Search

In this study, participants read a vignette describing a professor who posted offensive tweets questioning the intelligence of his students. We manipulate two independent variables in a story about his public apology: non-verbal expressions of remorse (present versus absent), and threat context (i.e., threat of punishment; present or absent). Participants are asked to indicate their perceptions of the professor’s remorse and register their judgments about the professor’s likelihood of reoffending, his deservingness of respectful treatment, and the acceptability of his online shaming.

Procedural justice theory argues that perceptions of the fairness of an interaction are important to people. When people feel they are treated respectfully during a decision-making procedure, they tend to be more satisfied with the procedure and its outcomes and also rate them as fairer, even if the outcome was unfavourable to them (Lind & Tyler, 1988; Tyler, 1989). This fair process effect also has implications for behaviour. When people perceive they have been treated fairly by an authority, they view that authority figure as being more legitimate and are subsequently more compliant with their requests (Sunshine & Tyler, 2003). Fairness can include the information provided as part of a procedure (i.e., timely and truthful information is perceived as being more fair) as well as the interpersonal treatment received in the procedure (i.e., being treated with dignity and respect by an authority; Colquitt, 2001). Procedural justice theory has been applied successfully in a range of contexts where there is an authority-subordinate relationship, such as the legal system and the workplace. Less attention has been paid to its application to the parent-child relationship. It is important to study factors that will optimise the parent-child relationship, as it has a profound effect on the child’s wellbeing both in the short and long term. Early parenting theory categorised three parenting styles (authoritarian, authoritative and permissive; Baumrind, 1967). Authoritarian and permissive parenting has been linked to childrens’ internalising and externalising problems (Pin quart, 2017; Rose, Roman, Mwaba, & Ismail, 2018), which are known to underlie most mental illnesses (Kotov et al., 2017). Authoritative parenting is widely accepted as the optimal style, and has been linked to socioemotional wellbeing (Rinaldi & Howe, 2012). The parenting literature is vast, however, and modern parenting research lacks a unified theoretical conceptualisation of parenting. Researchers disagree on the number and categories of parenting styles, the factors underlying styles, and whether parenting should be considered in terms of specific behaviours rather than overall styles (Darling & Steinberg, 1993). The literature may benefit from the connection to a solid theoretical base, such as procedural justice theory, which would unify findings and facilitate the creation of more cohesive predictions about the outcomes of various parenting styles or behaviours. Our previous work has identified that authoritative parenting can be reframed according to procedural justice theory. This new conceptualisation of parenting was termed ‘respect based parenting’. As respect based parenting merges the previously separate fields of procedural justice and parenting, it allows for the development of new hypotheses about parenting, based on procedural justice theory, and theory-driven identification of avenues for future research in parenting. For example, procedural justice theory distinguishes between interpersonal (respectful treatment during a procedure) and informational (truthful and timely information about a procedure) elements of procedures (Colquitt, 2001; Greenberg, 1993); and whilst it is known that children receive long-term benefits from warm, sensitive interactions with parents as well as clear and consistent discipline (Fletcher, Walls, Cook, Madison, & Bridges, 2008; Labile, Carlo, Torquati, & Ontai, 2004; Luyckx et al., 2011; Milevsky, Schlechter, Netter, & Keehn, 2007; Rinaldi & Howe, 2012), it is not yet known whether interpersonal respect or information about clear discipline practices contribute more to socioemotional wellbeing. The application of procedural justice theory to parenting research thus serves to illuminate this gap in the parenting literature. In this study, we aim to build on our previous research investigating the utility of the respect based parenting framework, by seeking to replicate the factor structure of the respect based parenting construct, and evaluating whether respect based parenting is linked to greater socioemotional wellbeing. Additionally, we extend a procedural justice hypothesis to the parenting domain, by assessing which element of respect based parenting (i.e., interpersonal or informational) is most strongly related to socioemotional wellbeing.

