Abstract
People can perceive misfortunes as caused by previous bad deeds (immanent justice reasoning) or resulting in ultimate compensation (ultimate justice reasoning). Across two studies, we investigated the relation between these types of justice reasoning and identified the processes (perceptions of deservingness) that underlie them for both others (Study 1) and the self (Study 2). Study 1 demonstrated that observers engaged in more ultimate (vs. immanent) justice reasoning for a “good” victim and greater immanent (vs. ultimate) justice reasoning for a “bad” victim. In Study 2, participants' construals of their bad breaks varied as a function of their self-worth, with greater ultimate (immanent) justice reasoning for participants with higher (lower) self-esteem. Across both studies, perceived deservingness of bad breaks or perceived deservingness of ultimate compensation mediated immanent and ultimate justice reasoning respectively.
Highlights
A long history of research into the psychology of justice and deservingness has demonstrated that people are motivated to make sense of and find meaning in their own and others’ experiences of suffering and misfortune [1], [2], [3], and they do so in a variety of ways [4], [5], [6]
Participants in the ‘‘bad’’ person condition learned that ‘‘Keith Murdoch is awaiting trial for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy while he worked at the Bitterne Leisure Center as a volunteer swim coach and that other charges of sexual exploitation of minors are pending given recent evidence obtained by police since the original charge.’’ Participants in the ‘‘good’’ person condition read that ‘‘Keith Murdoch volunteered as a swimming coach at the Bitterne Leisure Centre and is a valued and beloved member of the community.’’ We predicted that this information about the victim’s character should determine how deserving the victim was of his random misfortune and ultimate compensation and, as a result, the extent of participants’ immanent and ultimate justice reasoning respectively
Of particular importance was the mediating role of deservingness beliefs in these relations, which we specified into two forms: (1) the deservingness of past bad breaks and (2) the deservingness of later life fulfillment
Summary
A long history of research into the psychology of justice and deservingness has demonstrated that people are motivated to make sense of and find meaning in their own and others’ experiences of suffering and misfortune [1], [2], [3], and they do so in a variety of ways [4], [5], [6]. On the one hand, people may attempt to perceive a ‘‘silver lining’’ in someone’s undeserved suffering by adopting the belief that a victim is currently suffering, she will be compensated for her misfortune [3]. People may try to make sense of suffering and misfortune by engaging in immanent justice reasoning [11], [12], [13], for a review see [14], which involves causally attributing a negative outcome to someone’s prior misdeeds, even if such a causal connection is illogical. Research has shown that people engage in greater immanent justice reasoning when their justice concerns are heightened by first focusing on their long-term goals [15], cf. [16] or after being exposed to an unrelated instance of injustice [11]
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