How to define justice and cultures
Defining the term ‘justice’ has been controversial since ancient times. The definition has changed throughout centuries and varied depending on cultures. Each person even has divergent views of what is right or wrong. Therefore, the meaning of justice should not be defined by one. Although there are many perspectives of what justice is, the most common types of models could be ‘distributive justice,’ ‘procedural justice,’ and ‘retributive justice.’
- Distributive justice is considered as the perceived fairness of how rewards are allocated within group members.
- Procedural justice refers to the concept of fairness in the decision-making process.
- Retributive justice refers to the perceived fairness of punishment.
Cultures – the norms and the social behaviour embedded in human society – can affect how people perceive justice. Since a myriad of cultures has existed, Greet Hofstede extracted six dimensions of national cultures: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism and collectivism, masculinity and femininity, long- or short-term orientation, and indulgence or restraint (Hofstede, 2011).
In order to analyse how cultures influence the perception of justice, two cultural dimensions of the Hofstede theory are practical: power distance and individualist/collectivist. Power distance is how much the powerless or less powerful groups in organisations accept that power is unequally distributed. For example, Asian and Latin American countries score high on power distance, whereas Western, Europe, and Northern America score low (Hofstede, 2011). Individualism refers to how much people prefer to act as individuals, and collectivism refers to how much people prefer to act as groups. For example, Western countries are likely to be individualist societies, whereas Eastern countries tend to be collectivist (Hofstede, 2011).
How cultures impact distributive justice
The perceptions of the fairness of rewards and resource allocation within the members differ between individualist and collectivist societies. As an example, schools in the former Soviet Union, a collectivist country, conduct a make-up test as a requirement. In other words, students failing an exam get chances to retake the exam until they receive a passing grade. However, students from individualist societies, such as Western countries, find it extremely unfair that they do not get second chance to improve their text results (Rowney and Taras, 2008).
How cultures impact procedural justice
At high school, it is common that same age groups gather to decide something. However, it is not always the case that only people from the same position, rank, and age group involve in the decision-making process. For example, people from different hierarchies involve in decision-making at a company.
Based on the Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory (Hofstede, 2011), cultures with high power-distance orientation prefer directive management style, avoiding conflict in general with superiors. In other words, people from high-power distance countries tend to respect decisions made by higher authorities. In contrast, cultures with low power-distance orientation tend to feel free to voice disagreement with the decisions made by higher authorities. The difference in the level of involvement in the decision-making process also appears in university situations. For example, students with a low-power distance orientation tend to be participative in debate and attempt to influence a professor’s opinion or decisions, which is opposite to students with a higher-power distance orientation (Rowney and Taras, 2008).
How cultures impact retributive justice
Individualist and collectivist societies have different views on the purpose of punishment. For example, punishment is often perceived as direct retribution in individualist countries: a wicked person must suffer in order to compensate the victim’s suffering. In contrast, collectivist countries are likely to perceive punishment as a way to rehabilitate for wrongdoers: a wrongdoer is encouraged to reconcile with a victim or ask for forgiveness (Leung and Morris, 2000 cited in Rowney and Taras, 2008).
Reference:
Hofstede, G. (2011). Dimensionalizing Cultures: The Hofstede Model in Context. Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 2(1), pp.1–26.
Rowney, J. and Taras, V. (2008). Crosscultural Differences in Perceptions of Justice; Consequences for Academia. [online] 36. Available at: http://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/v_taras_crosscultural_2008.pdf [Accessed 26 Dec. 2021].
