COMMONSENSE NOTIONS OF UNFAIRNESS IN JAPAN AND THE UNITED STATES

The concept of fairness has been centrally situated within justice and legal discourses, yet some have suggested that a deeper understanding is possible by looking at the "injustice" end because those instantiations tend to be clear, concise, hot, passionate, insistent, and have primacy. I...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychology, public policy, and law public policy, and law, 2001-06, Vol.7 (2), p.345-380
Main Authors: Finkel, Norman J, Crystal, David S, Watanabe, Hirozumi
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cross Cultural Differences
Female
Human
Justice
Male
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Summary:The concept of fairness has been centrally situated within justice and legal discourses, yet some have suggested that a deeper understanding is possible by looking at the "injustice" end because those instantiations tend to be clear, concise, hot, passionate, insistent, and have primacy. In this cross-cultural work, the authors apply this suggestion by deconstructing instantiations of unfairness from American and Japanese samples of students and their parents. Although all major types of unfairness were invoked in both countries, significant differences emerged in the frequency distribution patterns and quantitative severity ratings of unfairness by culture; to a lesser extent, by generation within culture; and to a still lesser extent, by gender. Why discriminatory treatment instantiations were significantly more salient for Japanese than American respondents (and why the reverse was so for misfortune instantiations) is discussed, along with foundational links of unfairness notions to communal relationships and society.
ISSN:1076-8971
1939-1528
DOI:10.1037/1076-8971.7.2.345