European Journal of Social Psychology

Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 39, 384400 (2009)

Published online 29 April 2008 in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.529

When passion breeds justice: Procedural fairness

effects as a function of authoritys passion

DAVID DE CREMER1* AND NATHALIE DEN OUDEN2

1
Department of Psychology, Tilburg University, The Netherlands
2
Department of Experimental Psychology, Maastricht University,
The Netherlands

Abstract

The present research examined how procedural fairness predicts negative emotions and withdrawal behavior as a function
of authoritys display of passion. A first study revealed that reinforcing the concept of passion made the concept of justice
and fairness more accessible to participants, as such suggesting that authority passion should make people focus more on
procedural fairness information. Corroborating this line of reasoning, a scenario experiment and a laboratory experiment
thereafter yielded consistent evidence that the effects of procedural fairness (i.e., voice vs. no voice) were stronger
on negative emotions and willingness to withdraw when the authority was passionate relative to not being passionate. In
addition, the results of both studies also revealed that negative emotions mediated the effect of procedural fairness on
withdrawal, but only so when the authority was passionate (i.e., mediated moderation). It is concluded that more research
is needed focusing on the interactions between different authority styles/characteristics and procedural fairness effects.
Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Within groups, organizations and societies, many of us will prefer that decisions and interactions are happening in a fair
and consistent manner. One way of assuring such type of fairness is to ensure that the enacted procedures are fair; an issue
referred to as procedural fairness (Thibaut & Walker, 1975; Tyler, 1988). Indeed, the concept of procedural fairness can be
seen as intuitively related to humanitarian, and even so, ethical standards that describe how we should act and treat others
(e.g., Miller, 2001). The one procedural rule that has received the most attention and is considered to be most prototypical
of procedural fairness is the rule of voice (Leventhal, 1980). Indeed, ever since Folger (1977), a vast amount of research
has shown that receiving the opportunity to voice ones opinion is perceived as more fair than excluding them from such a
possibility. In the present research we will use the procedural rule of voice as the operationalization of procedural fairness.
The importance of procedural rules such as voice to the functioning of collectives is demonstrated by recent studies that
violations of procedural fairness rules can lead to strong negative reactions such as the display of negative emotions and
withdrawal behaviors (e.g., Dailey & Kirk, 1992; De Cremer, 2004, 2007; Van den Bos, 2001a).
One aspect that has received little empirical attention in the social psychology literature on procedural fairness is how
the authority acts when enacting procedures in societies and groups (De Cremer & Alberts, 2004). To date, most attention
has been devoted to studying the importance of another form of fairness, that is, interactional fairness in the workings of
leaders and authorities (e.g., Cropanzano, Prehar, & Chen, 2002; De Cremer, van Dijke, & Bos, 2007; Lipponen, Koivisot,
& Olkkonen, 2005). In addition, although interactional fairness and procedural fairness represent two different fairness
dimensions (see Bies & Moag, 1986; Korsgaard, Roberson, & Rymph, 1998), they are somewhat related in a way that they
both address concerns of treatment, suggesting that procedural fairness also may ave implications for the workings of
authorities.

*Correspondence to: David De Cremer, Department of Social Psychology, Center of Justice and Social Decision Making, (JuST; www.centerofjust.com),
P.O. Box 90153, 5000LE Tilburg, The Netherlands. E-mail: d.decremer@uvt.nl

Received 21 May 2007

Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Accepted 7 March 2008
 Procedural fairness, authoritys passion, negative emotions and withdrawal 385

As a matter of fact, the lack of attention to this issue is surprising because the literature explicitly refers to the issue of
authority in conveying procedural fairness information, as, for example, is demonstrated in the name of one of the most
influential procedural fairness models, that is, the relational model of authority (Tyler & Lind, 1992). Building on this
relational model, an authority is seen as referring to the power and influence that an individual (e.g., leader, supervisor) or
representative of an institution (e.g., University College, government) can exert (see Tyler & Lind, 1992, p. 117). Thus, an
authority refers to a representative figure able to influence the use of decision-making procedures. It is fair to note,
however, that the procedural fairness literature has largely failed to include relevant insights from research on authorities
and leadership into the development of their ideas (Bies, 2005).
In the present paper, we address this issue by examining the interaction between a characteristic important for being an
influential authority (i.e., passion for the job) and the enactment of the procedural rule of voice. It is examined whether the
passion of the authority moderates the employment of the voice procedure on peoples negative emotional reactions and
withdrawal behaviors. Demonstrating such interactive effect will provide evidence that insights from research on authority
figures need to be integrated with insights from the procedural fairness literature, particularly because in real-life settings
the displays of an authority often accompany decision-making procedures.

AUTHORITY AND PROCEDURAL FAIRNESS

Despite the importance of authorityfollower relationships in procedural fairness studies, hardly any attention is given to
which behavioral styles and authority characteristics may facilitate and enhance procedural fairness effects (De Cremer &
Alberts, 2004). Recently, several researchers have explicitly referred to this lack of integration between fairness and issues
involving authority. For example, Bies (2005, p. 105) noted why justice is no longer a figural element in the dominant
models of leadership and management today emerges as intriguing question. A possible reason for this may be that, as Tyler
(2001, p. 69) notes, social justice research typically has not been thought of as being research about social influence,
whereas an essential characteristic of leadership and authority is the aspect of influence (Chemers, 2001). Nevertheless, it
remains intriguing that justice research does explicitly refer to authority dynamics with respect to fair treatment (e.g.,
relational model of authority, Tyler & Lind, 1992), but does not perceive it to be an element included in authority.
Fortunately, researchers studying authorities (i.e., leadership, management, representatives and institutions) and
procedural fairness have started to realize that integration is necessary. So, what has been done to date in terms of research
looking at authority dynamics and procedural fairness? A first line of research focused on understanding the relationship
between the group membership of the authority and procedural fairness. These studies use the assumption that leaders and
authorities belong to the group or collective and thus are subject to the same normative and group influences as the other
members of the collective are (Hogg & van Knippenberg, 2003). Consequently, leaders and authorities should be
representative of the group that they represent by being an ingroup or prototypical group member. For example, Smith,
Tyler, Huo, Ortiz, and Lind (1998) demonstrated that the effect of procedural fairness on measures of respect and
self-esteem was more pronounced when the leader was an ingroup rather than an outgroup member.
A second line of research emphasized the importance of different behavioral styles of an authority affecting procedural
fairness effects. That is, these studies reasoned that the behavior that a representative authority displays while enacting
decision-making procedures also matters. For example, De Cremer, van Knippenberg, van Knippenberg, Mullenders, and
Stinglhamber (2005) showed that if a leader was supportive to followers to celebrate a job well done (i.e., high in
self-rewarding leadership style), procedural fairness effects on followers level of self-esteem was facilitated, whereas this
was not the case when a leader was considered low on this leadership style (see also De Cremer & van Knippenberg, 2002,
for evidence of an interactive effect between leader self-sacrifice and procedural fairness).
The message from this recent research focus thus suggests that insights from research on authorities and justice can be
integrated by looking at moderating effects of authority behavior and characteristics. Importantly, this theoretical
approach also fits well with daily life experiences of leaders, managers, and representatives of institutions, who often have
to implement procedures and in doing this they adopt their own personal style and characteristics (Yukl, 1998). Thus, it is
therefore necessary to look at the interactive effects between authority styles and procedural fairness, because (1) it has
strong real-life validity, (2) it integrates both literatures, (3) it identifies conditions under which procedural fairness is more
vs. less effective in affecting peoples reactions, and (4) it highlights that the dynamics surrounding authority often

Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 39, 384400 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/ejsp
386 David De Cremer and Nathalie den Ouden

involves interactions between different dimensions of influence such as behavioral styles/characteristics and enactment of
decision-making procedures. In the following, we will elaborate on one important authority characteristic that may
moderate procedural fairness, that is, authoritys passion.

PROCEDURAL FAIRNESS EFFECTS AS A FUNCTION OF THE PASSION OF THE AUTHORITY

To date, passion has not received much attention within the field of (social) psychology. Therefore, it is necessary to, first
of all, conceptualize the type of passion that will be addressed in the present research. Importantly, although passion can be
looked at in a negative way (i.e., loss of reason and control), in the present paper, we emphasize the positive aspects of
passion. That is, passion underlying ones decisions and behavior can contribute positively to high and better achievement
and the positive feelings surrounding it.
In our effort to conceptualize passion, we rely on recent work of Vallerand and colleagues (Mageau & Vallerand, 2007;
Vallerand et al., 2003; Vallerand and Houlfort; 2003Vallerand & Houlfort; 2003), which is, at least to our knowledge, one
of the only empirically validated theoretical approaches to passion in social and organizational psychology. Vallerand and
Houlfort (2003), for example, note that, passion refers to a strong inclination toward an activity that people like, that they
find important, and in which they invest time and energy (p. 177). Elaborating on this assumption, in the present paper, we
therefore define passion of the authority as the degree to which the authority communicates that he/she has strong
engagement and commitment (behaviorally and affective) toward the activity or job undertaken. Such kind of passionate
engagement is believed to arouse others and thus draw their attention (Frijda, Mesquita, Sonnemans, & van Goozen,
1991). Importantly, engagement in this activity or job is characterized by a sense of deep interest and a motive to
personally endorse the importance of ones activity engagement (Mageau & Vallerand, 2007). This definition and its
characteristics are used in the present paper to manipulate authority passion (see Study 3).
Thus, someone who has passion displays and communicates a strong intrinsic and arousing motivation to put energy
and effort in his or her work. Such passionate style might be important for authorities, because doing ones job with passion
can arouse others and in this way passionate authorities can serve as an example to others (Conger & Kanungo, 1998),
which may eventually motivate those others to work for the collective (Shamir, House, & Arthur, 1993). In this process, it
stands to reason that a passionate authority, by also arousing others in his or her positive and energetic way of working,
draws peoples attention to his or her actions and decisions (see Frederick & Branigan, 2005). In other words, due to the
nature of passion, passionate leaders become a central focus of attention and the example to pursue (Conger & Kanungo,
1998). One consequence of this process is that passionate authorities become more scrutinized by others and therefore
their actions will also be evaluated in terms of others expectations.
In what way will such passionate authorities then be evaluated? Building on the leadership literature discussing the
effects of those authorities setting examples for others, such as passionate authorities, it is suggested that such authority
types encourage people to embrace and attend more to moral values such as justice and fairness (Brown & Trevino, 2003;
Burns, 1978; Kanungo & Mendonca, 1996).1 This assumption thus implies that other people will evaluate these authority
types in terms of whether they uphold fairness rules and values. As such, in the present paper, we suggest that passionate
authorities, first of all, are energetic and engaged people thereby attracting peoples attention. Consequently, and based on
the leadership literature, we argue that they will be evaluated in terms of how fairly they act and decide. Thus, in other
words, it follows that the use of a procedural fairness rule such as voice should have more effect when this authority is seen
as passionate. That is, the rule of voice will impact upon peoples responses in such a way that no voice will reveal negative
responses and voice will reveal less negative responses, but, particularly so when the authority is passionate.

THE PRESENT RESEARCH

In sum then, we predict that authority passion and procedural fairness interact such that the effects of procedural fairness
are stronger on peoples reactions when the authority is passionate relative to not being passionate. We thus adopt the idea
1
In the present paper we will use the terms of justice and fairness as synonyms.

Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 39, 384400 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/ejsp
 Procedural fairness, authoritys passion, negative emotions and withdrawal 387

that authority (as referred to in relational models of fairness, Tyler & Lind, 1992) involves both behaviors and
decision-making processes (Brown & Trevino, 2003, p. 162), which is in line with recent research showing that the
interactions between different authority dimensions have to be examined (see De Cremer & van Knippenberg, 2002, 2004).
The main dependent measures under investigation will be negative emotional reactions and withdrawal behaviors. In
our introduction, we argue that passionate leaders will arouse followers to attend more intensely and closely to the actions
that the authority undertakes, that is, the enactment of fair or unfair procedures. Recent studies have further revealed that
procedural fairness is an important antecedent of emotional reactions (e.g., De Cremer, 2004; Van den Bos, 2001a), and
particularly so with respect to the emotions of injustice (Bies & Tripp, 2002). As Mikula, Scherer, and Athenstaedt (1998)
have shown, these types of emotions are mostly negative and include a range of anger-related emotions. Therefore, it is
predicted that receiving no voice (relative to voice) will reveal higher negative emotions, and this difference between both
procedure conditions will be more pronounced when the enacting authority is perceived as passionate (Hypothesis 1).
In the present research, we focus on the emotions of frustration and disappointment because both these emotions do
include a reference to a violation of normative expectations such as justice (Lord, Klimiski, & Kanfer, 2002). Moreover,
both emotions could be expected to lead to more passive and negative behaviors that are not aimed at actively and
positively changing the aversive and unexpected situation, but more so to leaving this situation. This line of reasoning, first
of all, follows, recent suggestions that negative affective reactions in organizational and social interactions reveal a host of
negative behaviors (see Brief, 2001). Furthermore, this idea is also very relevant to procedural justice research, because
research shows that receiving no voice increases peoples intentions to exit from their existing relationship (Brockner,
Tyler, & Cooper-Schneider, 1992; Hirshman, 1970; see Conlon, Meyer, & Nowakowski, 2005, for a recent review); an act
that is expected to be driven by negative affective reactions (see Leary, Tambor, Terdal, & Downs, 1995; Spector, 1997).
Therefore, it is predicted that receiving no voice (relative to voice) will reveal higher intentions to withdraw, and this
difference between voice and no voice will be more pronounced when the enacting authority is perceived as passionate
(Hypothesis 2). Furthermore, it is expected that this effect of voice on withdrawal will be mediated by negative emotions,
but particularly so when the authority is passionate (Hypothesis 3).

