You Can Screw People, As Long As They Have A Say

“That’s not fair!”

If you have kids, or friends with kids, you probably hear this a lot. Fairness is a wildly subjective standard, and as such, it usually doesn’t really mean anything. The only problem is, people’s subjective opinions about things are incredibly important. If you ask someone to do something, and they think it’s unfair that you asked, they’re either not going to do it, or they’re going to do a shitty job. If prisoners feel they were unfairly convicted, they may commit more crimes; psychologically, they may feel like they’ve banked time in jail that wasn’t deserved, and now its time to cash some of that in.

The good news is that it’s incredibly easy to make even objectively unjust situations more palatable to those getting screwed. It turns out, when people evaluate fairness, they weigh the procedure far more than they weigh the result. This seems insane, but its been shown in study after study, dealing with people as diverse as felons and venture capitalists.

In one study, Jonathan Casper, Tom Tyler, and Bonnie Fisher surveyed convicted felons from Baltimore, Detroit and Phoenix to determine how fair they felt their sentences had been. [Procedural Justice in Felony Cases, 22 Law and Society Review 483-508 (1988)]. These prisoners had been convicted of everything from fraud to drug possession to armed robbery. The survey first asked questions about each inmate’s conviction and length of prison sentence. The survey then asked about how each inmate thought he was treated by the justice system. Every question asked focused on either the outcome or the process.

As we would expect, prisoners put a lot of weight in the outcome: those who got off with a light sentence thought the process was more fair. But, regardless of the crime the inmate committed or the punishment he received, they weighted the process nearly as heavily as the outcome. Those who spent more time with their lawyer were more satisfied with the outcome, no matter whether the outcome was objectively harsh or mild. To some, having to spend a bunch of time with a lawyer AND losing would be a double piss off. But, the feeling that your voice is being heard, that your input is given weight, matters just as much as the objective outcome when it comes to your subjective view of how fair the experience was.

As Ori and Rom Brafman note in Sway, this feeling isn’t limited to felons. When venture capitalists were asked how they felt about various ventures they had backed, they responded just like the felons. CEOs who kept VCs involved, who gave frequent updates and were easy to reach left VCs with more favorable impressions of the venture, even if those ventures were less valuable in a monetary sense. [Procedural Justice in Entrepreneur-Investor Relations, 39 Academy of Management Journal 544-74 (1996)].

So, the lesson is, be a good listener. Make people feel like their voice is being heard, and that their opinion matters. If you’re not going to take their advice, or do what they want, explain why. Make them understand why your way is better. Even if it’s just “I’ve tried it that way, it didn’t work, so I want to try it this way,” that’s better than nothing.

This phenomenon is so powerful that you can literally screw people over, and as long as they have a say along the way, they tend not to be left too pissed off. Be mindful of this: don’t be placated when your lawyer is listening to you, but not explaining things. He might just be trying to screw you.