DOI: https://doi.org/10.15368/theses.2010.42
Available at: https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/theses/273
Date of Award
3-2010
Degree Name
Master of City and Regional Planning
Department/Program
City and Regional Planning
Advisor
Michael Boswell
Abstract
Justice research in the field of social psychology has focused primarily on situations involving legal proceedings, dispute resolution, and hierarchal relationships within organizations. This study extends the work of social psychologist Tom Tyler and others to a planning context by demonstrating that participants in a planning process use group-value criteria in addition to control over decisions and decision making processes and the favorability of outcomes to define reactions to their experiences. While certain aspects of the case study from which survey interviews were conducted limited the ability to replicate specific results of the 1989 Tyler study used as a model for this analysis, the major suppositions were confirmed. The results indicate that the group-value issues of standing, trust, and neutrality explain more variance in participant judgments of procedural justice, distributive justice, affect toward officials and fairness of officials than do control or outcome favorability. The results also demonstrate the dominance of standing and trust over all other concerns in participant assessments of procedural and distributive justice and the fairness of officials.