Papers by Manfred Schmitt
Justice Sensitivity as a Risk and Protective Factor in Social Conflicts
Justice and Conflicts, 2011
ABSTRACT Individuals differ in how readily they perceive and how strongly they react to injustice... more ABSTRACT Individuals differ in how readily they perceive and how strongly they react to injustice. These differences are consistent across types of injustice and are stable across time. Thus, these patterns are seen as a personality trait called justice sensitivity. This trait can be differentiated into four facets that match with corresponding roles individuals take on in a justice conflict: victim sensitivity, observer sensitivity, beneficiary sensitivity, and perpetrator sensitivity. Several studies have shown that observer, beneficiary, and perpetrator sensitivity are highly correlated with each other and only weakly correlated with victim sensitivity. Observer-, beneficiary-, and perpetrator-sensitive individuals seem to be primarily concerned with justice for others. In this sense, these sensitivities represent potential factors that help in constructive conflict resolution and in the prevention of conflict escalation. By contrast, victim-sensitive people seem to have a predominant interest in justice for themselves. Accordingly, several studies have shown that victim sensitivity promotes antisocial behavior. The antisocial behavior of victim-sensitive people seems to serve two functions: First, having suffered from innocent victimization previously, victim-sensitive individuals commit selfish behavior in order to balance their personal justice account. Second, in fear of being cheated, they engage in preventive strikes against those who might cheat them. Both of these motives and mechanisms are potential risks for social, organizational, and ecological conflicts.
Traits as Situational Sensitivities: Psychometric and Substantive Comments on the TASS Model Proposed by Marshall and Brown (2006)
Model that implies a systematic person x situation interaction. We review this model and show tha... more Model that implies a systematic person x situation interaction. We review this model and show that it suffers from several limitations. We extend and modify the model in order to obtain a symmetric pattern of levels and effects for both person and situation factors. Our ...
The Justice Sensitivity Inventory: Factorial Validity, Location in the Personality Facet Space, Demographic Pattern, and Normative Data
Social Justice Research, 2010
This article investigates the psychometric properties of a self-report inventory for measuring in... more This article investigates the psychometric properties of a self-report inventory for measuring individual differences in four components of justice sensitivity (JS): victim sensitivity, observer sensitivity, beneficiary sensitivity, and perpetrator sensitivity. A representative sample (N = 2510) was employed to (a) estimate the reliability of a newly developed perpetrator sensitivity scale, (b) test the factorial validity of this scale together with three previously
Asymmetrical Effects of Justice Sensitivity Perspectives on Prosocial and Antisocial Behavior
Social Justice Research, 2005
Three studies explore the effects of perspective-specific justice sensitivity on in-dicators of b... more Three studies explore the effects of perspective-specific justice sensitivity on in-dicators of both prosocial behavior (ie, existential guilt, solidarity, and respon-sibility ascriptions towards the disadvantaged) and antisocial behavior (ie, the willingness to transgress a norm in a ...
Longitudinal effects of egoistic and fraternal relative deprivation on well-being and protest
International Journal of Psychology, 2010
According to the social justice literature, fraternal relative deprivation causes protest, but ha... more According to the social justice literature, fraternal relative deprivation causes protest, but has little impact on well-being. We consider this view incomplete and predict that fraternal relative deprivation can impair well-being if it is enduring and difficult to ameliorate. As part of a longitudinal study of the German unification process, measures of egoistic relative deprivation, fraternal relative deprivation, life satisfaction, mental health, and protest were obtained on three occasions of measurement (1996, 1998, 2000) from a demographically heterogeneous sample of 1276 East German citizens. Model tests and parameter estimation were performed with LISREL. In line with our predictions, unique longitudinal effects of fraternal relative deprivation on well-being were identified. No longitudinal effect of fraternal relative deprivation on protest was identified.
Stereotypic ingroup bias as self‐defense against relative deprivation: evidence from a longitudinal study of the German unification process
European Journal of Social Psychology, 2002
In a longitudinal questionnaire field study on psychological consequences of German unification, ... more In a longitudinal questionnaire field study on psychological consequences of German unification, the intergroup situation between East and West Germans was investigated. Data were collected in 1996 and 1998. The sample consisted of 585 East Germans and 387 West Germans who had never lived in the other part of Germany. It was assumed that East Germans' social identity is threatened due to their fraternal deprivation in comparison with West Germans. It was predicted that East Germans would employ ingroup bias as an identity management strategy in order to protect their emotional well‐being against harmful consequences of fraternal deprivation. In line with this prediction, it was found that (a) East Germans feel fraternally deprived compared to West Germans on important quality of life dimensions, (b) they display ingroup bias vis‐à‐vis West Germans, (c) ingroup bias increases with increasing East German identity, (d) ingroup bias is determined longitudinally by relative deprivati...
