Values, achievement, and justice studies in the psychology of deservingness

This book relates judgements of `deservingness' or `undeservingness' to perceived responsibility, values, liking relations, and ingroup/outgroup relations. The book presents a social-cognitive process model concerned with how people react to offenses and to the perpetrators of offenses. Studies concerned with achievement outcomes and with retributive justice, and ways in which the theoretical approach might be further developed, are described.

1. Introduction and Overview. Judgments and Deservingness. Positively and Negatively Valued Actions and Outcomes. Causal Attributions and Perceived Responsibility. Other Variables Affecting Deservingness. Relation to Other Approaches. Fairness, Entitlement, and Deservingness. Summary and Overview of Chapters. 2. Perceived Responsibility. Heider's Levels of Responsibility. Common Sense and Legal Aspects of Responsibility. The Triangle Model of Responsibility. Judgments of Responsibility. Responsibility and Blame. Conclusing Comments. 3. Values and Valences. The Concept of Value. Values and Valences. Values, Valences, and Associative Networks. Research Studies. The Engagement of Values. Concluding Comments. 4. The Deservingness Model. Social Identity and Interpersonal Relations. Perceived Moral Character. Balance Theory. Graph Theory. The Structural Model of Deservingness. Modes of Resolution. Some Possible Extensions. Concluding Comments. 5. Achievement and Deservingness.Tall Poppy Research. Two Early Studies. Responsibility and Deservingness in Success and Failure Situations. Studies of Public Figures. Deservingness, Affect, Employment, and Unemployment. Concluding Comments. 6. A Social-Cognitive Process Model of Retributive Justice. Modeling Reactions to Penalties for Offenses. Research Studies. Concluding Comments. 7. Social Identity, Moral Character, and Retributive Justice. Ingroup/Outgroup Effects on Reactions to Offenses. Moral Character and Reactions to Offenses. Concluding Comments. 8. Final Reflections. Further Extensions. Concluding Comments. References. Name Index. Subject Index.