Social Justice Research, VoL 2, No. 1, 1988

Awakening the Sense of Injustice 1 Morton Deutsch 2 and Janice M. SteiP

This paper is concerned with the sense o l i n justice o f the victim and the victimizer. In it we consider the reasons f o r the differential sensitivity to injustice o f the victim and the victimizer and the conditions necessary f o r awakening the sense o f injustice in these different participants in an unjust relationship.

THE FUNCTIONS OF JUSTICE Justice has been called "the first virtue o f social i n s t i t u t i o n s " (Rawls, 1971); "the first requisite o f civilization" (S. F r e u d , 1933); "the u n i t i n g funct i o n i n the i n d i v i d u a l m a n a n d in the social g r o u p " (Plato, in Tillich, 1954). The f u n c t i o n s o f justice are m a n y a n d diverse. They serve the i n d i v i d u a l a n d the g r o u p . T h e y are b o t h i n t e r p e r s o n a l a n d intrapsychic (Reis, 1986). O n a societal level, c o n c e p t i o n s o f justice are used to define the relationship o f obligations and entitlements between the individual a n d the group. As Rawls (1971) has indicated: Although a societyis a cooperativeventure for mutual advantage, it is typicallymarked by a conflict as well as by an identity of interests. There is an identity of interests since social cooperation makes possible a better life for all than any would have if each were to life solely by his own efforts. There is a conflict of interests since persons are not indifferent as to how the greater benefits produced by their collaboration are distributed, for in order to pursue their ends they each prefer a larger to a lesser share. A set of principles is required for choosing among the various social arrangements which determine this division of advantages and for underwriting an

1This paper is a modified version of a paper originally published in Lerner and Ross (1974) and then published in revised form in Deutsch (1985). 2Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, New York. ~Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies, Adelphi University, Garden City, New York. 3 0885-7466/88/0300-0003506.00/0 © 1988 Plenum Publishing Corporation

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agreement on the proper distributive shares. These principles are the principles of social justice: they provide a way of assigning rights and duties in the basic institutions of society and they define the appropriate distribution of the benefits and burdens of social cooperation. (p. 4)

Principles of justice have important psychological as well as social functions (Lerner et al., 1976). Our conceptions of justice provide a sense of meaning and control by stipulating the guidelines by which we order our world, conduct our lives, and predict as well as evaluate our outcomes. We learn that behaving justly is a means of gaining approval and respect from ourselves and from others and also a means of protecting ourselves from punishment and disapproval. Similarly, our conceptions of justice provide us with a framework and criteria for according to others our approval and respect or our indignation and disdain. As individuals and as members of social groups, we use our sense of what is just to assess what we and others deserve both materially and psychologically. Thus, violation of our conceptions of justice presents a twofold threat: It challenges and weakens the moral base of our community and it brings into question the evaluative framework that provides a foundation for our individual and social action. (Also, see Lerner, 1980, for an extended discussion of the psychological functions of the belief in a just world.)

THE SENSE OF JUSTICE Not surprisingly, then, an experience of injustice is both distressing and motivating (see Greenberg, 1982, for a dissenting opinion). Further, the distress has both a personal and a social character. Not only is one personally affected when one has been a victim of injustice but is one's group or community whose norms of justice are being flouted. Members of a group who accept common norms also share common obligations to protect these norms and to respond to their violation. The experience of an injustice that is not acknowledged and responded to by one's fellow group members is apt to leave one feeling very alien and alienated from one's group; similarly, if one does not acknowledge and respond to an injustice one has experienced, one will be alienated from oneself (Steil et al., 1978). Given the multiple functions and demands of justice, why is injustice so pervasively tolerated? In considering this question we first consider the possible foci of the sense of injustice. Most studies of justice have focused on its distributive functions. From this perspective, justice is primarily concerned with the distribution of the benefits and harms, and the rewards and costs which affect individual and societal well-being. Well-being is defined broadly to include psychological, physiological, and social, as well as economic, aspects. The sense of injustice

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may be directed toward the nature, quality, and quantity o f the good or harm being distributed; toward the values underlying the distribution; or toward the various procedures related to the determination and implementation o f the distribution. Injustice in Relation to the Nature, Quality, and Quantity of the Good or Harm Being Distributed There are a great variety of goods and harms that get distributed: abuse, affection, dirty work, education, grades, honors, medical care, money, ostracism, power, property, punishment, transplants, to name a few. As several moral philosophers (e.g., Rescher, 1966; Galston, 1980; Walzer, 1983) have indicated, there is no reason to believe that the canons of distributive justice are the same for different types of goods or harms. An appropriate "fit" is required. Thus, an injustice may occur when an inappropriate distribution principle is applied to a given social good, as, for example, when "merit" is involved in the distribution of welfare or basic education or medical care or when "need" is employed for the distribution of honors or office. The principle must also be appropriate to the social relation. Thus, to offer only money for someone's love is an unfair exchange: The lack of reciprocation of love will be injurious to self-esteem of the one offering it and this will not be compensated for by the receipt o f money; the one offering money will receive fradulent love and, hence, will have gotten very little value for his or her money. Injustice can also occur in regard to the quality of that which is being distributed. A common example is that o f fraudulent goods: The good being distributed is not what it is represented to be. Injustice can also occur in relation to the quantity of the good or harm being distributed. We may receive too little (or even too much) o f some desired outcome or too much (or even too little) o f some undesired outcome. Thus, the punishment may not fit the crime, being too lenient or too harsh; an honor may be too much or too little for an achievement; a worker may be overpaid or underpaid. Injustice in Relation to the Values Underlying the Distribution Let us consider, for illustrative purposes, a dean who had to assign annual salary increases among members of his or her faculty. There are various values he or she could use as a basis for determining salary increases: e q u a l i t y - giving each faculty member an equal share of the total money available for salary increases; n e e d - g i v i n g each a salary increase that is related to the professor's need for the money; m e r i t - g i v i n g each an increase that is related to the value of the faculty member to his university; marketability-

