ABSTRACT
Chapters 2 and 3 described some noteworthy extensions to the process-outcome interaction summarized by Brockner and Wiesenfeld (1996), which showed that high process fairness reduced the effect of outcome favorability on people’s reactions to decisions relative to when process fairness was low. The years since 1996 have provided considerable evidence that the interaction effect also may take a form decidedly different from that discussed in Chapters 2 and 3. Chapter 4 discusses how high process fairness may heighten the effect of outcome favorability relative to when process fairness is low. To be sure, the tendency for high process fairness to heighten the influence of outcome favorability emerged in a handful of studies reported by Brockner and Wiesenfeld, who referred to such findings as “contrary interactions.” Not only did the contrary interactions take a different form from the vast majority of studies reported by Brockner and Wiesenfeld, but also they emerged on different types of dependent variables, namely, those reflective of people’s self-evaluations, such as their state self-esteem (Schroth & Shah, 2000) or their self-efficacy (Gilliland, 1994).
