Socializing justice: The interface of just world beliefs and legal socialization

Piccirillo D., García‐Sánchez E., Chies‐Santos M., Mizutani Gomes A.

Fine A., Thomas A., van Rooij B., Cauffman E.

Legal socialization is the study of how individuals develop their attitudes towards the law and its authorities. While research on perceptions of legal authorities has increased, studies have not adequately examined developmental trends in youths’ obligation to obey the law in particular. This study uses a cross-sectional sample of 218 adolescent-parent dyads in two states and utilizes two assessment strategies for the obligation to obey the law. The results indicate that paralleling the age-crime curve, the obligation to obey the law exhibits a curvilinear trend, declining during adolescence before increasing into adulthood. Second, parental perceptions of the obligation to obey the law were consistently associated with their children’s obligation to obey the law throughout adolescence. Development and intergenerational socialization emerge as vital components in understanding youths’ perceived obligation to obey the law.

Jackson J., Pósch K., Oliveira T.R., Bradford B., Mendes S.M., Natal A.L., Zanetic A.

We examine consensual and coercive police-citizen relations in São Paulo, Brazil. According to procedural justice theory, popular legitimacy operates as part of a virtuous circle, whereby normatively appropriate police behavior encourages people to self-regulate, which then reduces the need for coercive forms of social control. But can consensual and coercive police-citizen relations be so easily disentangled in a city in which many people fear crime, where the ability to use force can often be palpable in even mundane police-citizen interactions, where some people fear police but also tolerate extreme police violence, and where the image of the military police as “just another (violent) gang” has significant cultural currency? Legitimacy has two components—assent (ascribed right to power) and consent (conferred right to govern)—and consistent with prior work from the US, UK and Australia, we find that procedural justice is key to the legitimation of the police. Yet, the empirical link between legitimacy and legal compliance is complicated by ambivalent authority relations, rooted in part in heightened cultural expectations about police use of force to exercise power. We finish the paper with a discussion of the theoretical and policy implications of these findings.

Baz Cores O., Fernández-Molina E.

Considering research on juvenile delinquency more broadly, few studies have examined the legal socialization process whereby adolescents come to accept legal authority and comply with the law as a result of the interaction with informal and formal socializing agents. Police legitimacy is an important dimension of legal socialization, because the police are the visible face of the legal system and contribute to the internalization of norms and values in society. Therefore, this article aims to analyse police legitimacy perceptions as an element of the legal socialization process in Spain among a subsample of 2041 youths aged from 13 to 18 from the Third International Self-Report Delinquency Study (ISRD-3). The results using structural equation modelling reveal that adolescents who perceive the police as a legitimate institution commit fewer criminal offences. Additionally, police legitimacy perceptions mediate the association of parental monitoring, school attachment and procedural justice of the police with juvenile delinquency. Other explanations for juvenile delinquency are discussed from a legal socialization perspective.

Thomas K.J., Rodrigues H., de Oliveira R.T., Mangino A.A.

During adolescence, individuals make judgements on the legitimacy of authorities to make and enforce rules and they differentiate between various types of rules. This study tracked a socially and racially diverse sample (47% White) of 800 Brazilians for three years, ages 11–13 (50% female), allowing for variation between issues and individuals. The strongest predictors of compliance were adolescents’ beliefs that parents were legitimate authorities. Other significant predictors were authorities’ procedural justice and disciplinary practices. Legitimacy attributions partially mediated the relationship between procedural justice and compliance. Compliance and legitimacy varied across issues. Across time, parenting variables diminished in predictive strength while legitimacy attributions increased. Procedural justice practices may partially establish parental legitimacy, while disciplinary practices are less effective and perhaps counter-productive.

Granot Y., Tyler T.R.

Thomas K.J., Rodrigues H.