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giving each an increase that is related to the salary the faculty member could get in a position elsewhere, and so on. Suppose the dean decides to assign salary increases on the basis of merit. This value, itself, may become the focus of perceived injustice, not only by the faculty members who are disadvantaged by it but also by others who prefer that increases be assigned according to different values. Injustice in Relation to the Procedures Used to Determine and Implement the Distribution

Concern with the procedural aspects of injustice can be directed toward (i) the roles involved in the distribution process; (ii) the styling and timing of the distribution; (iii) the rules or criteria employed to represent the values underlying the process; (iv) the measurement procedures used to implement the criteria; and (v) the way decisions are made about any of the foregoing including who has the opportunity to be heard.

Injustice o f the Roles Involved in the Distribution Process Injustice can arise because the roles involved in the distribution process are not filled by appropriately qualified people. Thus, if an important literary prize is awarded by a committee composed of people not competent to make literary judgments, or if the grading of term papers is done by teaching assistants who do not know the course subject matter, then justice is not likely to be experienced. Similarly, one's sense of injustice is apt to be stimulated if one considers the procedures in deciding who should be in the allocator role do not reasonably assure competence, personal disinterestedness, and lack of bias among those selected for this role.

The Timing o f the Distribution The sense of injustice can be elicited or intensified by the timing of a distribution of a social good or harm: The honor is too long delayed in relation to the achievement or the punishment is administered long after the crime has become irrelevant.

Injustice of Rules Even if, by rare circumstance, the faculty and the dean in our earlier example come to completely agree on the values to be employed in assigning salary increases, there may be lack of agreement on how these principles

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should be operationalized. What should be the rules or criteria for defining equality, need, or merit? Thus, suppose need is the agreed-upon value, how shall it be measured: By the number of people dependent on the faculty member's salary? By his or her total unreimbursed exprenses during the prior year? Or suppose merit is the accepted distribution principle. Should it be assessed by the number and quality of publications in the preceding year? By student ratings of his or her teaching? By peer judgments of his or her contributions to his or her area of specialization? Equal shares is a specified quantity of a social good to be distributed, but it is not unambiguous: Should the salary increases be distributed so that everyone gets the same dollar amount or should they be distributed so that each gets an equal percentage raise so that those with higher prior salaries would get a higher dollar amount? From this very incomplete listing of different rules or criteria that could be used to define the various distributive principles, it is evident that there is considerable ambiguity in the meaning of the different principles. The sense of injustice in a given distributive system may focus not so much on the underlying distributive value such as merit but how merit is defined in the particular system.

Injustice of Measurement Procedures The sense of injustice may be aroused by the implementation of the accepted rules for defining the chosen distributive principle, i.e., by the measurement procedures. Measurement is often a difficult and complex procedure in which the objectives of a relevant, unbiased, consistent, representative, and sensitive measurement are rarely fully attained. To the extent that they are not, someone who has been disadvantaged by the measurement may feel that he or she has been appraised unfairly.

Injustice of Decision-Making Procedures Finally, even if a professor believes that he or she has been benefited by the dean's procedure for assigning salary increases (he has gotten a good one), he or she may feel an injustice in the procedures by which the values, rules, or specific salary increases were determined. He or she may believe that the faculty rather than the dean should select the principles and rules for assigning salary increases and should, through its representatives, also make the actual assignments. From this perspective the injustice lies in the methods by which decisions are made, and particularly who has a voice in making them, rather than in the substance of the actual decisions. When is the sense of injustice more likely to be focused on the outcomes of a distribution rather than the procedures by which it is implemented or the values by which the distribution is determined? What are the

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consequences or implications of these different foci? Recent work suggests that the procedural aspects of justice may take precedence when the relationship is viewed as long term (Folger, 1986) and when the object of scrutiny is institutional rather than individual (Tyler and McGraw, 1986). Under these circumstances immediate outcomes (even those to our advantage) may seem less important than the long-term sense of protection that procedural fairness is deemed to provide. Sometimes, procedures can reveal the unfairness of the underlying values (see our example in the preceding discussion of lack of fit). It is also true that focusing on the procedures can sometimes prolong a system that distributes outcomes unfairly. In an earlier paper (Deutsch, 1985) it was suggested that the sense of injustice is more often aroused by complaints about the procedures involved in a distributive process than about the distributive values governing it" The distributive values are commonly taken for granted whereas the procedures are not. It may also be the case that the appearance of fair procedures can mute the protest over unfair outcomes by masking the unfairness of the underlying values (Steil, 1983; Tyler and McGraw, 1986).