STUDY 1

Before directly examining whether passion of the authority and procedural fairness interact in determining peoples
responses, we first wanted to demonstrate that information about authority passion makes people more focused on values
such as fairness. One way to demonstrate such accessibility effect is to use a method that tests whether the concept of
passion indeed makes fairness a more accessible construct, as such directing ones attention and information processing.
What gets activated when passion is made salient? We argue that once the idea of passion is reinforced associated
concepts are triggered through spreading activation (Neely, 1977). In other words, if passion is clear to participants,
specific relationships with other concepts are activated, which make that they serve as interpretative frames in the
processing of subsequent information (Higgins, 1996). Thus, the notion of passion should activate the concept of fairness,
which then motivates people to more systematically process any type of fairness-related information, such as whether the
authority enacts fair procedures or not. To examine this, we conducted a study to see whether reinforcing the idea of a
passionate authority would indeed make more accessible to participants the concept of fairness. To achieve this, we relied
on a wordfragment completion task in which participants were required to complete words of which some of them could
be related to fairness (see Van Prooijen, van den Bos, & Wilke, 2002).

METHOD

Participants and Design

A total of 56 undergraduate students (30 women and 26 men, average age 20.91 years, SD 1.53) participated
voluntarily. They were randomly assigned to the experimental condition of Passion.

Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 39, 384400 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/ejsp
388 David De Cremer and Nathalie den Ouden

Procedure

Psychology students were invited by a research assistant to participate in a paper-and-pencil study. If students agreed, they
were taken to a quiet place and given the materials.
Participants were told that they would participate in a study assessing autobiographic memory. More precisely,
participants were required to recall either a professional experience in which they were interacting with an authority (e.g.,
the supervisor of their job, their professor, a representative of the University and so forth) who (in their eyes) was either
very passionate or not passionate at all. They wrote a detailed description of this situation on a separate sheet for 3 min.
Given that imagination scenarios can influence mood (Sedikides, 1995), we asked participants to indicate how sad and
how happy they felt (1 not at all, 7 very much). A one-way MANOVA on the items sadness and happiness did not
reveal a multivariate effect, F(2, 51) 1.45, p < .25, h2 .05, nor a significant univariate effect of sadness, F(1, 52) < 1,
p < .53, h2 .01 (Mpassion 2.53, Mno-passion 2.23), or happiness, F(1, 52) 1.10, p < .30, h2 .02 (Mpassion 5.07,
Mno-passion 4.62).
After having responded to the mood items, participants were required to perform a wordfragment completion task.
They were presented 20 uncompleted Dutch words and they were asked to complete these words in a way that it would
form a correct Dutch word (taken from Van Prooijen et al., 2002). Several solutions were possible. The Dutch word
sometimes consisted of two or three syllables. Following Van Prooijen et al. (2002), of the 20 words, 14 were filler words,
whereas six words were related to fairness or non-fairness words (see Appendix A for more details). For example, one
word that was used in the study ended with lijk, and therefore could be completed in a way that it was a fairness word
(eerlijk, i.e., fair) or a non-fairness word (vrolijk; i.e., happy). Two independent coders blind to the experimental condition
analyzed the stories of the participants, resulting in high inter-rater agreement, Cohens Kappa .82. All discrepancies
were discussed and reconciled by the two coders. After having finished the word-completion task, participants were
thanked, paid, and debriefed.

RESULTS

Analysis of Participants Stories

Because passion is so little studied, we, first of all, explored how our participants conceptualized passion of the authority.
For this reason, we analyzed the stories that the participants reported in both the passionate and non-passionate authority
conditions. This analysis showed that 63% of the descriptions included references to how the authority showed
commitment to and interest in the job that he/she was doing and in the enterprises that the authority engaged. In addition,
this analysis also showed that other references could be classified into three other categories being fairness (14%),
empathy (7%) and descriptions of being heated-up such as fury and anger (16%). All in all, these analyses thus show that
participants conceptualization of passion was closely related to our definition of passion as based on the work of Vallerand
and colleagues.

Number of Fairness Words

A one-way ANOVA on the wordfragment completion task revealed a significant effect of Passion, F(1, 54) 5.02,
p < .05, h2 .09. Participants in the high passion condition reported more fairness-related words than those in the low
passion condition (Ms 2.66 vs. 2.00, SDs 1.00 and 1.17; respectively).

STUDY 2

The findings of Study 1 show that the concept of passion is related to the notion of fairness. Now we have established
this relationship, we build further upon the idea that authority behaviors accompany procedures used to make decisions

Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 39, 384400 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/ejsp
 Procedural fairness, authoritys passion, negative emotions and withdrawal 389

(see Brown & Trevino, 2003, see also De Cremer et al., 2005), and that passion may moderate procedural fairness effects
on peoples negative responses. Indeed, passion seems to direct peoples attention to fairness issues, and thus it could be
inferred that procedural fairness effects will be more pronounced with a passionate relative to non-passionate authority. As
a first test of our interactive hypothesis, we made use of a scenario study. We used a standard manipulation of procedural
justice: voice (Folger, 1977). This refers to whether participants are allowed an input (e.g., opinion) to the decision-making
process. Having voice is associated with perceptions of fairness in procedures (McFarlin & Sweeney, 1996), and is
considered the most successful procedural fairness manipulation (Van den Bos, 1999).

METHOD

Participants and Design

Sixty-one undergraduate students (24 women and 19 men, 19 participants did not indicate their gender; average
age 20.88 years, SD 2.69) participated voluntarily in the study and were each paid 2 euros for their participation.
Participants were randomly assigned to a 2 (authority passion: passion vs. no passion)
2 (voice: voice vs. no voice)
between-subjects factorial design.

