Repressed sense of justice: The separation mechanism of emotion and behavior regarding justice

Although emotions and behaviors are interrelated, these may manifest differently regarding justice due to people’s fear of negative consequences. Therefore, this study examined the effect of cognitive concern regarding negative consequences on justice emotion, justice behavior, and their separation tendency among 102 college students in China. We employed an experimental method to manipulate cognitive concern using original priming materials. The results revealed that positive-outcome-priming materials significantly increased justice behavior and reduced cognitive concern but had no significant effect on justice emotion. Moreover, separation tendency in the positive-outcome-priming group was significantly lower than that in the control and negative-outcome-priming groups. These findings provide directions for future research on the psychological mechanisms and mitigation paths of the separation of emotions and behaviors regarding justice among college students.