails integrating fairness concerns with the initial preference appraisal.