Ease-of-retrieval effects on procedural justice judgements under conditions of informational and personal uncertainty

Abstract

This study tests whether individuals' reliance on ease-of-retrieval processes when forming procedural justice judgements are moderated by informational and personal uncertainty. In Studies 1 and 2 we examined the predicted effects of informational uncertainty. Results indicated that participants in information-uncertain conditions relied on ease-of-retrieval, whereas those in information-certain conditions relied on content information to make procedural justice judgements. In Study 3 we examined the combined effects of informational uncertainty and personal uncertainty on reliance on ease-of-retrieval when forming procedural justice judgements. The findings of Study 3 indicated that personal uncertain participants who were in informational certain conditions based their procedural justice judgements on content information, whereas all other participants based their procedural justice judgements on ease-of-retrieval. This is the first paper to demonstrate that the joint effect of informational uncertainty and personal uncertainty on reliance on ease-of-retrieval is different from the two uncertainties acting alone.