Appraisal -Tendency Framework: Emotions and Perceptions of Social Injustice

This research project studies the Appraisal-Tendency Framework. Specifically, it observes whether emotional dispositions, such as sadness-proneness or trait anger, affect judgements made on whether a situation is just or unjust. In addition, this study also presents the question of whether gender impacts perceptions of fairness. All participants will be recruited from a Southeastern University. This study consists of two parts. For part one, all participants will complete an online survey to assess individual differences. Part two contains the experimental manipulations. This study uses a 2 (emotional induction) x 2 (gender of actor) design. For the emotional induction, participants will be randomly assigned to view a clip meant to induce feelings of sadness or feelings of anger. All participants will be asked to write a short response of a real-life emotional experience matching the emotion of the condition they are assigned to. They will then be randomly assigned to view a clip of an unjust situation carried out by either a female professor or a male professor. The outcome of this study could provide organizations with a better understanding of why certain emotions relate to certain judgements and decisions