Abstract
We investigated whether people need to believe in a just world in part because such a belief helps people to work toward long-term goals and to do so in such a way that they are deserved. We assessed participants' long-term goal focus and also their commitment to deserving their outcomes (via a psychopathy scale). In a second session, participants were then exposed to a victim whose situation did or did not contradict a belief in a just world. When the victim's situation contradicted a belief in a just world, the greater the participants' tendency to focus on long-term outcomes, the more they blamed the victim for her misfortune; but this relation only occurred for participants with a strong commitment to deserving their outcomes (i.e., those low in psychopathy). The results are consistent with our argument that, given the function of the belief in a just world proposed in this article, people would have a greater need to preserve the belief (e.g., by blaming victims of injustice) the greater their investment in long-term and deserved outcomes.
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Hafer, C.L., Bègue, L., Choma, B.L. et al. Belief in a Just World and Commitment to Long-Term Deserved Outcomes. Soc Just Res 18, 429–444 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-005-8569-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-005-8569-3