When does self-evaluation experience its ups and downs? : the role of procedural fairness in the workplace.

• Main Author: Lim, Yu Sin.
• Other Authors: School of Humanities and Social Sciences
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences::Psychology
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/50382
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Based on the substitutability of self-evaluation maintenance (SEM) mechanisms (Tesser, 2000), this paper aims to investigate the potential moderating effect of procedural fairness on SEM processes affecting employees’ positive self-evaluation in the workplace. 80 Singapore citizens working in various local financial institutions participated in this study. They were mostly Chinese (95%) and young (mean age 28.1), of which 45 were males and 35 were females. Fundamentally, this study has confirmed the attenuating effect of psychological closeness on procedural fairness in altering performance self-esteem. Sadly, the predicted interaction between procedural fairness and goal relevance of a given verbal creativity test on self-reported state-dependent performance self-esteem was not supported. Participants exhibited greater performance self-esteem after engaging in goal-relevant task than goal-irrelevant task on average. This was contrary to SEM predictions. Notably, this effect of goal relevance was only pronounced when individuals were exposed to unfair procedure. Participants exposed to either fair or unfair procedures did not differ substantially in terms of performance self-esteem. Surprisingly, participants presented with procedural criteria (exposed to fair and unfair procedures) indicated considerably lower performance self-esteem than those denied of procedural criteria (control). Implications of these results and directions for future research were discussed.