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Two Spheres of Belief in Justice: Extensive Support for the Bidimensional Model of Belief in a Just World
Author(s) -
Bègue Laurent,
Bastounis Marina
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
journal of personality
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.082
H-Index - 144
eISSN - 1467-6494
pISSN - 0022-3506
DOI - 10.1111/1467-6494.7103007
Subject(s) - just world hypothesis , psychology , social psychology , meaning (existential) , belief system , economic justice , poverty , epistemology , psychotherapist , political science , philosophy , law
The purpose of this research comprising five studies ( N =666) was to further corroborate the bidimensional conceptualisation of the belief in a just world proposed by Lipkus et al. (1996). It was demonstrated that belief in a just world for the Self (and not for Others) was correlated to evaluations of the meaning of life. Belief in a just world for Others was significantly correlated to discrimination against the elderly, stigmatisation of poverty, and higher penal punitiveness, while belief in a just world for Self was weakly or not related to these variables. Together, these observations confirm the importance of the conceptual and psychometric distinction between these two spheres of the belief in a just world.