ABSTRACT
As Greenberg (1982, 1987) chronicled, when social psychologists and organizational psychologists first became interested in matters ofjustice in organizations, their focus was reactive in orientation. That is, they paid attention to the manner in which people responded to conditions they believed to be unfair. The most influential approach to embrace this orientation was Adams's (1965) theory of inequity, which examined the ways in which people sought to escape the aversive internal state of inequity they experienced when confronted with perceived imbalances between work-related outcomes and contributions. Then, beginning with Leventhal (1976), social scientists expanded their focus to proactive attempts to create equity (i.e., the way people seek to maintain fair distributions of resources between people). This launched a popular research approach examining people's adherence to various norms of justice (Greenberg, 1982; Greenberg & Cohen, 1982). These orientations not only complement each other, but together, they have provided considerable insight into the topic of organizational justice that is well represented in this book.