THE DIFFERENTIAL SENSITIVITY TO INJUSTICE OF THE VICTIM AND THE VICTIMIZER In this section, we consider briefly why there is an asymmetry in the sensitivity to injustice by the victim and the victimizer and also some of the circumstances in which the asymmetry is reversed: where the victim identifies with the victimizer and where the victimizer identifies with the victim. Victims are more sensitive to and more aggrieved by an injustice than are others. The victim suffers the loss of a desired outcome, a threat to selfesteem, and possible derogation from peers. Basic assumptions about themselves and their world may be jeopardized as well. These include their belief in the world as just and meaningful, their view of themselves as positive and deserving, and their belief in their own invulnerability. The roles of the various other parties to an injustice can range from observer to victimizer. The extent of the differential sensitivity may vary according to role and circumstance. We focus here on the role of victimizer. Most injustices, and especially those that do not lead to immediate redress, are characterized by a power differential between the victim and the victimizer (Mikula, 1986). The latter are more likely to set the terms of the relationship and, through their control of social institutions, establish the legal and other reigning definitions of "justice." Thus, the victimizers--in addition to the gains that accrue from their exploitative actions- commonly have the reassurance of the official definitions of justice and the support of major social institutions. This dulls their sensitivity to the injustices in-

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herent in their relations with the victim. Victims are less likely to be "taken in" by the official definitions and the indoctrination emanating from social institutions, and be less committed to them. There are also, of course, relations in which the victimizer is not of superior power and yet, even so, he will not experience guilt. Consider a traffic accident in which a car hits a pedestrian. The driver of the car will usually perceive the accident so as to place responsibility for it upon the victim. Seeing the victim as responsible will enable the driver to maintain a positive selfimage. Projecting the blame on to the victim enables the victimizer to feel blameless. If we accept the notion that most people try to maintain a positive conception of themselves, we can expect a differential sensitivity to injustice in those who experience pain, harm, or misfortune and those who cause it. If I try to think well of myself, I shall minimize my responsibility for any injustice that is connected with me or minimize the amount of injustice that has occurred if I cannot minimize my responsibility. On the other hand, if I am the victim of pain or harm, to think well of myself, it is necessary for me to believe that it was not due: It is not a just desert for a person of my good character. Thus, the need to maintain positive self-esteem leads to opposite reactions in those who have caused an injustice and those who suffer from it. Although the need to maintain a positive self-regard is common, it is not universal. A victim of injustice, if she views herself favorably, may be outraged by her experience and attempt to undo it; in the process of so doing, she may have to challenge the victimizer. If the victimizer is more powerful than she and has the support of the legal and other institutions of the society, she will realize that it would be dangerous to act on her outrage or even to express it. Under such circumstances, in a process that Anna Freud (1937) labeled "identification with the aggressor," the victim may control her dangerous feelings of injustice and outrage by denying them and by internalizing the derogatory attitudes of the victimizer toward her. Thus, she will become in Lewin's terms (1935) a "self-hater" who attributes blame for her victimization upon herself or her group. If she attributes the blame to her group, she often will seek to dissociate herself from it and to ingratiate herself with the victimizers in order to curry favor and avoid blame. These reactions are defensive and, not uncommonly, the defenses are directly inculcated by parents in their children. As Grier and Cobbs (1968, p. 172) pointed out: "Black mothers say as they punish rebellious sons: 'I'd rather kill him myself than let white folks get him. He's got to learn.'" Such child-rearing practices are a residue from slavery when black children, in order to survive, had to be taught to view themselves as worthy only to be a slave. Child-rearing practices are slow to change. Nevertheless, training of blacks, women, and other subordinated groups for masochistic submission and for identification with the oppressor seems less prevalent than it was earlier in this century.

