ABSTRACT
Justice related studies have shown that procedural fairness can be an important factor for behavior in social conflicts. This chapter researches the results point to the fact that a lack of procedural fairness can lead to protest behavior and deviant behavior. Greenberg studied fairness reactions to payment distributions in different conditions of outcome favorability and fairness of procedure. In the fair condition, subjects were told that their payment depended on their task performance. In a laboratory experiment, the authors varied procedural justice and outcome favorability and investigated their influence on emotional states. The conflict chosen for the study was a local planning conflict in the community of Trier in Germany. The chapter focuses on the variables hardness and cooperation in conflict resolution. We chose to operationalize hardness and cooperation as readiness for behavior. The concept of readiness refers to commitments for classes of behaviors rather than intentions that are directed towards very specific behaviors.
