The purpose of this master's thesis is to explore the criteria for distribution within the framework of distributive justice and to conduct an experiment to examine how individuals choose distribution criteria based on perceived fairness in different contexts. I used three different resources—water, energy, and money—which the participants, acting as external and independent observers, had to allocate among the inhabitants of a fictional island affected by a natural disaster. In various hypothetical contexts, participants were asked to assess the perceived fairness of each of the three possible distribution criteria: the equality criterion, the merit criterion, and the need criterion. The results of the experiment, conducted on psychology students, showed that regardless of contextual differences, participants predominantly chose the need-based distribution criterion. In other words, they allocated resources to those who needed them the most. The context of the natural disaster played a significant role in their preference for the need-based criterion, as participants most often selected this criterion in such circumstances. The results of the experiment are therefore also important for understanding the perceptual processes underlying the comprehension of aid distribution in the case of natural disasters, including events such as the floods that affected Slovenia in 2023.
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