Attribution of Justice in White-Collar Crime : The Impact of Acculturation and Ethnocentrism on Perceived Justness

This study examined the effect of ethnocentrism, acculturation, prescriptive (the subjects ideal view of justice) versus descriptive justice (the subjects perception of justice as it actually occurs) on perceived justice in white-collar crime. Also investigated was the impact of situational outcomes (related or not), and good or bad outcomes on the perceived justness of the situation. Main effects partially support the hypotheses that: 1) ethnocentrism impacts perceived justice in office crime situations, 2) subject acculturation impacts the perceived justness the character, and 3) the outcome of a crime incident impacts the perceived justness of the situation. The effects of ethnocentrism, various outcomes, and acculturation provide an insight into the complex process of perceived justice. The findings in this study do not clearly support the findings of Starr, Sloan, and Kudrick (1997) or the findings of Lee, Pepitone, and Albright (1997) but tentatively substantiated some of the hypotheses presented. Although the findings may have supported the operation of non-chance factors, this is unclear. The manipulations did seem to work (at least modestly), but the subjects in this study did not seem to respond clearly to the stimulus materials as expected