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Just as the victim can identify with the oppressor, a member of the oppressing group can identify with the victim. There are political, social, and psychological factors that predispose to an "identification with the underdog." In a political struggle among different factions o f a ruling group, one o f the factions may seek to increase its political power by obtaining the allegiance o f an oppressed group, by identifying with its interest, and by using the injustices perpetrated against it as a means o f weakening the position o f the ruling clique and displacing it. Despite the political opportunism that may give rise to this identification with the underdog, it can heighten the awareness o f injustice among the oppressors by the increased political and intellectual attention paid to it: Injustice fares poorly in the spotlight. Some clues to the social factors that predispose to a sympathetic attitude toward the underdog are revealed in White Attitudes Toward Black People (Campbell, 1971). Least favorable attitudes o f whites toward blacks are found among whites who feel a threat to their status, economic positions, or general welfare from the advancement of blacks. Most favorable attitudes are found among those who have relatively secure socioeconomic positions, have been exposed to the influence of the social sciences during their college days, and have had nonthreatening equal status contacts with blacks. Although the findings just cited are in relation to white attitudes toward black people, it is likely that they have wider applicability. Crosby and Herek (1986) found that the best predictor o f the extent to which men were sympathetic to the discriminatory conditions of working women was the prestigiousness of their occupations. Men in high-prestige occupations were reliably more aware and upset about the true extent of sex discrimination than were men in low-prestige occupations. Interestingly, the men's attitudes were not connected to the employment status o f their wives or mothers or to the experiences o f women in their own lives. Personality, as well as political opportunism and social position, can predispose to identification with the underdog. Christian Bay (1967) after surveying the research literature on student activists and conformists came to the following conclusions: The more secureand sheltered a person's infancy and childhood, and the more freedom that educational and other social processeshas given him to developaccording to his inner needs and potentialities, the more likely that a capacity for political rationality and independencewill develop, simplybecausethe likelihoodof severeanxieties is relativelylow. In addition, the better the individual has been able to resolve his own anxieties, the more likely that he wilt empathize with others less fortunate than himself. (p. 90) Bales (1970) described a somewhat different personality type that is also characterized by identification with the underprivileged. This type is depicted as a somewhat passive, likable individual who is concerned about the lack of emotional supportiveness and warmth in his environment. He blames this

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on an autocratic authority oriented toward power rather than nurturance. His own aggressive and power needs are inhibited except as they are indirectly expressed in criticism and lack of trust of authority. His self-conception and his conscious wishes are on the positive altruistic side toward the underprivileged. In Bales' terms, "He wants a bloodless revolution-a compassionate reform" (p. 373). His vulnerability is his innocence: His innocence of his own repressed aggressiveness toward authority and his innocence of the hostility among the underprivileged. Other, more pathological types of identification with the underdog, have been described by psychoanalytically oriented writers. One type is characterized by a pervasive sense of guilt and deeply rooted masochistic tendencies (Fenichel, 1945). In its extreme form, this type of person feels guilty in relation to any injustice anywhere and in an attempt to undo his guilt, he sacrifices himself by identifying with the victims of injustice. The selfdefeating, pathological quality of this type is reflected in his need to have the victim remain in a state of being victimized so that he can continue to feel guilty and continue to sacrifice himself. Despite his outward sympathies, he is neurotically attached to the status quo; social change would be threatening. Another type is the left-wing authoritarian personality (Adorno et al., 1950). Like their right-wing counterparts, they perceive the world as made up of a glorified in-group and despised out-groups, hierarchically arranged by power relationships. They cannot establish warm human relationships and adopt a moralistic condemnatory attitude toward those who differ from them. The right-wing authoritarian takes the establishment as its in-group 4 whereas the left-wing authoritarian takes the antiestablishment as its in-group and reference group and these are often perceived to be the groups who are oppressed by the establishment. The pathology lies in the continuous need to rebel and in the need to replace one form of authoritarianism with another. The needs of the oppressed group are subordinated to these inner compulsions.

CONDITIONS THAT AWAKEN AND INTENSIFY THE SENSITIVITY TO INJUSTICE IN THE VICTIM The major explanatory theme advanced by social scientists for the sensitivity to injustice among victims is that of deprivation. It is commonly assumed that it is relative rather than absolute deprivation that is critical in stimulating dissatisfaction. People who are well off by absolute standards 4See Steiland Slochower(1985, p. 224) for a discussionof the empiricalliteratureregarding the tendencyof right-wing authoritarians to distance themselves from and denigrate the victim.

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may feel more discontent than those who are much worse off if they feel relatively more deprived because their aspirations are high or as a result of being surrounded by people who are even more well off than they are. Runciman (1966) has made a distinction between two types of relative deprivation: egoistic and fraternal. Egoistical deprivation occurs when an individual feels disadvantaged relative to other individuals; fraternal deprivation occurs when a person feels his group is disadvantaged in relation to another group. An individual may feel doubly deprived: as an individual and as a group member. As Tajfel (1982) has pointed out, the two different kinds of deprivations have different implications for how to improve one's situation. To remedy fraternal deprivation, social change (change in the position of one's group) is necessary; to remedy egoistic deprivation, only change in one's individual situation is entailed. Much of the research to date has foucused on establishing the predictive ability of various models of egoistic deprivation (Crosby, 1982; Crosby et al., 1986). Several of the models tested by Crosby and her colleagues have, in fact, successfully differentiated between persons reporting high as compared to low levels of resentment and grievance. No similar efforts have been directed toward the identification of the conditions that predict fraternal deprivation. Indeed, one of the primary criticisms of this area has been that it has attempted to account for social protest, the behavior of a collective, from research primarily directed at predicting the feelings of the individual (Dube and Guimond, 1986). Conceptually, "relative deprivation" refers to the perceived discrepancy between what one obtains and what one believes one deserves (is entitled) to obtain in the distribution of goods and harms. The relative deprivation may be focused on something very specific and temporary (such as how soon one is served in a restaurant) or something as general as one's life situation. It is useful to distinguish separate areas of relative deprivation, for example, grievances at work as compared to those at home. The total amount of relative deprivation that an individual experiences in any given area (e.g., work) would be the weighted sum of the relative deprivation in each of the aspects or subareas that the person perceives to be relevant to evaluating his situation (e.g., for work: salary, rate of promotion, work conditions, treatment by his supervisor). Each aspect would be weighted by its importance to the individual and by its salience. Importancecan be defined as the strength of the desire to get what one thinks one is entitled to. Salience is the prominence of that particular subaspect in one's thinking. This is determined by its relevance to the immediate situation and how much greater its magnitude of relative deprivation is than the average relative deprivation in all subareas (each being weighted by its importance). One of the major determinants of the arousal of the sense of injustice in any given area is the magnitude of relative deprivation in that area: The greater the magnitude o f relative depri-

