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Belief in a Just What? Demystifying Just World Beliefs by Distinguishing Sources of Justice

People’s Belief in a Just World (BJW) plays an important role in coping with misfortune and unfairness. This paper demonstrates that understanding of the BJW concept, and its consequences for behavior, is enhanced if we specify what (or who) the source of justice might be. We introduce a new scale,...

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Autores principales: Stroebe, Katherine, Postmes, Tom, Täuber, Susanne, Stegeman, Alwin, John, Melissa-Sue
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4372594/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25803025
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0120145
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author Stroebe, Katherine
Postmes, Tom
Täuber, Susanne
Stegeman, Alwin
John, Melissa-Sue
author_facet Stroebe, Katherine
Postmes, Tom
Täuber, Susanne
Stegeman, Alwin
John, Melissa-Sue
author_sort Stroebe, Katherine
collection PubMed
description People’s Belief in a Just World (BJW) plays an important role in coping with misfortune and unfairness. This paper demonstrates that understanding of the BJW concept, and its consequences for behavior, is enhanced if we specify what (or who) the source of justice might be. We introduce a new scale, the 5-Dimensional Belief in a Just Treatment Scale (BJT5), which distinguishes five causal dimensions of BJW (God, Nature, Other People, Self, Chance). We confirm the 5-factor structure of the BJT5. We then address whether the BJW should be considered a uni- and/or multi-dimensional construct and find support for our multi-dimensional approach. Finally, we demonstrate convergent and discriminant validity with respect to important correlates of BJW as well as action in response to important negative life events and societal attitudes. This work illustrates the importance of distinguishing causal dimensions with regard to who distributes justice.
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spelling pubmed-43725942015-04-04 Belief in a Just What? Demystifying Just World Beliefs by Distinguishing Sources of Justice Stroebe, Katherine Postmes, Tom Täuber, Susanne Stegeman, Alwin John, Melissa-Sue PLoS One Research Article People’s Belief in a Just World (BJW) plays an important role in coping with misfortune and unfairness. This paper demonstrates that understanding of the BJW concept, and its consequences for behavior, is enhanced if we specify what (or who) the source of justice might be. We introduce a new scale, the 5-Dimensional Belief in a Just Treatment Scale (BJT5), which distinguishes five causal dimensions of BJW (God, Nature, Other People, Self, Chance). We confirm the 5-factor structure of the BJT5. We then address whether the BJW should be considered a uni- and/or multi-dimensional construct and find support for our multi-dimensional approach. Finally, we demonstrate convergent and discriminant validity with respect to important correlates of BJW as well as action in response to important negative life events and societal attitudes. This work illustrates the importance of distinguishing causal dimensions with regard to who distributes justice. Public Library of Science 2015-03-24 /pmc/articles/PMC4372594/ /pubmed/25803025 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0120145 Text en © 2015 Stroebe et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Stroebe, Katherine
Postmes, Tom
Täuber, Susanne
Stegeman, Alwin
John, Melissa-Sue
Belief in a Just What? Demystifying Just World Beliefs by Distinguishing Sources of Justice
title Belief in a Just What? Demystifying Just World Beliefs by Distinguishing Sources of Justice
title_full Belief in a Just What? Demystifying Just World Beliefs by Distinguishing Sources of Justice
title_fullStr Belief in a Just What? Demystifying Just World Beliefs by Distinguishing Sources of Justice
title_full_unstemmed Belief in a Just What? Demystifying Just World Beliefs by Distinguishing Sources of Justice
title_short Belief in a Just What? Demystifying Just World Beliefs by Distinguishing Sources of Justice
title_sort belief in a just what? demystifying just world beliefs by distinguishing sources of justice
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4372594/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25803025
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0120145
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