Do minorities perceive procedural fairness merely in terms of ethnic bias suppression? Evaluation of the concept of fairness in multicultural conflicts

ABSTRACT

The present study investigated the impact of perceived procedural fairness enacted by societal actors on minority members’ willingness to accept decisions regarding multicultural issues. We particularly focused on ethnic bias suppression, which we expected to be highly salient in this type of conflict and deemed pivotal given its impact on the collective social self. Four studies (one cross-sectional study and three experiments) were conducted in African American minority samples. The results revealed that: (1) perceptions of procedural fairness cannot be reduced to solely evaluations of ethnic bias suppression, (2) the weight placed on bias suppression is indeed substantial, (3) procedural fairness and bias suppression each play a strong role in shaping minority members’ legitimacy perceptions of a decision-maker, and in turn, (4) decision acceptance. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Procedural fairness
• ethnic bias suppression
• legitimacy
• decision acceptance
• multicultural conflicts

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, K.D., upon reasonable request.

Notes

1 General legitimacy and bias perceptions were not measured prior to the manipulation.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Special Research Fund of Ghent University, as a GOA project, under [grant number 01G00716 (BOF16/GOA/007)].