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vation the more likely and the more intense will be the arousal o f the sense o f injustice. How do the number of areas relevant to a person's life and the experiences within them affect one's total feelings of deprivation? How cumulative are the grievances across areas? Crosby (1982) found reliable but low correlations between feelings of deprivation at home and at work. She also found that failure to get what one wanted was more important at work, but failure to get what one deserved was more important at home (Crosby et al., 1986). This supports the notion that while there is some relationship across areas there is also a great deal of independence. There is also evidence of a salutary effect of multiple roles or domains in one's life (Steit and Turetsky, 1986, for a review)° This suggests that gratifications in one area may diminish the salience and importance of the grievances in another area, thereby reducing the total overall feelings of deprivation. The intensity of the sense of injustice is undoubtedly influenced by one's prior experiences with and future anticipations of relative deprivation. The relationship of these variables, often labeled past and future feasibility, has been the subject of considerable but inconclusive speculation and study (cf. Folger, 1986). We suggest that the sense of deprivation will be more intense the more sharply the relative deprivation has increased in the recent past and the more sharply it is expected to increase in the future. It will be less intense the more sharply it has decreased in the recent past and the more sharply it is expected to decrease in the future. Thus, we propose that the sense of injustice is determined by the perceived current magnitude of relative deprivation and the perception of how it is changing. We turn now to a consideration of some of the conditions that affect these perceptions. The magnitude of relative deprivation can be affected by influencing any of its components in any of several ways. One can influence (i) what the individual believes she deserves with respect to a specified value (e.g., her grade in a course); (ii) what she obtains of it; (iii) its importance; and (iv) its salience. It is evident that relative deprivation and the sense of injustice can be increased by either increasing what the individual perceives she has a right to or by decreasing what she gets. Also, one can heighten her sense of injustice by increasing the perceived importance and salience of the values in which the individual feels a discrepancy between what she is getting and what she deserves.

CONDITIONS AFFECTING THE CONCEPTION OF WHAT ONE IS ENTITLED TO One's conception of what one is entitled to is determined by a least five major kinds of influence: (i) the ideologies and myths about justice that are

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dominant and officially supported in one's society; (ii) the amount of one's exposure to ideologies and myths that conflict with those that are officially supported and are supportive of larger claims of oneself; (iii) experienced changes in one's satisfaction-dissatisfactions; (iv) one's knowledge of what others who are viewed as comparable to oneself are getting; and (v) one's bargaining power.

The Influence of Ideologies and Myths The official ideology and myths of any society help to define and justify the values that are distributed to the different positions within the society and, thus, to codify what a person in one's position can legitimately expect. Weinglass and Steil (1981) demonstrated a relationship between Orthodox Jewish women's endorsement of fundamental religious beliefs and their sense of entitlement to participate in religious studies. Martin (1986) demonstrated a relationship between ideological beliefs and the sense of pay entitlements in an experiment involving secretaries. We can all think of additional examples of ideologies and myths that limit or enhance one's view of entitlements. The ideology of equal opportunity has kept the American poor more acquiescent than the poor of other developed countries. The myth of white supremacy led whites to expect that they were entitled to deferential behavior from blacks and blacks to expect that they were not entitled to equal treatment from whites. Finally, men and women under the influence of a sexist ideology defined gender entitlements that gave women supremacy in the narrow confines of the kitchen and the nursery while the men had supremacy in the broad world outside the home as well as in many areas within it. It is difficult not to accept the official myths and ideology of one's society even if they are to one's disadvantage unless (i) there is a breakdown of consensual norms and the inability or unwillingness of the ruling elite to act in such a way as to restore these norms. This is likely to occur during a period of rapid social change or intrasocietal conflict, either of which could bring into question the legitimacy of traditional myths and values; (ii) there is a failure of the society to continue to deliver the entitlements that it has defined as legitimate for one's position so that the magnitude of one's relative deprivation is increased. This could be due to natural or social disasters which worsen the conditions of daily life; or (iii) there is exposure to new ideologies and new examples that are accepted as legitimate by many people, which stimulate consciousness of new and better possibilities for oneself. This could happen as the result of increased communication due to new technological developments such as books, newspapers, radio, and television, or it may reflect an increased urbanization and the resulting exposure to more diversity of people, ideas, and experience. Obviously, one would

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expect that the receptivity to new ideologies and examples would be heightened by the breakdown o f the legitimacy of the existing ideology and by the worsening of one's own living conditions.

