APPRAISAL TENDENCY FRAMEWORK: EMOTIONS AND PERCEPTIONS OF SOCIAL INJUSTICE

Abstract

This thesis implemented the ideas based on the Appraisal-Tendency Framework. Specifically, it observed whether felt emotions, such as sadness or anger, in an educational setting, affected judgments made on whether a situation was just or unjust. Previous research indicated evidence of an impact on justice perceptions when differing emotions were felt, and blame was attributed either situationally or individually. Further evaluation with the efforts related to this study may help move related research forward. For example, findings of this research provided supporting evidence that the emotion of anger indirectly negatively affects fairness perceptions when mediated by individual blame. However, evidence was not found to support sadness negatively impacting fairness perceptions when mediated by situational blame, contrary to the findings of earlier researchers (Kausel et al., 2016). Overall, findings suggest that emotion influences judgments of fairness when mediated by blame, but further research is recommended, especially to overcome a few limitations of this study.

In addition, past and current researchers appear divided regarding the impact of gender differences on judgments and decision-making. Therefore, this study also presented several research questions related to the question: do gender differences impact perceptions of fairness? After evaluating gender as a moderator of the relationship between emotion, blame, and fairness perceptions, however, support for gender differences was not found. Follow up research is needed to further evaluate these findings.

In summary, this study helped provide greater generalizability to previous findings suggesting emotions impact judgments of social injustice in the workplace.