Bridging just world theory and legal socialization research, this study looks at preadolescents’ perceptions of justice across race, income, and education, and how these relate to perceptions of the law and legal cynicism. This article takes a novel approach to belief in a just world (BJW) research by analyzing the difference between personal and general BJW: Just World Gap. Drawing from a Brazilian preadolescent sample (n = 742, age = 12), results revealed significant differences between education and income brackets, with the Just World Gap being significantly higher in more privileged groups. The Just World Gap had stronger effect sizes across demographic variables than either BJW separately. Partial correlations were conducted controlling for education and income between BJWs (personal and general), Just World Gap, and perceptions of the law and legal cynicism. Results indicated that personal and general BJW were more strongly correlated with items concerning how people view the law, but legal cynicism items were more strongly correlated with the Just World Gap. This reveals the Just World Gap to be a relevant construct in studying the legal socialization and legal cynicism. Results highlight important theoretical considerations for legal socialization and BJW research.

Thomas K.J., Santo J.B., da Cunha J.M.

Substantial research has established the connection between students’ beliefs in a just world (BJW) and their perceptions of and behaviors in the school. While much of that research has acknowledged that the relationship between BJW and school variables must be bi-directional, little empirical evidence exists on how the school climate shapes students’ perceptions of justice. This study draws from a comprehensive sample of Brazilian students from third through twelfth grade (n = 18,514) across 122 public schools in Southern Brazil. Results reveal that school climate variables account for 12.1–19.6% of the variance of students’ BJW, with middle school being a time of strongest influence. Perceptions of rule fairness, student–student relationships, and positive and socio-emotional learning techniques were significant predictors across all grade levels. Additional analyses revealed that teachers’ positive and socio-emotional techniques can act as a moderator between school climate and students’ BJW. The results provide more tangible ways to integrate just world research into the educational context by bridging the gap between school climate research and just world theory. This study provides empirical data for the bidirectionality of BJW and school context and opens the discussion on how the school sets students’ future expectations of justice.

Dessen M.A., Torres C.V.

Trinkner R., Rodrigues H., Piccirillo D., Gifford F.E., Gomes A.M.

Research examining the legal socialisation process continues to be largely focused on US adolescents, calling into question the generalisability of this work. This study tests a popular model of le...

Jackson J.

This article reviews the international evidence on the potential nature, sources, and consequences of police and legal legitimacy. In brief, I find that procedural justice is the strongest predictor of police legitimacy in most of the countries under investigation, although normative judgements about fair process may—in some contexts—be crowded out by public concerns about police effectiveness and corruption, the scale of the crime problem, and the association of the police with a historically oppressive and underperforming state. Legitimacy tends to be linked to people's willingness to cooperate with the police, with only a small number of national exceptions. There is also a fair amount of evidence that people who say they feel a moral duty to obey the law tend also to report complying with the law in the past or intending to comply with the law in the future. The main argument is, however, that international enthusiasm for testing procedural justice theory is outpacing methodological rigor and theoretical clarity. On the one hand, the lack of attention to methodological equivalence is holding back the development of a properly comparative cross-national analysis. On the other hand, the literature would benefit from ( a) greater delineation between legitimation (the bases on which citizens judge the rightfulness of an institution) and legitimacy (the acceptance or rejection of the rightfulness of an institution and the normatively grounded duty to obey), ( b) stronger differentiation between police and legal legitimacy, and ( c) more attention given to isolating the mechanisms through which rightfulness and consent motivate cooperation and compliance.

Thomas K., Rodrigues H., Morais Mizutani Gomes A., Theodoro de Oliveira R., Piccirillo D., Cardoso de Brito R.

The purpose of this study is to capture a snapshot of the lives of Brazilian preadolescents and gain a deeper understanding of the variables that influence compliance with parental rules. This analysis draws from the São Paulo Legal Socialization Study, a cohort study (<em>N</em> = 800; age = 11 years) from public and private schools. Descriptive statistics provide a perspective on normative Brazilian parenting practices and preadolescents’ perceptions of parental legitimacy across multiple domains. Hierarchical linear modeling revealed that procedural justice, global legitimacy, issue-specific legitimacy, and disciplinary techniques all significantly predicted compliance across issues and between preadolescents. Parents who used constructive disciplinary practices paired with procedural justice practices were more likely to be perceived as legitimate authorities and to have their preadolescent children comply with their rules. Our findings broaden the literature on constructive parenting practices in preadolescence, and allow for greater generalizability of current Western research to a diverse metropolitan setting in Brazil.

Altafim E.R., McCoy D.C., Linhares M.B.

