ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the implications of societal transformations, and consequent disruptions in system legitimacy for the social-psychological principles used in arriving at assessments of economic justice. Data from the International Social Justice Project (ISJP) are used to test several hypotheses, based on theories of justice evaluation, regarding the determinants of justice perceptions. Research findings show that people do evaluate income distributions in terms of notions of justice. Not only do they distinguish just from unjust allotments of income, they also distinguish degrees of injustice. In an effort to understand the patterns, the analyses reported explored the applicability of theories of justice evaluation to the understanding of national differences in perceived legitimacy. The chapter hypothesizes that level of perceived family need would play a role in shaping perceptions of job deserts, but a much stronger one in Eastern European countries than in the West, and strong support is given for this hypothesis.
