Navigating Uncertain and Unfair Situations - L6 Flashcards
When do children form a personal contract?
Children form a personal contract around 4-5 years old.
What is BJW developed on?
BJW is developed on the basis of a personal contract between the individual and social world – investment in goals is only worthwhile if people get what they deserve.
What does BJW stand for?
belief in a just world (BWJ: Lerner, 1977).
What is BJW?
unconscious, implicit assumption (rather than conscious, reflective belief).
Just world is the desired (and assumed) outcome. And, we react to situations that violate this assumption.
What are the two areas of research into BJW?
Individual differences in BJW (Hafer & Sutton, 2016 - review)
Experimental research – focus in this lecture
- Experimental research is focused on how people deal with situations that threaten BJW.
What are some threats to BJW?
Most salient threats to BJW = when someone experiences undeserved suffering or misfortune.
Someone is caught out in an unforeseen storm and suffers serious physical injuries.
Someone who has always been very health conscious develops cancer at a young age.
What are some Rational strategies to restore BJW?
Supporting social welfare programmes and policies
Helping the victim
Preferred strategy when actions remove the injustice.
What are some Non- Rational strategies to restore BJW?
Victim blaming
Perceiving a silver lining from suffering
What does IJR stand for?
Immanent Justice Reasoning
What is IJR?
IJR is a causal attribution in which an individual’s suffering is attributed to their prior failings or immoral character.
IJR can result in victim blaming
IJR still happens even when the suffering was not directly caused by the individual’s prior actions (or character).
What is some evidence for IJR?
Callan et al., (2013) examined the impact of long-term (vs. short-term) goal activation on engagement in IJR.
Goal manipulation given (long-term vs. short-term)
Participants read about victim of a freak accident
Character of the victim manipulated (volunteer vs. thief)
IJR measured – ‘to what extent was the accident the result of the victim’s past behaviour?’
What is the evidence for UJR?
Anderson et al. (2010; study 1) people compensate for tragedy by finding a silver lining for the victim.
BJW was manipulated - threatened (vs. control).
Participants read about a competitive football player who had either suffered greatly (vs. not suffered) in their childhood.
Participants wrote about what the individual’s life would be like at age 30 years and rated how meaningful and enjoyable life would be.
