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Justice in Our World and in that of Others: Belief in a Just World and Reactions to Victims

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Abstract

Framed by the Belief in a Just World theory (BJW; Lerner, M. J. (1980). Belief in a just world: A fundamental delusion. New York: Plenum Publishing Corporation), this article presents two studies that analyze people’s reactions to the suffering of victims belonging to an ingroup and an outgroup. In Study 1, participants viewed a videotaped film containing the victimization story. The victim was presented as a non-categorized, ingroup or outgroup (Gypsy) victim. Threat to BJW was measured using the modified Stroop task developed by Hafer (J Pers Soc Psychol 79:165–173, 2000). In the second study, a non-victimization story was introduced and a 2 (victim, non-victim) × 2 (ingroup, outgroup) between-subjects design was used. Both studies show that the ingroup victim is more threatening to the BJW than the outgroup victim. The expected secondary victimization of the ingroup victim was only obtained in the second study when a non-obtrusive derogation measure was used.

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Notes

  1. All stimuli were presented in 18 point Arial font. Participants completed the two tasks on a personal computer (Pentium IV, 2.8 Ghz) equipped with an E-Prime response box and with a 17′′ color monitor. The monitor set to a resolution of 1024 × 768 pixels and with a screen-refresh rate of 60 Hz and the cycle duration of 15 ms. Participants were seated at a distance of approximately 50 cm from the computer and they were instructed to maximize the speed and the accuracy of their responses.

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Acknowledgements

This research was partially supported by the PRAXIS/POCTI PSI/12091/1998 and SFRH/BD/10917/2003.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Psicologia Social e das Organizações, Centro de Investigação e Intervenção Social, ISCTE – Lisbon University Institute, Av. Das Forças Armadas, Lisbon, 1649-026, Portugal

    Patrícia Aguiar & Isabel Correia

  2. Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon, Av. Professor Aníbal de Bettencourt, 9, Lisboa, 1600-189, Portugal

    Jorge Vala

  3. Departmento de Psicologia, Universidade Católica de Goiás, Av. Universitária 1.440, Sector Universitário, Goiânia–Go, CEP74605-010, Brasil

    Cícero Pereira

Authors
  1. Patrícia Aguiar
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  2. Jorge Vala
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  3. Isabel Correia
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  4. Cícero Pereira
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Correspondence to Jorge Vala.

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Aguiar, P., Vala, J., Correia, I. et al. Justice in Our World and in that of Others: Belief in a Just World and Reactions to Victims. Soc Just Res 21, 50–68 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-007-0059-3

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