Experienced Changes in Satisfaction--Dissatisfactions

Modifications in the conception of what one is entitled to derive not 0nly from alterations in the ideology and myths that one accepts but also from changes in one's experiences of satisfactions. A period of gain creates expectations about further improvement. As De Tocqueville in L'Ancien Regime (1947) has commented: Only a great genius can save a prince who undertakes to relieve his subjects after a long oppression. The evil, which was suffered patiently as inevitable, seems unendurable as soon as the idea of escaping from it is conceived.All the abuses then removed seem to throw into greater relief those which remain, so that their feeling is more painful. (p. 186) Many social scientists, before and after De Tocqueville, have written insightfully about the "revolution of rising expectations" to explain the paradox that social discontent and even revolutionary activity is more likely to occur after social conditions have improved. The explanation is generally along two lines. First, improvement o f social conditions raises aspirations by increasing what is perceived to be attainable. Demand may increase at a faster rate than the actual gains received, with a resulting increase in feelings o f relative deprivation. The increased discontent is most likely to occur if gains are discontinued or reversed after the initial gains have heightened future expectations (Davies, 1962). Pettigrew (1964; 1967), as well as many others, has suggested that the Negro protests for change in the United States in the 1960s reflected this dynamic. A rapid betterment of the social situation o f the Negroes during and after World War II resulted in a sharp rise in expectations which led to increasing discontent and protest as these expectations were frustrated by a slow-down and even reversal of relative social and economic gains in the 1960s. The second explanation o f the effects of gains is similar to that advanced by De Tocqueville. Namely, the increase is not uniform in all areas in which the victimized are disadvantaged. Improvement in one area, such as education, only makes one more sensitive to the injustice one is experiencing in other areas such as employment, police protection, and housing. Many social scientists have advanced the proposition that status-disequilibrium (such that there are differences in one's relative statuses in income, education, social prestige, and the like) is a source of tension and discontent. A very effective way of enhancing the sense of injustice of the victimized is to increase their education and little else.

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Comparing Oneself to Others Alterations in the conception of what one is entitled to result not only from changes in the level of satisfaction but also from modifications in one's views of how comparable others are being treated or whidch others should be considered as comparable. 5 There is considerable research evidence that one's attitudes, one's evaluations of one's abilities, as well as one's emotions are very much influenced by one's perceptions of these attributes in others who are used for comparison purposes (see Pettigrew, 1967, for a summary). Although the evidence is by no means conclusive, it has been suggested by Festinger (1954), Gurr (1970), and others that comparison tends to be primarily with similar others, and Gurr further suggested that the comparison will be with the similar other whose gains are most rapid. This proposition implies that a person selects among similar others for comparison so as to justify a maximum increase in one's own entitlements. This is most likely to occur when one's perceived bargaining power is high or when one's alienation is high so that one wishes to maximize the sense o f injustice. In any case, a potent way of arousing the sense of injustice is to make the victim more aware that comparable others are being treated better or to increase his feeling that it is appropriate to compare himself with others to whom he previously considered himself to be incomparable.

Increasing the Victim's Bargaining Power If a victim or victimized group is dealing with an unresponsive exploitative group, it is faced either with the possibility o f resigning into apathy and depression or attempting to increase its bargaining power sufficiently to compel the other to negotiate. Bargaining power is increased by either increasing one's own power or decreasing the other's power. Attempts to change power can be directed at altering the resources that underlie power (such as wealth, physical strength, organization, knowledge, skill, trust, respect, and affection) or it can be directed toward modifying the effectiveness with which the resources o f power are employed. Potential power may not be converted into effective power because those who possess it may not be aware of their power, or they may not be motivated to use it, or they may use it inefficiently and unskillfully so that much potential power is wasted. Thus, effective power depends upon the following key elements: (i) the control or possession of resources to generate power; (ii) the the awareness o f the resources one possesses or controls; (iii) the motivation to employ these resources to influence

5One's perceived bargaining power is undoubtedly a factor determining one's sense of entitlement and choice of comparison other.

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others; (iv) skill in converting the resources into usable power; and (v) good judgment in employing this power so that its use is appropriate in type and magnitude to the situation in which it is used.

