This chapter is concerned with the sense of injustice of the victim and the victimizer. In it, I shall consider the conditions necessary for awakening the sense of injustice in these different participants in an unjust relationship. My discussion, for illustrative purposes, will focus on race relations in the United States, one of the major sources of injustice in North America.

When is Unequal Unfair: The Role of Ideology.

Awakening the Sense of Injustice

Recently I completed a book, Distributive Justice: A Social Psychological Perspective (Deutsch, 1985), which could have been entitled “Cooperation, Conflict, and Justice.” These are three of the themes that run throughout the book and that have been the foci of my career as a social psychologist. Here, I would like to present an overview of the work my co-workers and I have done on these themes and to consider the relationship among them.

Cooperation, Conflict, and Justice

Despite our universal social need for justice, the presence of injustice is ubiquitous between people, groups, and societies. How the injustice is perceived and interpreted will determine how the individual respondsto it. On a social level, the individual’s perception of the source of injustice may result in attempts to rescue or make restitution to the victim or, alternatively, in attempts to blame the victim. On an internal, emotional level, the experience of oneself or of others as the victims or perpetrators of injustice has emotional sequelae—including, at times, an overall sense of the self as an innocent or responsible victim or harmdoer. These self-perceptions will, in turn, alter the individual’s social behavior toward others who are themselves victims or harmdoers.

The Experience of Injustice Social Psychological and Clinical Perspectives

https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=19399&context=rtd

When is Unequal Unfair: The Role of Ideology.

Citations

Awakening the Sense of Injustice

Cooperation, Conflict, and Justice

The Experience of Injustice Social Psychological and Clinical Perspectives

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