Perceived Injustice Scale

Abstract

The Perceived Injustice scale, developed by Hodson, Creighton, Jamison, Rieble, and Welsh in 1994, is a concise psychometric instrument designed to quantify the degree to which employees feel they are being treated unfairly by their employer. Unlike measures that rely on generalized evaluations, this scale utilizes four specific, targeted questions to assess perceptions of injustice within the organizational context. The original development of this measure was rooted in sociological research aiming to explore how evolving methods of labor incorporation affect employee solidarity and potential resistance within the modern workplace.

Keywords

Perceived Injustice scale, organizational justice, employee treatment, workplace fairness, labor relations, employee resistance, solidarity, organizational behavior, Hodson.

Authors

Hodson, R., Creighton, S., Jamison, C. S., Rieble, S., Welsh, S.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Perceived Injustice scale is to provide a focused, empirical assessment of perceived unfairness experienced by workers regarding their employer’s actions and policies. It moves beyond broad satisfaction metrics to pinpoint specific dimensions of perceived injustice, such as favoritism or unequal distribution of workload and credit.

Historically, the scale was instrumental in a study investigating the complex relationship between workplace participation models and the formation of employee consent or resistance. By isolating perceived injustice, researchers could better analyze its role as a predictor of broader labor attitudes, including the formation of workplace solidarity.

Construct

The scale measures the psychological construct of Perceived Injustice, specifically within the context of the employer-employee relationship. This construct is defined by the employee’s subjective evaluation that organizational procedures, treatment, or outcomes are inequitable or unfair.

The four items comprising the scale target specific manifestations of perceived unfairness, including procedural issues (e.g., special treatment for favored employees), distributional issues (e.g., credit allocation), and organizational inefficiencies (e.g., work burdens resulting from external departmental failures). This specificity allows for a nuanced understanding of the sources of perceived unfairness.

Validity

The validity of the Perceived Injustice scale was examined through multivariate regression analysis, establishing significant relationships between the construct and various organizational and demographic variables.

Findings indicated that perceived injustice was positively correlated with several factors suggesting organizational strain or complexity, including high levels of workplace participation, employment in a physically demanding job, and working within a larger organizational structure. Conversely, perceived injustice showed a negative relationship with protective or stabilizing factors, such as being married, occupying a higher socioeconomic status, the presence of more formalized bureaucratic procedures, and higher levels of employee solidarity.

Reliability

The internal consistency of the Perceived Injustice scale demonstrated acceptable reliability for social science research. The measure achieved a Coefficient Alpha of 0.70 (Hodson et al., 1994). This value suggests that the four items consistently measure the same underlying construct of perceived unfairness.

Factor Analysis

A confirmatory analysis was conducted by Hodson et al. (1994) wherein the four items assessing perceived injustice were factor analyzed alongside four additional items measuring employee workplace solidarity. The results strongly supported the unidimensionality of the scale.

Specifically, the four items designed to measure perceived injustice loaded onto a single, distinct factor. Crucially, there were no significant cross-loadings observed between the injustice items and the solidarity items, confirming that the scale successfully isolates the construct of perceived injustice separate from related concepts like employee solidarity.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report questionnaire.

Format: Four items utilizing a 4-point Likert-type scale.

Language Available: English (Original development).

Population Group: Employees/Workers.

Age Group: Adult working population.

Population Details: Developed based on samples of employees across various organizational settings, focusing on the labor process.

Test Methodology: Quantitative assessment of subjective perceptions of organizational unfairness. Responses range from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree).

Keywords

Psychometrics, organizational justice, workplace equity, employee attitudes, labor research, scale development, internal consistency, factor loading, socioeconomic status.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not specified in source content.

Affiliation Email addresses: Not specified in source content.

Correspondence Address: Not specified in source content.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The scale was published in 1994. The items were extracted from the academic journal article published in Human Relations, volume 47, issue 8. Permission for use or licensing fees should be directed to the original publisher, Sage Ltd., or the primary authors (Hodson, R., et al.).

Reference’s

Hodson, R., Creighton, S., Jamison, C. S., Rieble, S., & Welsh, S. (1994). Loyalty to whom? Workplace participation and the development of consent. Human Relations, 47(8), 895-909. Items were taken from text, p. 905. © Sage Ltd. Reprinted with permission.

Items of the Perceived Injustice scale

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

Responses are obtained using a 4-point Likert-type scale where 4 = strongly agree, 3 = somewhat agree, 2 = somewhat disagree, and 1 = strongly disagree.

1. Some people at my workplace receive special treatment because they are friendly with supervisors
2. People at my workplace sometimes get credit for doing more than they actually do
3. People at my workplace sometimes put off finishing tasks so that they do not get assigned additional work
4. The work in my department is often more difficult than it needs to be because people in other departments do not do their jobs the best they could