The Limits of Procedural Justice: Considering the Benefits of 'Less Just' Procedures for Ongoing Relationships between Disputants.

Despite the prevalence of conflict resolution between individuals with who have continued contact after they leave the courtroom, mediator's office, or agree to contract terms, few studies have explored how various types of alternative dispute resolution affect the relationship between disputants. Drawing on recent research in social exchange that explore how various types of exchange affect perceptions of exchange partners, this paper explores how various levels of neutral third party intervention in an exchange (low and high, operationalized as mediation and arbitration) affect perceptions exchange partners have of one another. Experimental results indicate that third party intervention is positively related to perceptions of the other party (perceptions of fairness of, general positive regard toward, and optimism about the tone of future interactions). Increased likelihood of situational attributions for disputants' behavior and decreased salience of conflict with high levels of third party intervention partially explain this relationship. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]