The present cross-sectional study aims to examine the relations between socioeconomic status (SES), parenting practices, and child internalizing and externalizing behavior problems in Brazil. To achieve this aim, we begin by examining the factor structure of a parenting scale (the ACT scale) for use in the Brazilian context. Participants were 204 Brazilian mothers of 3- to 8-year-old children, who answered questionnaires about SES, parenting practices, and child behavior. The results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis of the ACT scale revealed three latent parenting practices in the Brazilian context: emotional and behavioral regulation, communication, and positive discipline. Results of the final structural equation model showed that lower socioeconomic status was directly related to higher levels of child internalizing behavior problems and more negative parenting practices in the communication and positive discipline domains. Although mothers' emotional and behavioral regulation was not related to socioeconomic status, it was negatively predictive of children's behavior problems. The findings provide evidence for the utility of the ACT scale for measuring three distinct dimensions of parenting practices in Brazil. Results also suggest nuanced relations between SES, parenting practices, and child behavior in this developing country context.

Trinkner R., Jackson J., Tyler T.R.

This paper expands previous conceptualizations of appropriate police behavior beyond procedural justice. The focus of the current study is on the notion of bounded authority-that is, acting within the limits of one's rightful authority. According to work on legal socialization, U.S. citizens come to acquire three dimensions of values that determine how authorities ought to behave: (a) neutral, consistent, and transparent decision-making; (b) interpersonal treatment that conveys respect, dignity, and concern; and (c) respecting the limits of one's rightful power. Using survey data from a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults, we show that concerns over bounded authority, respectful treatment, and neutral decision-making combine to form a strong predictor of police and legal legitimacy. We also find that legal legitimacy is associated with greater compliance behavior, controlling for personal morality and perceived likelihood of sanctions. We discuss the implications of a boundary perspective with respect to ongoing debates over the appropriate scope of police power and the utility of concentrated police activities. We also highlight the need for further research specifically focused on the psychological mechanisms underlying the formation of boundaries and why they shape the legitimacy of the police and law. (PsycINFO Database Record

Donat M., Wolgast A., Dalbert C.

In a cross-sectional questionnaire study with N = 2593 German students, aged between 12 and 17 years (M = 14.1, SD = 0.5), we investigated the relation between students’ personal belief in a just world (BJW) and their victimization in bullying situations. According to the just-world theory and research, we expected that the more strongly the students endorsed the personal BJW, the less likely they were to report being victimized by other students. We aimed to extend previous findings that failed to confirm this negative relation by considering students’ personal experience of teacher justice as a possible mediator in this relation, while statistically controlling for sex and school type. We further considered the nested data structure with regard to school classes in our analyses. The results of latent mediation analyses at the individual and group levels showed that the more the students endorsed personal BJW, the more they evaluated their teachers’ behavior toward them personally as being just, and the less likely they were to report that they were bullied. However, the students’ personal experience of teacher justice did not mediate the relation between personal BJW and victimization at the individual or group level when controlled for sex and school type. We discussed the adaptive functions of BJW and implications for future school research and practice.

Komatsu A.V., Kühn S.

Li J., Bai J., Ouyang L., Lin H.

The belief in a just world (BJW) is perceived as an individual trait that aids in coping with challenges. This study employed Mplus8.0 and HLM6.08 to analyze 346 questionnaire responses, leading to the following conclusions: (1) BJW shows a positive correlation with academic engagement among college art majors; (2) Academic resilience mediates the relationship between BJW and academic engagement for college art majors; (3) The teacher-student relationship (TSR) exhibits a positive correlation with academic engagement among college art majors; (4) TSR functions as a moderator in the relationship between BJW and academic engagement among college art majors. These findings provide valuable insights for enhancing learning efficiency and talent development in art schools, thereby contributing to the overall quality of education for art students.

An Y., Lu A., Chen W., Xue S., Ke X., Li J., He W.

Sun P., Yao X., Yuan M., Kou Y.

