Identity affirmation as a response to justice failure

•Justice failure diminishes third parties’ perceived control.•Third parties restore diminished control by affirming perceived control.•Third parties can affirm perceived control by enacting core identities.•High moral identity will lead to behaviors that affirm moral agency.•High organizational identity will lead to pro-organizational behaviors. This paper examines how and why third parties respond to the failure of worldly justice when offenders go unpunished. We propose that justice failure threatens third parties’ perceived control and motivates them to regain control by affirming alternative sources of control. We further propose that third parties can regain control by affirming important identities. Supporting our hypotheses, studies demonstrated that exposure to justice failure resulted in greater prosociality by third parties via perceived control, but only if they were high in moral identity. Similarly, via perceived control, exposure to justice failure also resulted in greater favoritism by third parties toward their organizations, but only if they were high in organizational identity. Implications of these findings for management practice and future research are discussed.