The social psychology of fairness and the regulation of personal uncertainty: Implications for understanding the role of trust in society

This chapter focuses on the relationship between the uncertain self and how people respond to fair and unfair events. The importance of fairness judgments arises, we argue, because fair and unfair events are experiences that occur at the social interface where the individual meets the collective. In particular, how fairly or unfairly an individual is treated often communicates important information about how groups regard the individual. This quintessentially social quality of fairness judgments makes these judgments of great relevance to social psychologists studying the uncertain self. In particular, our uncertainty management model proposes that fairness plays an important role in processes of uncertainty management and self-regulation. The review that we will base on our 2009 treatment of these issues will suggest that fairness judgments indeed seem to function as a crucial tool with which people manage uncertainty about themselves, the world around them, and the interrelation between the two. Furthermore, in this revised version of our 2009 chapter we will zoom into recent insights on the important role trust in society.