| dc.description.abstract | Research on distributive justice has shown that people’s
judgments on how to distribute resources justly are shaped
by various criteria including equity, need, equality, and prior
ownership. Yet, an important question remains open: do
people’s judgments about justice take the power of the
actors under consideration? In other words, to people deem
the powerful to deserve a larger share even when their
contribution, need, and prior ownership are equal? The
paper addresses this question. Online, participants had to
judge the just distribution of resources among actors who
were equal in all respects except regarding power. Results
revealed that a substantial proportion of participants
believed that more powerful actors deserved more resources,
an effect referred to as power justification. The effect was
related with social dominance orientation (SDO), indicating
that high-SDO participants manifested enhanced power jus tification. These results were replicated in three countries,
suggesting that, although cultural differences are possibly
important, in most societies power justification might be
a criterion advocated by some people in certain occasions.
These findings can inspire research about important domains
where judgments about justice and power are at play, such
as about how juries deliberate and about how public opinion
reacts to international conflicts | vi |