Procedural justice perceptions refer to a person’s perceptions about the fairness of a decision-making process. When an individual is treated respectfully during such a process, they tend to perceive the interaction and associated outcomes as fairer and also tend to report greater satisfaction with the interaction and outcomes, even if the outcome was unfavourable (Lind & Tyler, 1988; Tyler, 1989). Furthermore, when an authority acts fairly, individuals tends to attribute greater legitimacy to that authority, and tend to cooperate more with the authority’s requests (Sunshine & Tyler, 2003). There are two aspects to fair treatment during a procedure: informational fairness (receiving timely and accurate information about an outcome) and interpersonal fairness (being treated with dignity and respect by an authority during a procedure; Colquitt, 2001). These fairness effects have been demonstrated in a variety of contexts where authorities and subordinates interact with one another, such as the legal system and the workplace. It is plausible that these effects may also apply to the parent-child relationship, however, this context has received limited attention. Adolescents who judge their parents to be more respectful during discipline interactions tend to report higher levels of family cohesion (Fondacaro, Dunkle, & Pathak, 1998). Recent research has revealed that respectful treatment is important to younger children as well (Dunham, Durkin, & Tyler, 2018; Grocke, Rossano, & Tomasello, 2018). It is important to understand what contributes to perceived fairness amongst family members, because the nature of interactions between a parent and child can influence the child’s socioemotional wellbeing (Pinquart, 2017; Rose, Roman, Mwaba, & Ismail, 2018). Early theory identified three broad categories of parenting styles: authoritarian (overly harsh), permissive (under-involved) and authoritative (warm control; Baumrind, 1967). These various parenting styles can affect a child’s social and emotional wellbeing in different ways. Authoritative parenting is widely accepted as the optimal parenting style, as it has been linked to a child’s greater socioemotional wellbeing (Gordon Simons & Conger, 2007; Rinaldi & Howe, 2012). Typically, mothers tend to be more authoritative than fathers and fathers tend to be more authoritarian than mothers, but the evidence is mixed regarding permissiveness and parent gender (Conrade & Ho, 2001; Gordon Simons & Conger, 2007; McKinney & Renk, 2008; Russell et al., 1998; Winsler, Madigan, & Aquilino, 2005). However, these trends also depend on who is making the reports (i.e., self-report, observer-report or child-report) as well as the gender of the child. Since this early conceptualisation of parenting styles, the parenting literature has become more complex. There are variations in the conceptualisation of parenting styles, the factors that may underlie those styles, and whether parenting is best considered in terms of specific behaviours or overall styles (Darling & Steinberg, 1993); while the parenting literature is now vast, intricate, and nuanced, the literature currently lacks a unified theoretical base. The development of a theoretical base would outline mechanisms driving the particular effects of parenting behaviours, and thus allow more cohesive predictions to be made about the beneficial or harmful outcomes that result from those parenting behaviours. A reconceptualisation of the parenting literature according to procedural justice theory may be plausible. The justice literature distinguishes between process favourability and outcome favourability. Variations in these elements of justice may equate to different kinds of parenting. For example, (using the traditional conceptualisation) authoritarian parenting may be low in process and outcome favourability, permissive parenting may be high in process and outcome favourability and authoritative parenting may be high in process favourability and either low or high in outcome favourability. This research aims to investigate the development of an underlying parenting theory, and simplify the parenting message, by evaluating the utility of reframing parenting from a procedural justice perspective. This project will seek to reframe the Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire (PSDQ; Robinson, Mandleco, Olsen, & Hart, 2001), a scale commonly used for measuring parenting styles, according to procedural justice theory, so that the utility of respect based parenting may be measured in future studies. Differences in parenting styles have been documented across different socioeconomic statuses and genders. Typically, parents from higher income homes tend to be more democratic, whereas those from lower income homes tend to be more autocratic (Hoff, Laursen, & Tardif, 2002), and (as mentioned above) mothers are generally viewed as being more authoritative than fathers (Conrade & Ho, 2001; Rinaldi & Howe, 2012). Therefore, socioeconomic status and parent gender will be included in an analysis to establish convergent validity of the respect based parenting scale. Research has also demonstrated intergenerational continuity amongst parenting tendencies (i.e., harsh or warm); that is, parents often employ the same parenting behaviours that were employed by their own parents (Neppl, Conger, Scaramella, & Ontai, 2009). However, other factors such as the co-parent’s warmth (Conger, Schofield, & Neppl, 2012), socioeconomic disadvantage (Scaramella, Neppl, Ontai, & Conger, 2008) and gender (Belsky, Jaffee, Sligo, Woodward, & Silva, 2005; Campbell & Gilmore, 2007; Thornberry, Freeman-Gallant, Lizotte, Krohn, & Smith, 2003) may moderate intergenerational continuities. Furthermore, as a general trend, parents have become less authoritarian and more warm across the last two generations, potentially reflecting a broader social shift in parenting (Campbell & Gilmore, 2007; Honig & Deters, 1996; Trifan, Stattin, & Tilton-Weaver, 2014). This project will also aim to provide a snapshot of the prevalence of traditional parenting styles, as well as respect based parenting, across two generations, and will test for the intergenerational continuity of respect based parenting.

