Just-world phenomenon

Just-world phenomenon

The just-world phenomenon, also called the just-world theory, just-world fallacy, just-world effect, or just-world hypothesis, refers to the tendency for people to want to believe that the world is "just" so strongly that when they witness an otherwise inexplicable injustice they will rationalize it by searching for things that the victim might have done to deserve it. This deflects their anxiety, and lets them continue to believe the world is a just place, but at the expense of blaming victims for things that were not, objectively, their fault. Historically this concept can be dated back to the theodicy of Leibniz, a theory that was attacked by Voltaire in his novel Candide. In a similar way, Imre Lakatos has argued against the notion of "instant rationality" in the philosophy of science.

History

One study gave women what appeared to be painful electric shocks while working on a difficult memory problem. Those who observed the experiment appeared to blame the victim for her fate, praised the experiment, and rated her as being less physically attractive than did those who had seen her but not the experiment. [cite journal |last=Lerner |first=M |title=Observer reaction to the 'innocent victim': Compassion or rejection? |journal=Journal of Personality and Social Psychology |volume=4 |issue=2 |date=August, 1966 |pages=203–210 |doi=10.1037/h0023562]

In another study, subjects were told two versions of a story about an interaction between a woman and a man. Both variations were exactly the same, except at the very end the man raped the woman in one and in the other he proposed marriage. In both conditions, subjects viewed the woman's (identical) actions as inevitably leading to the (very different) results [Carli, L. L. (1999). Cognitive reconstruction, hindsight, and reactions to victims and perpetrators. Personality and social psychology bullitin, 25, 966-979.]

The just-world phenomenon was first theorized by Melvin Lerner, [Lerner, M. J. & Miller, D. T. (1977). Just world research and the attribution process: Looking back and ahead. Psychological Bulletin, 85, 1030-1051.]

ee also

*Denial
*Cognitive dissonance
*List of cognitive biases
*Mean world syndrome
*Victim blaming
*Best of all possible worlds

References

* Lerner, M. (1980). "The Belief in a Just World". New York: Plenum Press.
* Lerner, M. and Simmons, C. H. (1966). Observer’s Reaction to the "Innocent Victim": Compassion or Rejection? "Journal of Personality and Social Psychology", 4, v. 2.

External links

* [http://omniverse.blogspot.com/2006_04_01_archive.html#114596025604185186 The Just World Effect]
* [http://www.units.muohio.edu/psybersite/justworld/index.shtml The Just World Hypothesis]
* [http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/iie/v3n2/justworld.html Issues in Ethics: The Just World Theory]


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