Procedure

Undergraduate students were approached by a research assistant at the University lunchroom and were invited to
participate in a short scenario study. Participants who agreed were taken to a quiet place and given a booklet containing the
scenario, instructions and questions. The scenario started with the following description:
You are an employee at Game World, a company that produces and sells computer programs and computer games.
Much of the work is performed in teams and you work in such a team.

Then, the authority passion manipulation was introduced. In the passion condition, participants read the following:
The supervisor of your team is someone with much passion for his job and for the team and her functioning.

In the no-passion condition, participants read:

The supervisor of your team is dispassionate about his job and the team and her functioning.

Thereafter, the voice manipulation followed. All participants first read:

In the near future the company has to make a decision about the production of a new computer game. To arrive at this
decision, all supervisors are asked their opinion and how their teams may think about it.

Subsequently, participants in the voice condition read: With respect to soliciting opinions, the supervisor decides to
ask your opinion. In the no voice condition, participants read: With respect to soliciting opinions, the supervisor decides
not to ask your opinion.
Then, the dependent measures of Study 2 were solicited. All answers were rated on 7-point scales ranging from 1 (not at
all) to 7 (very much so). Two questions first assessed whether the manipulations of leaders passion and procedural justice
were successful: To what extent do you consider your supervisor to be a passionate person? and To what extent was
your opinion listened to? To assess participants negative emotions, they were asked to what extent they felt
disappointed and frustrated. These items were combined to form one average negative emotions score (r .79,
p < .001). To assess withdrawal behavior, participants were asked to what extent they wanted to leave the team and
stop working (r .64, p < .001). Finally, they were thanked, debriefed and paid.

Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 39, 384400 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/ejsp
390 David De Cremer and Nathalie den Ouden

RESULTS

Manipulation Checks

A 2
2 ANOVA on the passion manipulation question only revealed a significant effect of Passion, F(1, 57) 265.66,
p < .001, h2 .82, showing that participants in the passion condition evaluated their supervisor to be more passionate than
those in the no-passion condition (Ms 6.20 vs. 1.55, SDs 1.24 and 0.99; respectively). The effects of Voice, F (1,
57) 3.21, p < .10, h2 .05, and the interaction effect, F (1, 57) .00, p < .94, h2 .00, were not significant.
A 2
2 ANOVA on the manipulation check voice score revealed a main effect of Voice, F(1, 57) 99.22, p < .001,
h2 .64, indicating that participants in the voice condition reported being listened to more than those in the no-voice
condition (M 5.07, SD 1.55 vs. M 1.56, SD 1.41). The effect of Passion was also significant, F (1, 57) 11.07,
p < .01, h2 .16, showing that participants in the passion condition felt that they were listened more to than those in the
no-passion condition (M 3.90, SD 2.39 vs. M 2.73, SD 2.67). Most likely, the specific wording of the question
may have elicited thoughts that passionate leaders (caring for their job) would also listen more. In addition, comparisons of
the effect sizes also show that the effect of the procedural fairness manipulation was much more impactful than the passion
manipulation (i.e., also note that the means as a function of the authority passion manipulation were both below the
midpoint of the scale). The interaction was not significant, F(1, 73) < 1.

Negative Emotions

A 2
2 ANOVA on the negative emotion score revealed an effect of Passion, F(1, 57) 8.81, p < .005, h2 .13,
indicating that participants in the no-passion condition reported higher negative emotions than participants in the passion
condition (Ms 4.11 vs. 3.00, SDs 1.77 and 1.90; respectively). Also, a main effect of Voice was found, F(1,
57) 32.92, p < .001, h2 .36, indicating that participants in the no-voice condition reported higher negative emotions
than participants in the voice condition (Ms 4.62 vs. 2.48, SDs 1.33 and 1.81; respectively). Finally, a significant
interaction emerged, F(1, 57) 4.51, p < .05, h2 .07 (see Table 1).
Participants in the passionate leader condition exhibited significantly stronger negative emotions when no voice rather
than voice was given, F(1, 57) 30.43, p < .001, h2 .35, compared to participants in the non-passionate leader condition
(see effect sizes), F(1, 57) 6.63, p < .05, h2 .10.

Withdrawal

A 2
2 ANOVA on the withdrawal score revealed an effect of Passion, F(1, 57) 10.51, p < .005, h2 .16, indicating that
participants in the no-passion condition were more willing to withdraw than those in the passion condition (Ms 3.22 vs.
2.30, SDs 1.23 and 1.42; respectively). Also, a main effect of Voice was found, F(1, 57) 16.50, p < .001, h2 .23,
indicating that participants in the no-voice condition were more willing to withdraw than those in the voice condition

Table 1. Means and standard deviations of negative emotions and withdrawal as a function of authority passion and voice (Study 2)
Authority passion
Dependent variables Voice
No Yes

Negative emotions Voice 3.43 (1.93) 1.53 (1.06)

No voice 4.78 (1.36) 4.47 (1.32)
Withdrawal Voice 3.13 (1.24) 1.23 (0.56)
No voice 3.31 (1.26) 3.37 (1.20)
Note: Entries are means scales, with higher values indicating higher levels of negative emotions and withdrawal behavior; entries within parentheses are
standard deviations.

Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 39, 384400 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/ejsp
 Procedural fairness, authoritys passion, negative emotions and withdrawal 391

(Ms 3.34 vs. 2.18, SDs 1.21 and 1.35; respectively). Finally, a significant interaction effect emerged, F(1, 57) 11.78,
p < .001, h2 .17 (see Table 1).
Participants in the passionate leader condition were significantly more willing to withdraw when no voice relative to
voice was given, F(1, 57) 27.66, p < .001, whereas no such effect was found in the non-passionate leader condition, F(1,
57) .20, p < .66.

Mediated Moderation Analysis

As a formal test of mediation, a number of researchers (e.g., MacKinnon, Lockwood, Hoffman, West, & Sheets, 2002)
have recommended to directly test the significance of the mediated effect. As a first direct test of the significance of this
effect, the Sobel test revealed that the indirect effect of the Authority passion
Voice, via negative emotions, on
withdrawal was significantly larger than 0 (z 2.01, p < .05).
We proceeded by using a bootstrap method, developed by Preacher, Rucker, and Hayes (2007), which allows for a
formal test of mediated moderation (see Muller, Judd, & Yzerbyt, 2005). Specifically, we estimated whether negative
emotions mediate the effect of voice on withdrawal, when being lead by a passionate authority, rather than a
non-passionate authority. Our effect estimates are based on 10 000 bootstrap samples.
This analysis clearly supported our hypothesis: the indirect effect of voice on withdrawal, via negative emotions, was
significantly larger than 0 when the authority was passionate (z 3.92, p < .001), but not when the authority was
non-passionate (z 1.85, p < .10).