Justice Sensitivity and the Processing of Justice–Related Information
European Journal of Personality, 2010
We investigated how Justice Sensitivity (JS) shapes the processing of justice–related information... more We investigated how Justice Sensitivity (JS) shapes the processing of justice–related information. We proposed that due to frequently perceiving and ruminating about injustices, persons high in JS develop highly accessible and differentiated injustice concepts that shape attention, interpretation and memory for justice–related information. Three studies provided evidence for these assumptions. After witnessing injustice, persons high in JS attended more strongly to unjust stimuli than to negative control stimuli (Study1) and interpreted an ambiguous situation as less just than persons low in JS (Study2). Finally, they displayed a memory advantage for unjust information (Study3). Results suggest that JS involves the availability and accessibility of injustice concepts as parameters of cognitive functioning and offer explanations for effects of JS on justice–related behaviour. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Validierung des Vereinfachten Beck-Depressions-Inventars (BDI-V) an Fremdeinschätzungen
Diagnostica, 2010
Zusammenfassung. An N = 177 Dyaden wurden Selbst- und Fremdeinschätzungen der Depressivität anhan... more Zusammenfassung. An N = 177 Dyaden wurden Selbst- und Fremdeinschätzungen der Depressivität anhand des vereinfachten Beck-Depressions-Inventars (BDI-V) und Moderatoren des Realistic Accuracy Model erhoben. Moderatoren der Urteilsperson waren Offenheit, Empathie, Perspektivenübernahme und Alter, Moderatoren der Zielperson Privatheit, Selbstkonsistenz, Selbsttäuschung und Fremdtäuschung. Weitere Moderatoren waren Bekanntschaftsdauer und -qualität sowie Einschätzungen der Beobachtbarkeit von Depressionssymptomen einer unabhängigen Stichprobe (N = 219). Moderatorhypothesen wurden interdyadisch, intradyadisch und intersymptomatisch getestet. Für Bekanntschaftsqualität und Beobachtbarkeit wurden die erwarteten Moderatoreffekte gefunden, für alle anderen Moderatoren nicht. Die Ergebnisse werden im Hinblick auf die Validität von Selbst- und Fremdeinschätzungen anhand des BDI-V und die theoretische Bedeutung des Realistic Accuracy Model diskutiert.
Justice-sensitive interpretations of ambiguous situations
Australian Journal of Psychology, 2009
The accessibility of concepts related to justice and injustice is proposed as a basic cognitive m... more The accessibility of concepts related to justice and injustice is proposed as a basic cognitive mechanism underlying the personality trait of justice sensitivity. To provide evidence for this assertion, the manner in which justice sensitivity shapes the interpretation of an ambiguous situation was investigated. It was found that, without priming, and after injustice is primed, persons high in justice sensitivity tend to perceive greater injustice in an ambiguous situation than persons low in justice sensitivity. If the restoration of justice is primed, however, persons high in justice sensitivity tend to interpret the ambiguous situation as more just when compared to persons low in justice sensitivity. Results are discussed with regard to a process-oriented explanation of emotional and behavioural effects of justice sensitivity.
Individual differences in Sensitivity to Befallen Injustice (SBI)
Personality and Individual Differences, 1996
... Given that sensitivity to unjust personal advantages was found to vary consistently between i... more ... Given that sensitivity to unjust personal advantages was found to vary consistently between individuals and predicted prosocial behaviour towards the advantaged, it seemed promising to investigate justice sensitivity from the victims' perspective as well. ...
The study investigates the construct validity of a self-report questionnaire for dispositional se... more The study investigates the construct validity of a self-report questionnaire for dispositional sensitivity to befallen injustice (SBI; Schmitt, Neumann, & Montada, 1995). The items are combinations of four indicators of SBI (frequency of perceived injustice, intensity of anger, intrusiveness/perseverance of thoughts about the unjust event, punitivity) with varying types of unfair situations (e.g., performing better than others without getting any appreciation or reward). At Occasion 1, 171 students were administered questionnaires for measuring SBI, trait anger, anger in, anger out, anger control, selfassertiveness, belief in a just world, and attitudes toward principles of distributive justice (equity, equality, need). Two months later (Occasion 2), 75 from these subjects were treated unfairly in a laboratory situation dealing with competition and achievement behavior. Two justice principles were violated: the equality of chances principle and the equity principle. Four weeks later (Occasion 3), 32 subjects evaluated the unfair treatment in retrospect. All three occasions were presented as independent studies with the subjects perceiving no connections between them. In line with our hypotheses, it was found that immediate and delayed reactions to the unjust treatments depended to a considerable degree on SBI. For example, the combined score of the SBI questionnaire predicted, with a beta-weight of .71, a combined rating of three experts who used various sources of objective information (e.g., tape-recorded interactions between subject and experimenter) to estimate the degree to which the subject displayed emotional, verbal, and behavioral resentment against the unfair treatment. At the same time, measures for other constructs (e.g., assertiveness, trait anger, anger expression, belief in a just world), which can also be linked theoretically to the criteria, explained either none or a much smaller proportion of variance in reactions to unjust treatment.
