THE MODERATING ROLE OF SEEKING SOCIAL SUPPORT ON COPING STYLES AND PERCEPTIONS OF ORGANIZATIONAL JUSTICE: A STUDY WITH FRENCH AND TURKISH STUDENTS

We examined the relationship between perceived organizational justice and coping styles in a cross-cultural comparison. Data were collected from university students in Paris, France (individualist culture; N = 192, age M = 21.6) and Istanbul, Turkey (collectivist culture; N = 251, age M = 22). The questionnaire (adapted from Colquitt, 2001) included ratings of distributive, procedural, and interactional justice at the university, and a coping style inventory (Vitaliano, Russo, Carr, Maiuro, & Becker, 1985) measuring preference for problem-focused coping, emotion-focused coping and seeking social support. In the Turkish data social-support seeking was higher than in the French sample and it was positively correlated with justice perceptions. When seeking social support was linked to problem-focused coping, it was also linked to a more positive evaluation of justice in the Turkish, but not the French data.