Belief in a Just World and Immanent Justice Reasoning in the Sexist Reaction To Innocent Victims

Deciding that negative experiences are punishment for prior misdeeds, even when plausible causal links are missing, is immanent justice (IJ) reasoning (Piaget, 1932/1965). Three studies examined a just world theory analysis of IJ reasoning in adults (Lerner, 1980). Studies 1 and 2 varied the valence of a target person's behavior prior to them experiencing an unrelated negative (car accident, Study 1) or positive (lottery win, Study 2) outcome. Participants viewed the outcomes as the result of prior behavior most when they fit deservingness expectations (good person won the lottery, bad person injured in automobile accident), suggesting that just world concerns influenced IJ reasoning. The lottery-winning finding (Study 2) also extends IJ reasoning to positive experiences. A third study found that a manipulation of just world threat in one context (prolonged or ended suffering of an HIV victim) influenced IJ responses in a subsequent unrelated context (automobile accident scenario).

Introduction: An Overview: Advances in `Belief in a Just World' Theory and Methods M.J. Lerner, L. Montada. Advances in Research on Observers' Reactions to Victims. Immanent Justice and Ultimate Justice: Two Ways of Believing in Justice J. Maes. BJW and Self-Efficacy in Coping with Observed Victimization: Results from a Study About Unemployment C.Mohiyeddini, L. Montada. How Do Observers of Victimization Preserver Their Belief in a Just World Cognitively or Actionally? Findings From a Longitudinal Study B. Reichle, et al. Innovative Extensions of BJW and Self-Experienced Injustices: Individual Differences in the Belief in a Just World and Responses to Personal Misfortune C.L. Hafer, J.M. Olson. Belief in a Just World, Well-Being, and Coping with an Unjust Fate C. Dalbert. Analytic Perspectives for Assessing the Construct: Belief in a Just World: Measuring the Beliefs in a Just World A. Furnham. Eight Stages in the Development of Research on the Construct of Belief in a Just World J. Maes. Looking Back and Then Forward to the Next Generation of Research on BJW: Belief in a Just World: A Hybrid of Justice Motive and Self-Interest? L. Montada. 4 Additional Chapters. Index.

When deserving translates into causing: The effect of cognitive load on immanent justice reasoning

According to the BJW (belief in a just world) theory, a person is more likely to derogate a victim when that victim threatens their BJW. An innocent victim and a victim who is more similar (an ingroup member) are more threatening to a person’s BJW than a non-innocent outgroup victim with such a threat resulting in greater victim derogation. In the present study, group membership and victim innocence were manipulated. Group membership was based on status (college students vs. non-college students). College students (n = 162) were randomly assigned to either a BJW threating or BJW confirming condition. A 2 × 2 × 2 ANOVA (analysis of variance) found an interaction between the BJW manipulation and group membership; participants whose BJW was threatened derogated the non-student (outgroup) more than the control. Contrary to expected results, the college student (ingroup) victim was not as highly derogated as the outgroup member. We suggest that more subtle social categories (not just differences associated with traditional racial or ethnic prejudice) may influence the ways individuals defend or reestablish their BJW.

People have a need to Belief in a Just World (BJW) in which people get what they deserve. When people are confronted with an event which threatens this BJW (e.g. when they witness a girl falling victim to rape), people try to maintain their existing beliefs, for example, by blaming the innocent victim for her ill fate. We argue that this defensive process of blaming innocent victims in essence stems from self-regulatory failure. In accordance with this line of reasoning, our first experiment shows that when self-regulatory resources were depleted (i.e. in the case of high ego-depletion) before BJW threatening information describing an innocent victim of a rape crime, the effect of BJW threat on victim blaming amplified. Study 2 shows that when self-regulation was facilitated by means of self-affirmation after the BJW threatening information, the effect of BJW threat on victim blaming vanished. Taken together, our findings suggest that coping with BJW threats involve self-regulatory processes leading to more or less defensive reactions (like blaming innocent victims). When people’s self-regulatory resources are depleted, they react more negatively to innocent victims when they constitute a stronger threat to the BJW. Facilitating self-regulation, by means of self-affirmation, enables people to cope with BJW threatening information, thereby inhibiting the urge to blame innocent victims.

According to the belief in a just world (BJW) theory, the most threatening victim for the observers’ BJW is the innocent victim whose suffering persists. Consequently the innocent victim whose suffering persists should be more secondarily victimized by high-BJW participants than by low-BJW participants. However, research has never systematically tested this basic prediction of the theory. In these two studies we tried to determine the impact of the observer’s BJW, the victim’s innocence, and the persistence of the victim’s suffering on secondary victimization. In study 1, an interaction between BJW and victim’s innocence was found on the attractiveness of the victim. In study 2, an interaction between BJW, victim’s innocence, and persistence of suffering was found on the derogation of the victim.