AbstractObjectiveThis study explored how belief in a just world (BJW) develops among Chinese adolescents and the predictive role of family factors.BackgroundThe development of BJW in adolescence is an important but understudied topic, especially in non‐Western contexts.MethodUsing a three‐wave longitudinal design, 1525 participants (48% girls; Mage = 12.47) were recruited to report their BJW, childhood SES, only‐child or not, and parental psychological control in Wave 1 (Wave 2: N = 1262; Wave 3: N = 1124).ResultsThe mean slope for personal BJW is positive and significant, but not significant for general BJW. Childhood SES predicted initial level of personal and general BJW and the rate of growth of personal BJW. Only‐child predicted initial level and the growth rate of personal BJW. Parental psychological control negatively predicted personal and general BJW at three time points.ConclusionPersonal BJW increased during the observation period, whereas general BJW was stable. Individuals with lower levels of childhood SES had lower initial personal and general BJW but a higher growth rate in personal BJW than those with higher SES. Individuals having siblings had lower levels of initial personal BJW but a higher growth rate in personal BJW than those from only‐child family. Parental psychological control may exert consistent and contemporaneous negative effect on BJW across time.

Thomas K.J., Rodrigues H., Komatsu A.V.

AbstractMost research on justice perceptions stems from high‐income contexts, even though most youth grow up in contexts of inequality and injustice. This study examines the development of justice perceptions in 659 Brazilian adolescents (51.3% male; 45.2% White) in São Paulo across 3 years, ages 12, 13, and 14. Perceptions of justice of the world declined with age and perceived justice in one's personal life differed across ethnic, economic, and educational groups. Privileged groups differentiated more between their evaluations of the world and their personal lives. K‐means clustering revealed five trajectories of justice beliefs, which significantly differed across school type, race/ethnicity, and income levels. Evidence suggests that personal belief in a just world reflects known social group inequalities.

Lei X., Nie Q., Chen C., Teng Z.

AbstractExposure to violent video games is associated with aggressive behaviors among adolescents. However, not all adolescents who play violent video games demonstrate bullying behaviors. Based on the General Aggression Model (GAM), this cross‐sectional study examined the interactive effect of individuals (i.e., belief in a just world [BJW]) and situational factors (i.e., violent video game exposure [VVGE]) on bullying perpetration. Using a representative sample of 4250 adolescents from five secondary schools in Southwest China (54.4% males, Mage = 15.14, SD = 1.5 years old), we examined the moderating role of BJW in the relationship between VVGE and bullying perpetration. The results suggest that VVGE is significantly and positively associated with bullying perpetration. Moreover, after controlling for covariates, general and personal BJW interact with the situational variable (i.e., VVGE) to predict bullying perpetration among Chinese adolescents. The positive effect of VVGE on bullying perpetration is lower among adolescents with high general and personal BJW than among adolescents with low BJW. The findings support the GAM theory and highlight the buffering role of BJW in the effect of VVGE on bullying perpetration.

O’Donohue W., Fisher J.E.

In this article, we explicate a relatively ignored construct in clinical science—procedural justice. Procedural justice is concerned with adjudicative processes in which norms are applied to particular cases in which there is an allegation of some transgression. Psychologists often value social justice, but there can be no social justice without procedural justice. Procedural-justice concerns arise in a wide variety of interpersonal contexts, including diagnoses, administrative adjudications such as ethics complaints or Title IX hearings, conflicts clients experience with others, and more informal contexts such as gossip. Exemplars of problematic procedural justice relevant to psychologists are described. We argue that there are five general dimensions of procedural justice (epistemic, ethical, subjective, legal, and pragmatic) and 20 specific principles of procedural fairness. Suggestions for improved practice and future research are provided. Procedural justice exemplifies values embodied in the late Scott Lilienfeld’s work and life.

Bartholomaeus J., Kiral Ucar G., Donat M., Nartova-Bochaver S., Thomas K.

The belief in a just world (BJW) is theorised to be a universal personality disposition. In this study we contrast this notion with that of Justice Capital, which suggests that BJW varies based on the individual’s justice experience. We achieve this comparison via a psychometric analysis of the BJW scales across cultural and demographic groups. Invariance; equivalence of reliability metrics; differences in latent means; and consistency in construct validity—differential associations with perceived control, hopelessness, and optimism—were analysed across Germany, Russia, Australia, Brazil, Turkey, the USA, sex, age, income type, and economic status (n = 1250). Findings provide support for both the universality and malleability of BJW. We discuss how these findings advance BJW theorising and their important implications for BJW measurement.

