Belief in a Just World and Reactions to Another's Lot: A Study of Participants in the National Draft Lottery1

Abstract

Six‐man groups of 19‐year‐old men listened to the live broadcast of the 1971 national draft lottery as they received either good or bad lots—i.e., either low‐ or high‐priority lottery numbers. Overall, subjects reacted more favorably to losers (people who received high‐priority numbers) than to winners. But this sympathetic pattern of reactions was absent among subjects who received high scores on a scale assessing their belief that the world is a just place where good people are rewarded and bad people are punished. Among these subjects, the tendency to justify the lots of others seemed to counteract the sympathetic pattern; they reacted at least as favorably to winners as to losers, and “resented” losers more than winners. Additional survey data lend support to the suggestion that the belief in a just world is a perceptual bias which helps to perpetuate social injustice.