An Attributional Analysis Of Punitive Justice And Responsibility Judgment

Punishment is one of the important means by shaping behavior and character, it can deter certain badness, but whether the function of punishment can exert is largely determined by the perception of punitive justice. Though the research of distributive justice is the concerning focus of a good many subjects, the existed research didn't discuss which of the elements affect the perception of justice from the whole process and how the perception of justice affects the behavior and emotion, say nothing of carrying out the research in some theory. Weiner's attribution theory has more than 30 years history, now already turn into a perfect system info. Many social behavior and phenomena, especially the achievement, can be explained by the theory, but rarely the justice of achievement evaluation. This research intent to combine attribution theory and exist justice research to study the punitive justice process.This research takes Weiner's attribution theory and Feather's deservingness model as the theory foundation, including two parts. The first research probes into the relation between responsibility judgment and justice, strictness. A questionnaire compiled by us was implemented in 4 different companies, and 99 valid questionnaires were collected. The results show that: The responsibility judgment will affect the judgment of punitive justice, but not the strictness judgment, which relates the punitive degree. The second research also takes a self-compiled questionnaire as a study tool, which was implemented in 6 different companies, and 382 valid questionnaires were collected. MANOVA was used to analysis that how control and punitive affect the judgment of responsibility, justice, deservingness, affection and help; LISREL was used to probe into the causality among these variables. The research declares: First, when oral criticism and fire were chosen to punish others, people are more willing to choose oral criticism than fire, which isconsidered more fair. Second, when the obligation is prescribed by the social role, people should be responsible to the negative outcome. At the same time, control will affect the responsibility. The more control for this outcome, The more responsible. Third, the score of responsibility judgment in the fourth context is the lowest, which is distinct from other contexts. Fourth, the deservingness judgment vary with the position. Supervisor, especially middle-level supervisor is more apt to judge that the employee deserved the punishment than generic employee. Fifth, the result approves the rationality of Weiner's responsibility attribution theory. The analysis of control will affect the responsibility judgment, the responsibility judgment influence the affection directly or indirectly, which in turn determines behavior. Sixth, there is a complex relations among the variables of the responsibility, deservingness, justice and pity. Whether responsibility influences pity directly or indirectly by the variables of justice and deservingness awaits more research.