Is More Fairness Always Preferred? Self-Esteem Moderates Reactions to Procedural Justice.

Organizational justice researchers have demonstrated that employees are more com-mitted to organizations they believe treat them fairly. Drawing on self-verification theory, five studies showed that the positive relationship between procedural justice and commitment was eliminated among those with low self-esteem. Moreover, results of one study showed that this effect occurred only when self-verification strivings were likely to be salient (i.e., when employees expected their relationships with their organization to be relatively enduring). Finally, an experiment provided evidence that participants ’ experience of self-verification (feeling known and understood) mediated the interactive effect of procedural justice and self-esteem on their organizational commitment. Justice, it would seem, is the sine qua non of most institutions in egalitarian societies. Indeed, for members of organizations, the perception of procedural justice—sensing fairness in the meth-ods used to plan and implement resource alloca-