STUDY 3

As expected, the findings of Study 2 showed that procedural fairness influences peoples negative emotions and
withdrawal behavior, but particularly so if the authority is passionate relative to not being passionate. Moreover, negative
emotions mediated the interactive effect on withdrawal behavior. As mentioned earlier, this interaction is a novel finding.
However, although a scenario study allows drawing conclusions concerning causality, it still remains an imaginary
situation and does not capture the dynamics of a real social situation. Therefore, in Study 3, participants were placed in a
situation in which actual information about the authoritys passion and the procedure was given.
As in Study 2, we not only measured negative emotions and withdrawal behavior, but also added a new dependent
measure, that is, the extent to which participants collective self was activated. The reason for doing this was to rule out one
possible alternative explanation for the interaction between authority passion and procedural fairness. This explanation
suggests that the passion of the authority may install a sense of collective self. For example, Kark, Shamir, and Chen
(2003) recently provided evidence that leaders who set an example (such as a passionate authority figure) may be able to
install a collective sense of self. This observation is interesting in light of prior procedural fairness research showing that a
sense of collective self moderate procedural fairness effects in such a way that procedural fairness has more impact when a
strong relative to a weak sense of collective self is reinforced (Tyler, & Degoey, 1995). As such, another possible reason
why passion of the authority could moderate the effect of procedural fairness on peoples responses is because of this
collective identification process.

METHOD

Participants and Design

Seventy-eight undergraduate students (65 women and 13 men, average age 21.32 years, SD 3.01) participated
voluntarily in the study and were each paid 10 euros for their participation. Participants were randomly assigned to a
2 (Authority passion: passion vs. no passion)
2 (Voice: voice vs. no voice) between-subjects factorial design.

Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 39, 384400 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/ejsp
392 David De Cremer and Nathalie den Ouden

Procedure
Participants were invited to take part in a study addressing the possible revision of the allocation of student grants by the
government (referred to as Studie Financiering, SF will be used hereafter). This revision refers to the situation where the
Dutch government launched the idea to change student grants from a gift into a loan. Upon arrival at the laboratory,
participants were led to experimental cubicles, containing a table, a chair and a computer. When participants were seated,
they were given a first booklet, which explained the purpose of the present study.
Participants were informed that the University College was interested in finding out how this SF was perceived.
Because students in the Netherlands have been very involved in this discussion about SF and because many of them would
be directly influenced by a possible revision of this grant-based system they were highly committed to this study and the
decision that would be taken (which was confirmed during our debriefing interviews).
At the beginning of the study participants were told that the department of psychology was asked to explore the
opinions of students at the University regarding this topic (because they have regular contact with students via their
employment of experimental studies). Furthermore, the booklet explained that a representative of the University College
was present in the laboratory to read the opinions of the students and to decide which opinions would be solicited and
listened to. After this, participants had to read an article about SF that was published in Observant (which is the
University newspaper at the University of Maastricht), a short time before the present study was conducted. Then,
participants were asked to describe shortly their opinion about SF and to write down some reasons to explain their opinion.
When they finished, the experimenter entered the participants cubicles and collected their opinions. At the same time, the
experimenter also told participants that he would deliver the opinions of each participant to the representative of the
University College.
After this, the authority passion manipulation was introduced, which consisted of a short video (approximately lasting
about 1 min and 45 s) in which the representative of the University College introduced himself and explained the purpose
of the task that the participants had to do (in reality, the person in the video message was not a real representative but an
actor). Half of the participants were shown a video of the representative acting in a passionate way, while the other half of
the participants were shown a video of the representative acting in a non-passionate way. More precisely, we relied on the
definition of passion used in our introduction that a passionate authority (relative to a non-passionate authority) shows
strong engagement to the activity he undertakes (i.e., understanding the opinions about SF and being concerned about its
application) by emphasizing the characteristics of putting much energy in the activity, displaying a sense of deep interest,
and showing strong endorsement of the activity itself (Mageau & Vallerand, 2007). These characteristics were
manipulated not only in terms of content but also in such a way that the representative exhibited, in the case of a passionate
authority, in a non-verbal manner high levels of engagement in the topic of SF and concern for doing a good job in
assessing the opinions of the students.
Importantly, before using these videos in the actual experiment, they were pre-tested whether they actually elicited
passionate and non-passionate perceptions among people. For this purpose, we conducted a pilot study (n 14) in which
the videos (passion vs. no passion) were rated for the extent to which the representative was seen as passionate,
involved in his work, and inspiring in his work (these items were based upon our definition of passion as described in
the introduction). Answers were given on a 7-point scale (1 totally disagree, 7 totally agree). In the passionate version
of the video the representative of the University College was rated as more passionate (Ms 4.43 vs. 2.00, SDs 1.51 vs.
.58; respectively), F(1, 12) 7.97, p < .005, as more involved in his work (Ms 4.71 vs. 2.86, SDs 1.60 vs. .69;
respectively, F(1, 12) 4.68, p < .05, and as more inspiring in his work (Ms 4.00 vs. 1.86, SDs 1.83 vs. .38;
respectively), F(1, 12) 9.57, p < .05, than in the non-passionate version.
Based on our definition of passion and its specific characteristics, the passion of the authority was thus manipulated
with the following three fragments being the most important ones:
A first important fragment was that the representative mentioned that he considered his work at The University College
to be important and very satisfying and especially the present project of SF was something that he enjoyed very much
and that he was strongly committed to (i.e., endorses the importance of the activity). A second important fragment was
when the representative introduced the topic of SF and mentioned that he considers this to be an extremely important topic
for the University and its students. In addition, he noted that a University without students is not possible and therefore he
was very eager and willing to put energy into finding out the opinions of students (i.e., shows engagement to put much
energy in the activity). A third and final important fragment was that the representative mentioned that he considered it of
personal importance that student affairs were dealt with in a careful and committed manner (i.e., displays a sense of deep

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DOI: 10.1002/ejsp
 Procedural fairness, authoritys passion, negative emotions and withdrawal 393

interest). In all these fragments the words were also supported by non-verbal behavior. That is, when saying each of these
fragments, the video screen showed that the representative smiled and emphasized the words he was saying by moving his
hands in a way that it seemed like he was involved in the project in an energetic way.
In the non-passionate authority condition, the representative of the University College acted in a non-passionate way.
The representative told essentially the same story but avoided the use of words like extremely and very. For example,
he would say that the topic of SF is an important topic but not an extremely important topic or that it is a satisfying job but
not a very satisfying one. In addition, in this condition, his non-verbal behavior did not communicate high involvement and
concern about his job and the topic of SF because he did not smile much and did not move his hands in a supporting
manner. In fact, in this condition, the representative explained the task and the purpose of it in a rather neutral manner.
After this, the manipulation of voice was introduced. The experimenter again entered the cubicle of each participant
and handed the participants a form on which the decision of the representative of the University College was written. In the
voice condition the form said that their opinion would be listened to by the University College. In the no-voice condition
the note said that their opinion would not be listened to by the University College.

