The Role of Individual and Group Deservingness in Judging Fair Treatment
Background of the problem
The outcome of a judgement depends on individual or group level of perception. According to Ross and Miller (2002), the perception of an individual or group is responsible for the positive or negative outcome. Fairness in judgments uses a respectful procedure that is contingent on deservingness (Feather, 2003). The courts are embracing the procedural fairness judgments to deserve respect. Fairness in judgment has more effect on an individual level than group level (Feather, 2002). Judgment is contingent on the individual perception to the positive or negative outcome. The judgment of deservingness depends on the structure of the case values. A person should feel responsible for the judgement outcomes because of his or her actions.
An individual has the role of judging whether the other group or person deserves or does not deserve an outcome that can be positive or negative. The outcome follows from the other persons positive or negative actions in which the person assumes to be responsible. The judgement should point the views of the person in order to have a satisfactory outcome (Feather, 2010). The model to use in judgment should evaluate the outcome that will be fair, and that deserves success of the court. Bringing self into the deservingness structures would have interesting implications concerning how a person reacts to his or her own positive or negative outcomes (Feather, 1999).
Positive perceptions have a tendency of having positive outcomes and negative perceptions results to negative outcomes. Personal behaviour in court sessions should be skewed to deserve benefits from the outcome (Feather, 2003). The behaviour in court determines the punishment the individual will receive, and it may lead to unsatisfactory outcome. The deservingness of a person should relate to the legal concepts such as mitigation and justification of the effects the person perceives (Feather, 2002).
There are many procedural fairness procedures whose deservingness fair outcome. Fairness will result to the satisfaction of the outcome in the court verdict. Studies indicate that voice is essential and whose deservingness leads to influencing the final decision and outcome (Feather, 2010). Voice best integrates in the procedural fairness and it are an instrument of explanation. The information through the voice demonstrates the importance and reasons for fairness in the outcome that will lead to satisfaction (Feather, 2003).
Statement of the problem
Courts are perceived as areas that exercise fairness in their legal and decision making. Some situations in the court proceedings do not favour fair outcome hence having unsatisfactory outcome (Feinberg, 1970). The court verdicts should demonstrate satisfaction concern and fairness concerns. Deservingness has a connection on behaviour in court or the past. This means that a positive behaviour will lead to fairness in the legal procedures leading to a satisfactory outcome (Heuer, Blumenthal & Weinblatt, 1999).
In reality, respectful behaviour in courts does not wholly determine the fairness in the legal procedures (van de Bos, et al. 2003). The individual will feel that the legal procedures and other decision making procedures were unsatisfactory, and this leads to unsatisfactory outcome. Appeal cases come about due to unsatisfactory outcome. There should be standardization of the legal procedures so that respectful behaviours should lead to fairness of the outcome and satisfactory outcome.
The fairness of the legal procedures to have a satisfactory outcome will be achieved through targeting some individual and groups in the judiciary and society. The groups will be moderated to have positive, negative, respectful and disrespectful conditions. Comparison will be made between respectful versus disrespectful and positive versus negative. The baseline of the study will be fairness judgment which will cut across the four groups in the study.
Hypothesis
1. Respectful treatment does not affect the degree to which an individual is perceived as valued by the social group.
Previous studies indicate that treating a person with respect does not change the perception of the society towards the individual (Ross & Miller, 1999). Respect in most societies cut across all the social classes of people living within the society. The study will provide evidence on respectful treatment in the court proceeding whether it will affect the perception of the judges in giving a fair and satisfactory outcome. A t-test will be used to analyze the results…
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