Trends in the social psychological study of justice

Justice is one of the most basic and potentially important social psychological areas of inquiry. The assumption that others will be fair is what makes social cooperation possible. This article provides a brief review of trends, both historical and current, in the social psychological study of justice, and provides an introduction for a special issue of Personality and Social Psychology Review devoted to social psychological theorizing and research on the role that justice plays in human affairs. This overview highlights some exciting new directions in justice theorizing and research, including new uses of identity's ties to justice reasoning, increased attention to negative justice and moral emotion, as well as a greater emphasis on integrative and contingent, rather than competing, social psychological models of justice.