Dependent Measures

All answers were given on a 7-point scale, ranging from 1 (totally agree) to 7 (totally disagree).
To check whether the passion manipulation was successful participants were asked to what extent they thought
the representative was inspiring, passionate, has a heart for his job, and has a heart for the students. These four items
were combined to form one average passion score (Cronbachs a .95). As we argued in our introduction, passionate authorities
are suggested to also arouse others, and therefore we assessed participants arousal by asking them to what extent they felt
energetic, fatigued (reverse-scored), aroused, slow (reverse-scored), and excited (Missirlian, Toukmanian, Shake,
Warwar, & Greenberg, 2005). These items were combined to form one average arousal score (Cronbachs a .85).
To check whether the procedural fairness manipulation was successful participants were asked, whether they had
received voice, whether their opinion was used, whether the representative of the University College had listened to
them, and whether their opinion was accounted for by the representative of the University College. These four items
were combined to form one average score (Cronbachs a .97). In addition, in Study 2, we did not measure whether our
voice manipulation also makes salient procedural fairness judgments in participants mind. To assess this relationship, we
used two items used in prior procedural fairness research (Van den Bos, 2001b) and thus asked participants whether the
method used to decide to use their opinion or not was justified, and whether they were treated fairly (r .88, p < .001).
To assess participants activation of the collective self-concept, we made use of Kuhn and McPartland (1954) self-attitudes
instrument. This instrument asks participants to ask themselves the question Who am I? We asked participants to write
down five responses (see Trafimow, Silverman, Fan, & Law, 1997, for evidence that the first five responses are sufficient for
purposes of analysis). These responses were coded according to a collective identity count, that is, the number of times the
participant responded with a collective identity cognition. Thus, the total number of times a collective identity was referred
to constituted the dependent measure.
Negative emotions were assessed by asking how disappointed and frustrated they felt, resulting in one average
negative emotion score (r .85, p < .001). Withdrawal behavior was assessed by asking participants to what extent they
wanted to leave the experiment and wanted to stop participating in this task with this authority (r .69, p < .001).
Finally, participants were debriefed, thanked and paid.

RESULTS

Manipulation Checks

A 2
2 ANOVA on the average manipulation check passion score revealed only a main effect of Passion, F(1,
74) 43.21, p < .001, h2 .37, indicating that participants in the passion condition evaluated the authority to be more
passionate than those in the no-passion condition (Ms 5.51 vs. 3.70, SDs 1.02 and 1.37; respectively). The effects of
Voice, F (1, 74) .80, p < .38, h2 .00, and the interaction, F (1, 74) .38, p < .38, h2 .00, were not significant.

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394 David De Cremer and Nathalie den Ouden

A 2
2 ANOVA on the average arousal score only revealed a main effect of Passion, F(1, 74) 12.87, p .001,
h2 .15, indicating that participants in the passion condition were more aroused than those in the no-passion condition
(Ms 4.95 vs. 4.22, SDs .78 and .99; respectively). The effects of Voice, F (1, 74) 3.04, p < .09, h2 .04, and the
interaction effect, F (1, 74) .36, p < .55, h2 .00, were not significant.
A 2
2 ANOVA on the average manipulation check voice score revealed only a main effect of Voice, F(1,
74) 218.12, p < .001, h2 .75, indicating that participants in the voice condition received more voice than those in the
no-voice condition (Ms 5.88 vs.1.64, SDs 1.58 and .77; respectively). The effects of Passion, F (1, 74) .81, p < .37,
h2 .01, and the interaction effect, F (1, 74) .39, p < .54, h2 .00, were not significant.
In addition, a 2
2 ANOVA on the average procedural fairness judgments score revealed a main effect of Voice, F(1, 74)
5.31, p < .05, h2 .07, indicating that participants in the voice condition evaluated the decision method to be procedurally
fairer than those in the no?-voice condition (Ms 4.33 vs. 3.41, SDs 1.73 and 1.72; respectively). The effects of Passion,
F(1, 74) .06, p < .83, h2 .00, and the interaction effect, (1, 74) .22, p < .64, h2 .00, were not significant.2

Collective Self-Concept Accessibility

A two-way ANOVA on the collective self-concept revealed no significant effects, Voice, F (1, 73) 1.23, p < .28,
h2 .02, Passion, F (1, 73) .00, p < .94, h2 .00, Interaction, F (1, 73) 2.30, p < .14, h2 .03.

Negative Emotions

A 2
2 ANOVA on the average negative emotion score revealed a main effect of Voice, F(1, 74) 73.60, p < .001,
h2 .50, indicating that participants in the no-voice condition reported higher negative emotions than participants in the
voice condition (Ms 3.55 vs. 1.38, SDs 1.53 and .66; respectively). Also, a significant interaction effect emerged, F (1,
74) 7.99, p < .01, h2 .10 (see Table 2).
Participants in the passionate authority condition exhibited higher negative emotions when no voice was given than
when voice was given, F (1, 74) 66.86, p < .001, h2 .48, and this effect was much stronger than in the non-passionate
authority condition (see effect sizes), F (1, 74) 16.11, p < .001, h2 .18.

Withdrawal

A 2
2 ANOVA on the average positive emotion score revealed a main effect of Voice, F(1, 74) 8.11, p < .01, h2 .10,
indicating that participants in the no-voice condition were more willing to withdraw than participants in the voice
condition (Ms 2.74 vs. 1.91, SDs 2.76 and 1.91). Again, a significant interaction effect emerged, F (1, 74) 3.91,
p .05, h2 .05 (see Table 2)
Participants in the passionate authority condition were significantly more willing to withdraw when no voice was given
than when voice was given, F (1, 74) 11.96, p < .001, whereas this was not the case in the non-passionate leader
condition, F (1, 74) .37, p < .55.

Mediated Moderation Analysis

As in Study 2, we, first of all, tested the significance of the mediated effect (MacKinnon et al., 2002). The Sobel test
revealed that the indirect effect of the Authority passion
Voice, via negative emotions, on withdrawal was significantly
2
We also carried out a regression analysis, using the perceived fairness (rather than the voice manipulation) score as one independent variable and passion
authority as the other. In correspondence with our analyses using the manipulated variable of voice, fairness perceptions were found to significantly
influence both negative emotions and withdrawal of participants in the passion condition (b .50, p < .005 for negative emotions and b .60,
p < .001 for withdrawal), whereas in the non-passionate condition this effect of procedural fairness was weaker for negative emotions (b .36, p < .05)
and non-significant for withdrawal (b .07, p < .72).

Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 39, 384400 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/ejsp
 Procedural fairness, authoritys passion, negative emotions and withdrawal 395

Table 2. Means and standard deviations of negative emotions and withdrawal as a function of authority passion and voice (Study 3)
Authority passion
Dependent variables Voice
No Yes

Negative emotions Voice 1.50 (0.72) 1.23 (0.42)

No voice 2.93 (1.42) 3.85 (1.48)
Withdrawal Voice 2.03 (1.26) 1.80 (0.80)
No voice 2.28 (0.99) 3.20 (1.80)
Note: Entries are means scales, with higher values indicating higher levels of negative emotions and withdrawal behavior; entries within parentheses are
standard deviations.

larger than 0 (z 1.97, p < .05). Thereafter, we tested for mediated moderation (see Muller et al., 2005). We estimated
whether negative emotions mediate the effect of voice on withdrawal, when being lead by a passionate authority, rather
than a non-passionate authority. Our effect estimates are based on 10 000 bootstrap samples. This analysis again supported
our hypothesis: the indirect effect of voice on withdrawal, via negative emotions, was significantly larger than 0 when the
authority was passionate (z 1.93, p .05), but not when the authority was non-passionate (z 1.75, p < .10).

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Taken together, the present results provide convincing evidence that passion of the authority is an important moderator of
the effects of voice on peoples negative reactions. A first study showed that activating the concept of passion directs
peoples attention to concerns about fair treatment. As such, we reasoned that this connection between passion and fairness
could lead people to react more strongly to the procedural rule of voice when the authority is passionate relative to
non-passionate. A second and third study indeed showed that feedback about whether voice is given or not affected
participants emotional and behavioral reactions. More precisely, when the authority was passionate, participants reported
stronger negative emotions when no voice relative to voice was given and this effect was most pronounced in the passion
condition. In addition, these negative emotions explained, at least partly, why people decided to leave the interaction. In
the following paragraphs, the most important conclusions and implications will be discussed.
In view of the abundance of studies showing that the procedural rule of voice exerts significant influences on peoples
reactions, it is of obvious importance to identify contingencies of the effectiveness of authority styles and characteristics.
For this reason alone, then, identifying authority passion as a moderator of the effectiveness of voice has to be seen as
valuable. The contribution of identifying authority passion as a moderator goes beyond this point, however. As noted in the
introduction, both the literatures on the dynamics of authority and procedural fairness do not seem to communicate (see
Bies, 2005; De Cremer & Alberts, 2004). Therefore, because it is known that the issue of authority involves both leader
behaviors and decision-making processes (Brown & Trevino, 2003, p. 162), it is necessary to empirically look at the
authority behaviors and characteristics accompanying the enactment of fair procedures such as the provision of voice. The
present study thus points to the value of studying the interactive effects of different dimensions of authority behavior.
Of special interest in this respect is the fact that we focused on the characteristic of authority passion. Building on how
Vallerand and colleagues (Vallerand & Houlfort, 2003) conceptualize passion and thereby imply that passionate people
can arouse others, we delineated the hypothesis that passionate authorities therefore will draw peoples attention to them
(i.e., they are an example to others; see also Conger & Kanungo, 1998). Moreover, in line with the leadership literature, it
was reasoned that passionate authorities will be more scrutinized by others, especially in a way that they are evaluated in
terms of values such as fairness and justice (see also Brown & Trevino, 2003; Burns, 1978; Kanungo & Mendonca, 1996).
As such, it seems to be the case that authority passion installs a stronger focus in people to direct attention to justice; a
process that was discovered in our first study. The results of Study 1 showed that once the concept of passion is reinforced
the notion of justice was activated. This activation makes that subsequent decisions of the authority are evaluated in terms
of the interpretative frame of justice (cf. Higgins, 1996), as such implying that passion directs peoples attention to evaluate

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396 David De Cremer and Nathalie den Ouden

whether the authority is acting fairly or not; thus reinforcing the effect of procedural fairness information (see Studies 2
and 3).
The present research can be seen as important for a variety of reasons. First, the present research contributes to the
possible integration between the literatures on authority and procedural fairness. By advocating a contingency approach,
our results clearly outline that authorities often engage in procedural decision-making and that they, in turn, have their own
styles to deal with such social situations within groups and organizations. Second, it is also noteworthy that our
conceptualization of passion was modeled after Vallerands and his colleagues definition of passion as a concept that
refers to the amount of energy, deep sense of interest and engagement that people display toward their job and activities.
Taking into account that the (social) psychological literature has been relatively quiet about the notion of passion, our
results thus also provide some validating evidence for this perspective of passion. Indeed, the analysis on the content of
participants descriptions in Study 1 provided convincing evidence that people construct passion in the way that we defined
it. Further, manipulation checks reported in Study 3 also provided evidence that our operationalization of passion revealed
high perceptions of passion among participants and also managed to arouse these participants (e.g., Frijda et al., 1991).
It is also important to note that the use of our dependent measures of negative emotions and withdrawal behaviors is
valuable to the procedural justice literature. Justice research has always argued that justice is in the eye of the beholder and
thus subject to affective influence, but direct empirical evidence demonstrating the role of emotions in explaining
procedural justice effects is often lacking (De Cremer, 2007). The fact that we demonstrated that negative emotions
underlie the effect of procedural fairness (as a function of authority passion) on withdrawal behavior is important as it
supports the idea that the effect of justice is often translated via emotions in behavioral intentions (Barclay, Skarlicki,
Pugh, 2005; De Cremer, 2006).
Before closing, we wish to outline some strengths and limitations of the present research. A first potential limitation is
that we only focused on one specific procedural fairness rule, that is, voice. Although voice has received the greatest
attention in previous research, it would be worthwhile to examine whether the present findings also generalize to the more
general construct of procedural fairness. Therefore, to achieve this goal, future research is needed to replicate the present
results using the other procedural fairness rules as identified by Leventhal (1980; accuracy, bias, ethicality, consistency and
correctability).
Another potential limitation is that we did not directly assess the proposed process of attention to leader fairness. In our
introduction, we predicted the emergence of the interaction effect between voice and passion of the authority, based on the
idea that passionate authorities arouse people and as such attract attention (cf. Frederick & Branigan, 2005). This increased
attention to authorities setting an example (as passionate authorities are believed to do) is believed to bring with it an
evaluation process in which the authorities are evaluated in terms of whether they uphold fair and just values and actions
(Brown & Trevino, 2003). In other words, we advocate the idea that a passionate authority makes people evaluate the
authority in terms of fairness concerns making that the use of the procedural rule of voice or not should impact on peoples
responses. Although no direct mediating evidence was found for this idea, several findings do seem to support it. That is, in
Study 1, we demonstrated that the cognitive link between the concepts of passion and fairness exists. Further, in Study 3, it
was also found that a passionate authority (relative to a non-passionate one) arouses people more strongly, which suggests
that participants devoted attention to the authority. Finally, in Studies 2 and 3, participants did display negative reactions
signaling their ability in evaluating the fairness of the enacted procedure.
Nevertheless, as with many psychological observations, other alternative explanations may still exist. A first alternative
explanation could be that people expect voice more from passionate authorities than from non-passionate authorities,
leaving them more disappointed when a passionate authority does not provide voice. In this view, passion of the authority
thus serves as a proxy of clear expectations regarding the use of fairness rules; an idea in line with research showing that
expectations affect peoples reactions to the voice procedure (Van den Bos, Vermunt, & Wilke, 1996). Another alternative
explanation may be that passionate authorities are seen as more intrinsically motivated to do a good job and thus evaluate
them as making more conscious decisions. In this case, the provision of voice will then be seen as more meaningful and
sincere, consequently having a stronger effect on peoples responses (cf. De Cremer & Tyler, 2007). In addition to this
latter alternative explanation, it would be useful for future research to include a control condition in which no information
about passion vs. no passion is given to see how strongly voice impacts on participants negative emotions and withdrawal
behavior. Including such a control condition could give us further insights into the concrete effects of our passion
manipulation on the impact of the voice manipulation on participants responses. More precisely, do our effects emerge
due to negativity in the no-passion condition or to positivity in the passion condition?

