Justice and culture

In this chapter, I focus on the issue of justice and culture. Against the background of a debate about justice judgments being culturally determined versus invariant across cultures, I argue that justice motivates people because fair and just treatment signals that your culture, and important persons (such as judges and other societal authorities) and social institutions (such as law) in that culture, view you as a person that matters and is valued. In contrast, unfair and unjust treatment symbolizes that you are not a full-fledged and valued part of your culture. I then review findings that suggest that social distance between participants and interviewers from your culture’s status quo (such as those coming from law schools and other university departments) may have resulted in missing important cultural differences in people’s trust in law. These findings fit with the notion that the field of legal judgment and justice issues may have been relying too much on insights from Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) participants and interviewers. I close by pointing out how studying cross-cultural effects by means of experimental control may help to get more robust insights into the important issue of justice and culture.