Thomas K.J.

Perceptions of justice have been extensively researched within just world theory as both defensive coping mechanisms and as personal resources. This paper advocates for more programmatic efforts to be devoted to understanding perceptions of justice as rational reflections of individual access to justice. Justice Capital is conceptualised here as an individual difference based on status, microsystem authorities, effort-effect pipeline, voice, and society. These dimensions can overlap and operate on both personal and systemic levels. It is a form of capital to experience the effect of one's actions, to be treated fairly by authorities, to self-advocate, and to live in a society that has a higher justice baseline. Currently, just-world theory correlational research alternates between its positive and negative effects and between viewing belief in a just world as a predictor or as an outcome. For research to move forward productively in this field, researchers must articulate and investigate when self-evaluations of justice are rational reflections of participants' individual access to justice and connect research to existing injustices. This paper points to existing evidence of a Justice Capital interpretation and suggests how this construct can advance the theory into new directions of empirical research.

Granot Y., Tyler T.R., Durkin A.

Adolescence and later childhood are critical periods for developing attitudes toward legal authorities, a process known as legal socialization. Traditionally, scholars have understood contact with local police officers and experiences with the juvenile justice system to drive legal socialization. These interactions, and in particular how fair they are perceived to be, influence long-term views about the legitimacy of the legal system and future criminal behavior. In recent years, however, the potential for adolescent contact with police has increased exponentially through their presence in a new context: schools. In a survey of high schoolers, we explored how school-based police, school resource officers (SROs), function as an emerging nexus of legal socialization. We found that SROs’ influence extends beyond school grounds: the more procedurally just students perceived SROs to be, the more they were willing to follow their directives and to obey police outside of school. Further, procedural justice perceptions of SROs were correlated with school climate outcomes, including self-reported academic success, anxiety, and identification with the school community. Our results speak to the connection between legal socialization and other developmental processes like community engagement and support expanding robust theories of legal socialization to consider arenas that intermingle legal and non-legal authority.

Barak‐Corren N., Perry‐Hazan L.

COVID-19 has challenged people worldwide to comply with strict lock-downs and meticulous healthcare instructions. Can states harness enclave communities to comply with the law in such crucial times, even when compliance conflicts with communal sources of authority? We investigated this question through the case of Israeli ultra-Orthodox schools compliance with COVID-19 regulations. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with school principals, documents and media sources, and a field survey, we found that the state has the capacity to quickly internalize new norms and harness the cooperation of previously suspicious communities. At the same time, we found that communal authorities were able to shield widespread communal defiance from legal enforcement. These findings expose the bidirectionality of legal socialization: As the community uses its defiance power to attenuate the law, it socializes public authorities to accede to their bounded authority. As public authorities come to realize that the community cannot be brought to full compliance, they curtail enforcement efforts and socialize the community to operate outside the law. Our findings animate the reciprocity assumption in legal socialization theory and highlight one of the crucial tasks for the next 50 years of research: to examine the bidirectionality of legal socialization and discover its socio-legal effects.

Tyler T.R.

Trinkner R., Reisig M.D.

Cardwell S.M., Mazerolle L., Piquero A.R., Luengen K.

Murphy K.

Police rely on citizens to report crime and victimization. Yet for many people low levels of trust in police and concerns about unjust police treatment impact their willingness to engage proactively with police. For some, defying police authority is common. This can be particularly so for ethnic, racial, and religious minority groups. The personal and vicarious experiences these groups have with police play an important role in the legal socialization process, shaping how they perceive and behave toward police. As a religious minority group Muslims have experienced intense scrutiny from police. As such, the current study examines how and why Muslims defy police authority. Using survey data from 398 Australian Muslims, this study tests whether Muslims’ concerns about procedural justice and bounded-authority violations (i.e., the belief that police overstep the boundaries of acceptable authority) have differential effects on two types of defiance: resistance and disengagement. Findings show that Muslims’ concerns about procedural justice are most important for understanding resistance, while disengagement is dominated by concerns about perceived boundary violations. Further, procedural justice moderates the association between bounded-authority concerns and resistance, but not disengagement. The implications of these findings for the legal socialization process, theory, and police practice are discussed.