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 Procedural fairness, authoritys passion, negative emotions and withdrawal 397

On a related note, in the present research, we defined passion of an authority in a positive way, which could lead people
to perceive the procedure of voice as more meaningful and sincere. Passion may, however, also include negative aspects
such as loss of reason and control, which raises the question that effect of our voice manipulation would also emerge if
passion is defined in terms of negative characteristics rather than positive ones.
With respect to the validity of alternative explanations, it is also important to note that in Study 3 we did test for an
alternative explanation. That is, whether the passion of the leader may promote the activation of peoples collective sense
of self, which may enhance procedural fairness effects. Indeed, some procedural fairness studies have provided evidence
that when identification with the organization or group (i.e., all collectives) is strong procedural fairness has a stronger
impact on peoples responses (see e.g., Tyler & Degoey, 1995). Our results, however, did not support this idea. While this
finding thus rules out the idea of collective identification as an explanatory process it does have implications for the
procedural fairness literature. More precisely, how we should interpret the finding of some of these studies that collective
identification sometimes explains the emergence of procedural fairness effects. Important with respect to this question,
however, is that these studies mainly investigated the impact of collective identification by using a continuous measure in
field studies (e.g., Brockner et al., 1992; Tyler, Degoey, Smith, 1996) or manipulating identification with groups created in
a laboratory context (De Cremer & Van Vugt, 2002), whereas our present Study 3 only looked at the effect of the cognitive
accessibility of the concept collective identification. Future research is needed whether these measures of collective
identification all tap into the same process or not, consequently revealing different effects of collective identification as a
possible moderator of procedural fairness.
Another suggestion with respect to future research concerns the issue that we did not provide our participants with
feedback regarding the final decision outcome. This is common practice in many procedural fairness studies because most
of these studies focus on understanding, for example, why people care about procedural fairness and under which
conditions this concern becomes stronger vs. weaker. Moreover, within groups and organizations, information about the
use of procedures is often acquired quite some time before outcomes are known (Van den Bos, Vermunt, & Wilke, 1997),
and prior studies have shown that as such procedures already have a pervasive impact on peoples responses even without
outcome information. For these reasons, examining the effect of procedural fairness effects (as a function of a moderator)
without having explicit outcome information is valid scientific practice. Having said this, it is interesting to note that
converging evidence exists that the effects of procedural justice are most strongly observed when outcomes are
unfavorable (Brockner & Wiesenfeld, 1996). Whereas favorable outcomes may generally satisfy people, unfavorable
outcomes elicit a greater need for explanation and thus focus peoples attention more strongly on the procedures used to
arrive at the outcome. Building on this observation, it would therefore be interesting for future research to examine
whether our observed interaction effect between passion of the authority and voice particularly emerges when the outcome
is unfavorable.
With respect to strengths, it is important to emphasize that prior research addressing the importance of authority
characteristics and styles in relationship to procedural fairness (e.g., Smith et al., 1998; De Cremer et al., 2005) included
studies where participants had no face-to-face contact with the authority. Of course, this may not be such a problem
because such a situation may in fact be representative of many authority actions in contemporary organizations and
groups. Nevertheless, it is important to acknowledge that in the present experimental study our participants did receive
information about authority passion via a video fragment, which installed the face-to-face leadership that is presumably
most common in most organizations and groups.
To conclude, the present study is the first to demonstrate an important interactive effect between authority passion and
procedural fairness in affecting peoples negative emotional and behavioral reactions, as such pointing out the necessity to
further elaborate on the connection between authority dynamics and procedural fairness. Having demonstrated such
contingency effect, it is our hope that future justice researchers will be motivated to pursue these exciting research
questions further.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research was supported by a fellowship of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO, Grant no.
016.005.019) awarded to the first author.

Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 39, 384400 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/ejsp
398 David De Cremer and Nathalie den Ouden

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APPENDIX

In the wordfragment completion task of Study 1, we used six words that could be a fairness word. Because the present
research focuses on the impact of procedural fairness, these six words were all related to concepts used in the procedural
fairness literature (such as politeness, honesty, respect and fairness; see e.g., Tyler et al., 1996). More precisely, the fairness
words were respect (res ___; containing two syllabi and forming the Dutch word respect), unpolite (onbe ___;
containing three syllabi and forming the Dutch word onbeleefd), unequal (ongel ___; containing three syllabi and
forming the Dutch word ongelijk), injustice (____nrecht; containing two syllabi and forming the Dutch word onrecht),
fair (_____ lijk; containing two syllabi and forming the Dutch word eerlijk), and honest (op ____ cht; containing two
syllabi and forming the Dutch word oprecht).

Copyright # 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 39, 384400 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/ejsp