Description The current study aims to investigate the effects of risk on perceptions of offenders, and to understand whether this effect may be moderated by the offender’s cultural background. The present research draws on the ‘multiple studies’ paradigm used by Goldberg et al., (1999), in which participants were informed they were participating in two unrelated studies. In the research by Goldberg et al., (1999), ‘Study 1’ involved participants viewing a video designed to evoke anger (a short clip from a film, depicting a helpless teenager being physically attacked by another person), and participants were randomly allocated into one of three groups. Prior to viewing the clip, participants were informed the transgressor was apprehended and punished (punished condition), caught but escaped punishment due to a ‘technicality’ (unpunished condition), or the outcome of the offender remained ambiguous (justice-ambiguous condition). Participants then completed an emotional arousal questionnaire rating seventeen emotions on an 8-point Likert scale, the focus of which was anger. ‘Study 2’ had participants reading and completing questions about four vignettes, describing scenarios in which an offender had engaged in negligent behaviour, which resulted in the injury of an innocent person. The questions that followed were designed to assess perceived blameworthiness of the offenders in these vignettes, and how deserving they were of punishment (Goldberg et al., 1999). Goldberg et al., (1999) hypothesised that anger resulting from the arousing stimulus in ‘Study 1’, combined with knowledge justice had not been served (unpunished condition) would result in a carry-over effect, leading participants to become more punitive towards transgressors in unrelated cases in the ‘Study 2’ vignettes, with the intent of restoring justice and upholding the social order. The results supported the hypothesis (Goldberg et al., 1999), indicating that anger from an unresolved injustice impacts subsequent legal decision making, even in a case that appears to be entirely unrelated to the source of the original injustice. While Goldberg et al. (1999) pioneered a useful, deceptive, experimental “two-study” paradigm (on which the present research is based), there are several questions they did not address. First, while Goldberg et al (1999) demonstrated that unresolved injustice spills over to affect legal decision making about a negligence case, they did not examine the effects of unresolved injustice on other types of legal decision making. The present research therefore extends on the earlier work by examining the effect of unresolved injustice on risk assessment decisions, rather than other structured legal decisions. Second, Goldberg et al (1999) did not consider the cultural context of the scenario in the ‘Study 2’ vignette. There are several reasons to expect cultural context to affect legal decision making, particularly regarding risk assessment decisions. Indigenous Australians (Elias, Mansouri, & Paradies, 2021), black sub-Saharan African migrants (Elias, Mansouri, & Paradies, 2021), and other people who are visibly distinct from culturally privileged groups are more likely to experience racism. There is a heightened level of fear, mistrust and perceived discrimination among minority groups that stems from historical injustices in criminal settings (Shepherd & Lewis-Fernandez, 2016). Furthermore, minority groups are often heavily overrepresented in correctional populations (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2015), with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners make up 30% of all prisoners in Australia (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2021). Considering the history of contentious interactions between minority group members and the criminal justice system, it is important to investigate the ways in which an offender’s cultural background might impact risk assessment. In the present research, we ask whether the previously established effects of unresolved anger on legal decision making disproportionately affect minority group members. Thus, the present research extends on the earlier work by examining the effect of an offender’s cultural background (in the second scenario) as a moderator of the effect of unresolved injustice on risk assessment decisions. In sum, the aim of this research is to expand on the previous research conducted by (Goldberg et al., 1999), extending this investigation to risk assessment (rather than negligence) decisions, and testing whether the effects described by Goldberg et al. are moderated by the cultural background of the offender.

Despite the increasingly common transfer of decision-making from human agents to algorithms, studies concerning public perceptions of algorithmic-decision making are scarce. (Lockey et al., 2020). Yet this growing application of artificial intelligence (AI) in legal contexts – such as predictive policing – is an innovation that compels greater investigation into procedural justice reasoning and technologically mediated social interactions. Uncovering these interactions is pertinent, given perceived fairness is said to critically influence public support (Simmons, 2018) and, thus, the successful implementation of any technology utilised by authorities (Sivasubramaniam et al., 2021). The present study aims to investigate participants’ pre-existing trust, tolerances of biases and appraisals of key procedural justice elements, with regards to the AI as the decision-maker, itself.

