Procedural Justice Scale

Abstract

The Procedural Justice scale is a psychological measure designed to assess employee perceptions regarding the fairness of organizational procedures. Developed primarily by McFarlin and Sweeney (1992), this instrument utilizes a structure and response format similar to the Distributive Justice Index. The core focus of the scale is evaluating the fairness of the means or processes used by the organization to determine employee rewards and outcomes. Initial items address critical organizational activities such as communicating performance feedback, determining pay raises, evaluating performance, and determining promotions. Later refinements by Aquino, Lewis, and Bradfield (1999) expanded the scale to include procedures related to employee termination, discipline, and the process for expressing grievances, enhancing its scope within organizational settings.

Keywords

Procedural Justice, Organizational Justice, Distributive Justice, Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment, Employee Perceptions, Fairness, Workplace Procedures, McFarlin and Sweeney.

Authors

D. B. McFarlin, P. D. Sweeney, K. Aquino, M. G. Lewis, P. Bradfield.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Procedural Justice scale is to quantify and analyze how employees perceive the fairness inherent in the processes and rules used by their organization. It serves as a tool for researchers and human resource professionals to diagnose organizational health by focusing on the "means" rather than just the "ends" (outcomes). By assessing perceptions of procedural fairness across key employment decisions—such as compensation, evaluation, and promotion—the scale helps predict critical organizational outcomes like commitment and satisfaction.

Construct

The scale measures Procedural Justice, which is defined as the perceived fairness of the rules, policies, and procedures employed in making allocation decisions within an organization. Unlike Distributive Justice, which focuses on the fairness of the actual outcome (e.g., the amount of a raise), procedural justice focuses on the structure of the decision-making process itself. Key components of this construct include consistency, accuracy, bias suppression, correctability, representativeness, and ethicality of the procedures used. The scale captures the employee’s subjective assessment of whether the organizational processes adhere to these principles of fairness.

Validity

Empirical evidence supports the construct and criterion validity of the scale. Studies have established clear relationships between perceived procedural justice and various organizational variables. Specifically, procedural justice perceptions were found to be negatively correlated with employee deviant behaviors directed against coworkers, indicating that fair processes help mitigate workplace misconduct. Conversely, positive correlations were observed with desirable outcomes, including job satisfaction, pay level satisfaction, and evaluations of supervisors.

Furthermore, procedural justice demonstrated empirical distinctiveness from related justice constructs, such as distributive justice and interactive justice. Structural equation modeling conducted by Sweeney and McFarlin (1993) highlighted differential predictive power: while distributive justice was a stronger predictor of overall job satisfaction, procedural justice emerged as the superior predictor of organizational commitment. This distinction provides strong evidence for the scale’s discriminant validity, confirming that it measures a unique aspect of organizational fairness.

Reliability

The internal consistency of the Procedural Justice scale has been consistently demonstrated across multiple studies involving different samples. Reliability is typically measured using Coefficient alpha (Cronbach’s alpha). Reported alpha values for the scale generally ranged from .73 to .85 in major studies conducted by McFarlin and Sweeney (1992), Sweeney and McFarlin (1993), and Aquino, Lewis, and Bradfield (1999). These values meet or exceed standard thresholds for reliable psychological measurement, indicating strong internal consistency among the items.

Factor Analysis

Analysis of the scale’s underlying structure confirms its intended dimensionality. Aquino, Lewis, and Bradfield (1999) utilized confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to investigate the structure of the expanded measure. Their findings supported a one-dimensional (unidimensional) structure for procedural justice. Crucially, the CFA results also verified that the procedural justice dimension was empirically distinct from the distributive justice dimension, supporting the theoretical separation of these two constructs in organizational psychology research.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report questionnaire, Psychological scale

Format: Likert-type scale (5-point response format)

Language Available: English (Original development language)

Population Group: Employees, Organizational Workers

Age Group: Adult (Working age population)

Population Details: Primarily developed and tested within various organizational and corporate settings.

Test Methodology: Respondents rate the fairness of specific organizational procedures. The scale anchors are typically 1 = very unfair and 5 = very fair.

Keywords

Workplace Fairness, Employee Rewards, Performance Evaluation, Pay Raises, Promotions, Organizational Behavior, Industrial/Organizational Psychology, Scale Development.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not specified in source material; Unknown.

Affiliation Email addresses: Not specified in source material; Unknown.

Correspondence Address: Not specified in source material; Unknown.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The scale was initially developed in 1992 by McFarlin and Sweeney. The core items were published in 1993 in the journal Organizational Behavior & Human Decision Processes. The source text notes that the original publication holds copyright by Academic Press (1993), and items were reproduced with permission. Researchers intending to use the scale should consult the original publication for specific usage guidelines and permissions requirements, particularly concerning commercial use.

Reference’s

• Aquino, K., Lewis, M. G., & Bradfield, P. (1999). The effects of procedural fairness on the desire for revenge. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 35(5), 503-518.
• McFarlin, D. B., & Sweeney, P. D. (1992). Distributive and procedural justice as predictors of satisfaction with personal and organizational outcomes. Academy of Management Journal, 35(3), 626-637.
• Sweeney, P. D., & McFarlin, D. B. (1993). Workers’ evaluations of the "ends" and the "means": An examination of four models of distributive and procedural justice. Organizational Behavior & Human Decision Processes, 55(1), 23-40. Copyright© 1993 by Academic Press.

Items of the Procedural Justice scale

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

Responses are obtained on a 5-point Likert-type scale where 1 = very unfair and 5 = very fair.

1. How fair or unfair are the procedures used to communicate performance feedback?
2. How fair or unfair are the procedures used to determine pay raises?
3. How fair or unfair are the procedures used to evaluate performance.
4. How fair or unfair are the procedures used to determine promotions?