THE MOBILIZATION

OF LOW-POWER

GROUPS

By operating on one or more of the key elements listed above, a victimized, low-power group can work to increase its own power or to decrease the power of the high-power group opposing it. There are, of course, endless ways in which each of the key elements can be affected; which of the ways is suitable to employ at any given time will be determined by particular circumstances. Nevertheless, it is safe to assume that victimized groups generally lack control over the instrumental resources (such as money, weapons, and official position) which are immediately related to economic, military, and political power. Their primary resources are discontented people and having "justice" on their side. Discontent and the sense of injustice may be latent rather than manifest in a subordinated group. Neither the consciousness of oneself as victimized or disadvantaged may exist psychologically. If this be the case the injustices must be unmasked. Consciousness-raising tactics may be necessary precursors for the development of group cohesion and social organization. These tactics range from quasi-therapeutic group discussion meetings, through mass meetings and demonstration, to dramatic confrontations of those in the highpower groups. It is likely that a positive consciousness of one's disadvantaged identity is most aroused when one sees others, considered to be similar to oneself, explicitly attacked or disadvantaged and sees them resist successfully. Their resistance reveals simultaneously the wound and the possibility of its cure. By raising to consciousness the discontent and sense of injustice, a powerful and persisting energy for change is activated. Moreover, to the extent that the basis for discontent and the nature of the injustice can be communicated to others so that they experience it, if only vicariously, then supporters and allies will be attracted to the side of the low-power group. The utility of people as a resource of power is a function of their number, their personal qualities (such as their knowledge, skill, dedication, and discipline), their social cohesion (as reflected in mutual trust, mutual liking, mutual values, and mutual goals), and their social orgardzation (as expressed in effective coordination and communication, division of labor and specialization of function, planning and evaluation). Numbers of people are obviously important but undoubtedly not as important as their personal qualities, social cohesion, and social organization. A large, inchoate mass of undisciplined, ineffectual people are at the mercy of a small, dedicated, disciplined,

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well-organized, cohesive group. Elsewhere (Deutsch, 1973), some of the determinants of cohesion have been considered. Here we add that groups become cohesive by formulating and working together on issues that are specific, immediate, and realizable. They become effectively organized as they plan how to use their resources to achieve their purposes and as they evaluate their past effectiveness in the light of their experiences. If the energy released through the sense of injustice can be organized effectively then a very powerful instrument for social change has been forged and the situation of the lowpower group has been radically altered. It is now in a position to offer significant positive or negative incentives to those in high power. The positive incentives are those deriving from enhanced cooperation, while the negative incentives are those of noncooperation, harrassment, obstruction, or destruction. Negative incentives are the losses that the high-power group of "Haves" expect to experience as a consequence of a power struggle with the low-power group or "Have-Nots." As Alinsky (1971, p. 152) has pointed out: "The basic tactic in warfare against the Haves is a mass political jujitsu: the HaveNots do not rigidly oppose the Haves, but yield in such planned and skilled ways that the superior strength of the Haves becomes their own undoing." As in physical jujitsu, the inertia, momentum, and imbalance of the adversary are used as weapons against him. Thus, as Alinsky further suggests, when "the Haves publicly pose as the custodians of responsibility, morality, law and justice (which are frequently strangers to each other), they can be constantly pushed to live up to their own book of morality and regulations." Alinsky (1971) cited many examples of tactics in which bureaucratic systems were ensnarled in their own red tape by pressuring them to live up to their own formally stated rules and procedures. The Haves can also be goaded into errors. If they can be provoked into an obvious disruption of their own stated principles, then segments of the high-power group may become disaffected. In addition, previously neutral third parties may, in response to the violations by those in power, swing their sympathies and support to the Have-Nots. The vulnerability of the Haves as a result of internal divisions can also be exploited. The conflicts among those who are active in the high-power groups and the distinction between active and passive members provide important points of leverage for the Have-Nots. The internal conflict can be exacerbated by fostering mutual suspicion and by playing one side against the other. The passive compliance of the inactive majority of the Haves may disappear as their leaders are provoked into errors and as they are subject to ridicule and embarrassment by their inability to cope effectively with the persisting harassments and nuisances caused by the Have-Nots.

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The power of the Haves depends upon such tangibles as control over the instruments of force, an effective communication system, and an effective transportation system and upon such intangibles as prestige and the aura of invincibility. While a low-power group may not be able to interfere seriously with the tangible bases of power, it has many legal means of tarnishing and weakening their intangible sources of power. Ridicule and techniques of embarrassment are most effective weapons for this purpose. In the preceding several pages, we have discussed some of the strategies and tactics available to low-power victimized groups in their attempt to compel a resistant high-power group to agree to a change in their relations. The discussion was meant to be suggestive rather than comprehensive. It was also intended to indicate that apathetic resignation and destructiveness are not the only responses available in the face of a contrary authority. It is possible to increase the power of the Have-Nots by developing their personal resources, social cohesion, and social organization so that they have more influence. And in jujitsu fashion, it is possible for the Have-Nots to employ some of the characteristics of the Haves to throw them off balance and to reduce their effective opposition. Let us sum up the discussion of activating the sense of injustice in the victims. We have suggested that the process basically entails falsifying and delegitimizing the officially sanctioned ideologies and myths that "justify" the injustices; exposing victims to new ideologies, new models, and new reference groups which justify and give life to possibilities of a change in their status; stimulating hope by successful efforts to improve their situation; and reducing fear by increasing their relative bargaining strength.