Procedural justice has long been a focus in social and forensic psychology. With technology as a focus in modern policing, gathering an understanding of public opinions on the use of these technology-assisted investigations is important for determining police-citizen relations and compliance with the law (Sunshine & Tyler, 2003). Research shows that pre-existing trust (trust) in police is important for procedural justice judgements and gaining support in police use of technology (Demir, 2019). Additionally, emotional information, which is often present in descriptions of violent crimes, has shown to impact decision-making processes in relation to helping behaviour. The literature demonstrates that when victim salience (VS) is high, meaning there is an identifiable victim/s, and urgency is high, emotions of sympathy and empathy are enhanced, which motivates helping behaviour (Jenni & Loewenstein, 1997). This study investigates the factors that affect public perceptions of police as they seek to integrate emerging technologies into their investigative methods. References: Demir, M. (2019). Citizens' perceptions of body-worn cameras (BWCs): Findings from a quasi-randomized controlled trial. Journal of Criminal Justice, 60, 130-139. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2018.09.009 Jenni, K., & Loewenstein, G. (1997). Explaining the "Identifiable victim effect". Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 14(3), 235-257. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1007740225484 Sunshine, J., & Tyler, T. R. (2003). The Role of procedural justice and legitimacy in shaping public support for policing. Law & Society Review, 37(3), 513-548. https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-5893.3703002

The psychological justice literature suggests that in highly emotive situations, where an injustice evokes strong emotional and moral reactions, people’s motivations will favour retribution rather than concerns for respectful treatment when deciding on how to respond to those who have transgressed (Bojczenko & Sivasubramaniam, 2020; Hafer, 2011; Lerner & Miller, 1978; Lerner & Simmons, 1966). However, this retributive motive that can arise in highly emotive contexts is at odds with the non-retributive goals of child protection services, which are not tasked with punishing those who have been reported to maltreat children. Thus, there is a tension between the non-retributive goals of child protection and lay people’s retributive impulse that is engendered in emotive contexts. Given the emotionally provocative context of child protection, we need to understand community attitudes towards child protection decision making and seek to address any retributive motives that undermine public support for and acceptance of non-retributive legislation. The study is a mixed methods design and has two main parts. The first part of the study seeks to first examine participant’s current understanding of the role of retribution and risk in the child protection context through both open and closed-ended questions. Part two of the study is a between-subjects experimental design examining people’s retributive versus non-retributive motives in the child protection context. Participants will read a vignette and then answer questions gauging their justice reasoning and their judgements of the child protection practitioner and system. In the vignette, we will manipulate three variables: (i) punishment sufficiency of the offender (high or low); (ii) restorative potential, i.e., whether both the offender and the family as a whole are ready and willing to undertake a reunion (high or low) and (iii) knowledge of the adverse outcome of child dying (known or unknown, thus also assessing the impact of hindsight bias). *This description is almost identical to the Study 1 description, which can be found here: [https://archive.org/details/osf-registrations-f974y-v1]

The psychological justice literature suggests that in highly emotive situations, where an injustice evokes strong emotional and moral reactions, people’s motivations will favour retribution rather than concerns for respectful treatment when deciding on how to respond to those who have transgressed (Bojczenko & Sivasubramaniam, 2020; Hafer, 2011; Lerner & Miller, 1978; Lerner & Simmons, 1966). However, this retributive motive that can arise in highly emotive contexts is at odds with the non-retributive goals of child protection services, which are not tasked with punishing those who have been reported to maltreat children. Thus, there is a tension between the non-retributive goals of child protection and lay people’s retributive impulse that is engendered in emotive contexts. Given the emotionally provocative context of child protection, we need to understand community attitudes towards child protection decision making and seek to address any retributive motives that undermine public support for and acceptance of non-retributive legislation. The study is a mixed methods design and has two main parts. The first part of the study seeks to first examine participants’ current understanding of the role of retribution and risk in the child protection context through both open and closed-ended questions. Part two of the study is a between-subjects experimental design examining people’s retributive versus non-retributive motives in the child protection context. Participants will read a vignette and then answer questions gauging their justice reasoning. In the vignette, we will manipulate three variables: (i) punishment sufficiency of the offender (high or low); (ii) restorative potential, i.e., whether both the offender and the family as a whole are ready and willing to undertake a reunion (high or low) and (iii) knowledge of the adverse outcome of child dying (known or unknown, thus also assessing the impact of hindsight bias).