Social Identification Predicts Desires and Expectations for Voice

Abstract

Although a large body of empirical and theoretical work in procedural justice points to the positive consequences of providing voice to people, it remains unclear whether, and to what degree, people may desire voice in the first instance. The current paper presents two studies in which we directly measure people’s relative levels of voice desires and expectations. We hypothesized that any variability in these outcomes would be predicted, at least in part, by people’s relative levels of social identification with salient voice-relevant in-groups. We confirmed this hypothesis in one correlational study with pre-existing groups (Australia and participants’ workplaces) and one study with experimentally created, minimal groups. Results revealed that people do desire and expect voice, but these are neither necessarily extreme nor uniform. Moreover, consistent with our hypothesis, variability in these desires and expectations was associated in a systematic manner with the relative levels of social identification related to a salient in-group that is relevant to the voice context. We consider the implications of these findings with regard to theories of procedural justice, as well as critical directions for future empirical and theoretical work.