Culture and Procedural Fairness: When the Effects of What You Do Depend on How You Do it

Abstract

Previous research has shown that procedural fairness and outcome favorability interactively combine to influence people's reactions to their social exchanges. The tendency for people to respond more positively when outcomes are more favorable is reduced when procedural fairness (how things happen) is relatively high. This paper evaluates whether cultural differences in people's tendencies to view themselves as interdependent or independent (their self-construal) moderate the interactive relationship between procedural fairness and outcome favorability. In three studies, participants indicated their reactions to an exchange with another party as a function of the other party's procedural fairness and the outcome favorability associated with the exchange. In Study 1, participants' national culture was treated as a proxy for their self-construal. In Study 2, people's national culture and self-construal were assessed. In Study 3, participants were classified on the basis of their self-construals. Converging evidence across studies showed that the interactive relationship between procedural fairness and outcome favorability was more pronounced among participants with more interdependent forms of self-construal.