CONDITIONS FOR AWAKENING THE SENSE OF INJUSTICE IN THE VICTIMIZER

Lerner (1971, 1980), in very interesting discussions, has asked a key question: Given the weight of research evidence that demonstrates that considerations of justice and deserving play an important role in our lives, how then is it possible to explain why we tolerate injustice toward innocent victims in our community, society, and world? The research evidence to which he refers are a variety of ingenious experiments by social psychologists during the past decade which show in many different ways that people seek justice for others as well as for themselves. In response to his important question of why there is failure to act on the behalf of victims, Lerner proposed several answers: (i) victimizers may find justification for thinking that victims deserve their fate; (ii) they may think that the victims' situations are improving and justice will soon be es-

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tablished; (iii) they believe that they are doing all they can without making themselves into victims; and (iv) they believe that they are doing as much as can be expected of them, equal to or more than others who should be doing at least as much. Several additional answers can be suggested: (v) victimizers are ignorant of the injustice experienced by victims because of their lack of contact with victims; (vi) they think that the situation is hopeless so that nothing adequate can be done to redress and alleviate the victims' situation; (vii) they exclude victims from their definition of the community in which their moral standards are applied; (viii) they may fear that they may be humiliated or harmed by victims or by other victimizers if they act favorably toward the victim; and (ix) they may feel that their personal interests and the interests of the victimized are directly opposed. In addition, of course, they may not believe in a just world, believing instead that man is inherently amoral: Those on top will always take advantage of those on the bottom; the victims would be victimizers if they had the chance. This list of reasons why victimizers may fail to act on the behalf of victims is in effect a catalogue of the obstacles and resistances to activating their sense of injustice. How can they be overcome? Basically, the process of activating the sense of injustice in the victimizer is similar to that of activating it in the victim. Both the cognitive and the motivational factors must be addressed. The victimizer's ignorance of the injustices must be altered in order for him to see them. This can be facilitated through contact with the victim; through education and governmental action that falsifies and delegitimizes the officially sanctioned ideologies and myths that justify the injustices; and through exposing the victimizers to new ideologies, new models, and new reference groups that support action to undo the disadvatages of the victim. The motivational aspects can be addressed by stimulating hope that one can be effective in reducing injustice and by reducing one's fear that new actions will have costly and harmful consequences. They can also be addressed by enhancing the prospect of material and psychic gains from a positive change in the relationship with the victim; and by increasing the belief that continuation of the old relationship will no longer produce the material benefits or psychic gains experienced in the past and further that its its continuation may have consequences that are personally costly. It is apparent that those victimizers who are content with their superior roles and who have developed a vested interest in preserving the status quo and appropriate rationales to justify it will have to have their interests challenged and their rationalizations exposed as false before their sense of justice will be activated. (Our earlier discussion of increasing the bargaining power of the victim is relevant here.) However, even if the victimizer understands how unjust the situation of hte victim is and desires to remedy it, he is not likely to be activated to do something unless he sees the possibility

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of taking actions that will contribute significantly to correcting the injustice. Even then he is unlikely to act if he thinks that by so doing he will place himself in economic or social jeopardy. Once victimization has become deeply embedded in social institutions, individual action to overcome it is frequently seen to be futile and costly. Institutionalized racism and sexism persist in the United States despite the very substantial changes in the attitudes of individual whites and males in recent years. Pervasive victimization still occurs not only because of continuing racism and sexism but also because it is the natural consequences of a competitive ethos of everyman (or group) for himself under rules that assume that the competitors start more or less at the same initial point. Thus, to the extent that blacks, as a result of their legacy of discrimination, are more likely to be poor, uneducated, ill, unstable, and otherwise "socially undesirable" in terms of middle-class standards they are also likely to be poorer "risks" as employees, tenants, and borrowers. In a parallel vein women are often labeled poor financial risks because of their economic dependence resulting from their nonpaid work as homemaker and caretaker or because of the low pay characterizing women's occupations. To remain economically competitive, employers, landlords, banks, stores, are apt to discriminate against those they consider to be poor risks. Moreover, others who are affected by the decisions of employers, landlords, bankers, etc., are likely to protest if the risks are taken since they are apt to feel they would be adversely affected. In addition, the myth of equal opportunity explains poverty in terms of the deficient character or motivation of those who are poor. Thus, self-interest, social pressure, and ideology combine to perpetuate the victimization of those who are poor risks. From what has been stated above it follows that the focus of attention and activity of the victimizer, who wishes to remove the injustices suffered by the victim, should be directed at other victimizers. It has been a too common assumption that the social pathology has been in the victim; that the "disadvantaged" are the ones who need to be changed rather than the people and the institutions who have kept the disadvantaged in a submerged position.

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