Effects of just world beliefs on perceptions of crime perpetrators and victims

Abstract

Our purpose was to examine the effects of Just World Scale (JWS) scores on perceptions of perpetrators and victims of a crime. Subjects were 52 college student inmates of a maximum security prison and 106 sociology students at a public 4-year college. Subjects completed the JWS and read a description of a robbery which varied the blameworthiness of the victim and the justness of the perpetrator's sentence. They answered 11 questions concerning perceptions of the victim, perpetrator, sentence, etc. A Group × Victim blame × Sentence justness × JWS score MANOVA showed no main effects or interactions due to group differences between inmate students and other students. High JWS subjects, compared to low, generally showed less sympathy with the perpetrator but more sympathy with the victim. The latter finding is somewhat inconsistent with previous literature.