Frontiers in psychology, 2015
According to the Sensitivity-to-mean-intentions model, dispositional victim sensitivity involves ... more According to the Sensitivity-to-mean-intentions model, dispositional victim sensitivity involves a suspicious mindset that is activated by situational cues and guides subsequent information processing and behavior like a schema. Study 1 tested whether victim-sensitive persons are more prone to form expectancies of injustice in ambiguous situations and whether these expectancies mediate the relationship between victim sensitivity and cooperation behavior in a trust game. Results show an indirect effect of victim sensitivity on cooperation after unfair treatment (vs. control condition), mediated by expectancies of injustice. In Study 2 we directly manipulated the tendency to form expectancies of injustice in ambiguous situations to test for causality. Results confirmed that the readiness to expect unjust outcomes led to lower cooperation, compared to a control condition. These findings provide direct evidence that expectancy tendencies are implicated in elevated victim sensitivity and...
Personality and Individual Differences, 2015
Applying an experimental between-subject design with varying situational demands (N = 168) we inv... more Applying an experimental between-subject design with varying situational demands (N = 168) we investigated the main and interactive effects of perfectionistic strivings (PS) and perfectionistic concerns (PC) on primary threat appraisal and secondary self-confidence appraisal and if these appraisals mediate the effects of PS and PC on the affective stress-response to a given situation. Path analyses revealed differential effects of experimental condition, PS and PC on the cognitive appraisals and the affective stress response. While the positive effects of PS on cognitive appraisals did not extend to the affective stress response directly or indirectly, the negative effect of PC on the affective stress response was fully mediated by the secondary self-confidence appraisal. Additionally we found a significant three-way interaction of PS, PC and experimental condition predicting the affective stress response that was not mediated by the cognitive appraisals.
Developmental psychology, 2015
The authors examined the development of self-esteem across the life span. Data came from a German... more The authors examined the development of self-esteem across the life span. Data came from a German longitudinal study with 3 assessments across 4 years of a sample of 2,509 individuals ages 14 to 89 years. The self-esteem measure used showed strong measurement invariance across assessments and birth cohorts. Latent growth curve analyses indicated that self-esteem follows a quadratic trajectory across the life span, increasing during adolescence, young adulthood, and middle adulthood, reaching a peak at age 60 years, and then declining in old age. No cohort effects on average levels of self-esteem or on the shape of the trajectory were found. Moreover, the trajectory did not differ across gender, level of education, or for individuals who had lived continuously in West versus East Germany (i.e., the 2 parts of Germany that had been separate states from 1949 to 1990). However, the results suggested that employment status, household income, and satisfaction in the domains of work, relat...
Cognitive processes involved in Justice Sensitivity: Selective information search
Social Justice Research, 1998
The study challenges the commonly assumed symmetry between justice judgments that refer to the di... more The study challenges the commonly assumed symmetry between justice judgments that refer to the distribution of positive and negative outcomes. Based on equity and multiprinciple approaches, and particularly on the theory of framing choices, we propose a conceptual framework for analyzing the dynamics of relations between positive and negative justice judgments. According to this framework, negative judgments are more generalized
Personality & social psychology bulletin, 2005
Theoretically, low correlations between implicit and explicit measures can be due to (a) motivati... more Theoretically, low correlations between implicit and explicit measures can be due to (a) motivational biases in explicit self reports, (b) lack of introspective access to implicitly assessed representations, (c) factors influencing the retrieval of information from memory, (d) method-related characteristics of the two measures, or (e) complete independence of the underlying constructs. The present study addressed these questions from a meta-analytic perspective, investigating the correlation between the Implicit Association Test (IAT) and explicit self-report measures. Based on a sample of 126 studies, the mean effect size was .24, with approximately half of the variability across correlations attributable to moderator variables. Correlations systematically increased as a function of (a) increasing spontaneity of self-reports and (b) increasing conceptual correspondence between measures. These results suggest that implicit and explicit measures are generally related but that higher ...
Sensitivity to befallen injustice and reactions to unfair treatment in a laboratory situation
Social Justice Research, 1997
At Time 1, 171 students were administered questionnaires for measuring sensitivity to befallen in... more At Time 1, 171 students were administered questionnaires for measuring sensitivity to befallen injustice (SBI), trait anger, anger in, anger out, anger control, self-assertiveness, and attitudes toward principles of distributive justice (equality of chances, equity). Two months later ...
Personality and Individual Differences, 2004
Traditional models of distributive justice behaviour have focused predominantly on either persons... more Traditional models of distributive justice behaviour have focused predominantly on either personspecific or context-specific explanations. We suggest supplementing these models by including interaction effects between functionally equivalent situation and person factors. Two experiments were conducted to replicate results from a previous vignette experiment in which the effect of situational information that would justify an unequal distribution of burdens was lower for individuals with a positive attitude toward the equality principle than for individuals with a negative attitude toward this principle. The results of the present experiments are consistent with this finding. Again, situational information that would justify an unequal distribution of outcomes had a weaker effect for participants with a favourable attitude toward equality than for participants with an unfavourable attitude. Based on these results and results from other research domains, we concluded that the synergistic person • situation interaction is a general phenomenon that deserves more attention in theory and research. Several cognitive mechanisms, such as motivated perception, selective attention, and the availability of attitude-congruent situation schemas that may account for synergistic interactions in justice behaviour are discussed.
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Papers by Manfred Schmitt