When do people derogate or psychologically distance themselves from victims? Belief in a just world and ingroup identification

Beliefs in justice and faith in people: just world, religiosity and interpersonal trust

Chapter Two - Immanent Justice Reasoning: Theory, Research, and Current Directions

Victim’s innocence, social categorization, and the threat to the belief in a just world

Several studies have shown that victims judged to be innocent are more liked and helped by observers than victims judged to be noninnocent. Nevertheless, objectively innocent victims are very often secondarily victimized (blamed, devalued, avoided, or have their suffering minimized), and judged as deserving or as being in a just situation. An impressive amount of literature shows that high believers in a just world victimize the victims more than low believers, judge them as more deserving and think they are in a fairer situation. But the evaluation of the joint impact of the innocence of the victim and of the observers' BJW (belief in a just world) on the observers' reactions to the victim has been left undone. This study aims to throw some light on this subject. An experimental study was conducted using a 2 BJW (high; low) by 2 victim's innocence (innocent; noninnocent) between-subjects design. No interaction effects were found, but the forms of secondary victimization, as well as the judgements of justice and deservingness, were more positively correlated in the condition where the threat to BJW is higher.

Research on the belief in a just world (BJW) has been developing since the mid 60s. However, studies have been mainly developed from an individual differences perspective. As a consequence there are no studies that analyze the cognitive processes implied in the appropriation of the BJW during the socialization processes that occur in infancy and onwards. The main purpose of this paper is therefore to analyze this psychological process from childhood to adolescence. The study was carried out with a convenience sample of children and adolescents (N = 216) from Buenos Aires, between 6 and 17 years old, who participated in an interview guided by the piagetian clinical method. Results indicate that during the appropriation process of the BJW participants reconstruct this belief to make it coherent with hypothetical deductive thinking. This is expressed in three different justifications that the individuals give to justify their BJW: immanent justice, social reciprocity and personal merit. Yet, the appropriation process is incomplete. In the majority of the adolescents a magical thinking remains, constituting a state of cognitive polyphasia expressed in oscillating answers. In conclusion, the BJW is not a previous social condition transmitted from one generation to another. Its appropriation goes beyond the mere reproduction of social beliefs and involves a conceptual reconstruction.

Caregiving burden significantly effects the physical and mental health of family dementia caregivers. While the association between objective caregiving burden (OCB) and subjective caregiving burden (SCB) of family dementia caregivers is well documented, little is known as with how the association is moderated by the configuration of intrapersonal resource (e.g., immanent justice reasoning) and interpersonal resource (e.g., social support). The present study collected cross-sectional data on 157 major family caregivers of non-institutionalized persons with dementia in an urbanizing region of Western China’s Sichuan Province. They responded to questions on daily time spent on caregiving, the short version of Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI), a sub-scale of a caregiver meaning scale, Social Support Rating Scale (SSRS), and demographic questions. Controlling for the demographic variables of the caregivers, this study found that the objective and subjective dementia caregiving burden were significantly associated (p < 0.001), and immanent justice reasoning was positively correlated with subjective burden (p < 0.01). Moreover, the association between OCB and SCB was significantly positive when social support and immanent justice reasoning were both high (p < 0.001), but neutral when social support was high and immanent justice reasoning was low. The association between OCB and SCB was significantly positive when social support and immanent justice reasoning were both low (p < 0.05), but neutral when social support was low and immanent justice reasoning was high. This research suggests the importance of developing intervention programs that consider the configuration of the external supporting resources and internal meaning-making of caregiving of the family dementia caregivers.

Article presents research of relationship of Belief in a Just World and Psychological well-being of adolescents. 212 adolescents aged from 13 to 18 years in schools and secondary specialized educational institutions of Voronezh were surveyed. Following methods were used for investigation of empirical constructs: “General Belief in a Just World Scale” (M. Schmitt, L. Montada, C. Dalbert), “General Belief in a Unjust World Scale” (J. Maes), “Belief in Immanent Justice Scale” (J. Maes), “Belief in Ultimate Justice Scale” (J. Maes), “5-Dimensional Belief in a Just Treatment Scale” (K. Stroebe), “Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being scale” (R. Tennart). Revealed that adolescents’ psychological well-being is positively correlated with General Belief in a Just World and its species: Belief in Immanent and Ultimate justice. It is also positively correlated with Belief in God, Nature, other people and Self-concept as sources of justice. We compared the ratio of Belief in a Just and an Unjust world in adolescents with different levels of psychological well-being. We found that psychologically advantaged adolescents’ Belief in an Unjust world is balanced by Belief in Ultimate justice; adolescents with low level of psychological well-being believe that the world is mostly unjust. This work was supported by grant RFH № 15-36-01233.

Previous studies have investigated the importance of religiosity in enhancing peopleʼs justice reasoning, yet the findings have been limited to the Western culture, where a majority of people believe in Christianity. In order to investigate the effect of cultural difference and of religiosity on immanent justice reasoning, we compared and contrasted the degree of engagement in immanent justice reasoning regarding someoneʼs misfortune among American Christians, Japanese Buddhists, and nonreligious participants in the two cultures. The analysis found that among Americans, those who believed in Christianity engaged in stronger immanent justice reasoning toward an unfortunate person with lower moral values than did participants without a particular faith. The Japanese, on the other hand, showed stronger immanent justice reasoning for people with lower moral values, regardless of their faith. In addition, when the person had low moral value, the Japanese tended to engage in such reasoning more strongly than did Americans. Our results showed that religious beliefs may contribute to strengthening engagement in immanent justice reasoning in the Western culture, but such a generalization may not be accurate in other cultures.