Building and extending on just world theory, this paper studies people's negative reactions to innocent victims of rape or sexual assault. Specifically, we focus on an as yet unexplored variable that may help to explain these reactions, namely whether the perpetrator of the crime was similar or dissimilar to people who observed what happened to the victim. Perpetrator similarity refers to whether the perpetrator belongs to the personal world of the observer or not, and in accordance with predictions derived from just world theory, findings of three studies reveal that especially men take more physical distance from an innocent victim (Study 1) and blame (Study 2) and derogate (Study 3) an innocent victim more when the perpetrator is similar to them as opposed to when the perpetrator is different from them. Implications are discussed.

The enormous public health burdens of the COVID-19 pandemic are not distributed equally. Inequalities are noticeable along socio-economic and socio-cultural fault lines. These social determinants of health affect both the prevalence and severity of COVID-19 infections as well as the magnitude of negative impacts of the measures taken to slow the spread of the virus. This perspective paper summarizes key inequalities in who is affected by SARS-CoV-2 infection and in who is affected by COVID-19 prevention measures, based on evidence presented in state-of-the-art literature, and discusses the scope of challenges that these inequalities pose to solidarity and social justice. Key challenges for solidarity are highlighted across three areas: challenges to intergenerational solidarity, to global solidarity, and to intergroup solidarity.

This article focuses on the psychological process of radicalization and proposes a model that examines when people stop accepting the status quo and instead start embracing alternative social systems, unconventional worldviews, and countercultural norms and associated organizations. Specifically, complementary to earlier approaches, the article puts forward that emotional and behavioral system rejection are important in understanding growing radicalization. Building on literatures on social injustice, investment models, collective action theories, emotional reactions to injustice, the justification of violence, and system justification theory, the model proposes that perceptions of injustice are central to the process of radicalization. It is assumed that these perceptions can lead to system rejection tendencies of the dominant social system. That is, when there is no alternative system available, people can only show emotional system rejection. However, when an alternative system is available (such as when membership of a radical group or terrorist organization is a viable alternative), the scale may tip from emotional system rejection to behavioral system rejection, resulting in significantly higher levels of radicalization. In this way, the model identifies under what conditions tipping points may arise that can tilt people from system acceptance or emotional system rejection to active behavioral rejection of the societal system. Implications of this tipping point model are discussed. What is the significance of this article for the general public?The current article suggests that understanding system rejection is important in the process of radicalization. Specifically, we propose that perceptions of injustice spontaneously lead to system rejection tendencies. However, the availability of an alternative system (such as a radical group) is an important tipping point in this process leading from emotional to behavioral system rejection, while no system rejection and even system justification may be likely when no alternative is available.

Coul & the PREVENT study group (2020) Reducing health disparities: key factors for successful implementation of social network testing with HIV self-tests among men who have sex with men with a non-western migration background in the Netherlands,

Innocent victims of crime are often blamed for what happened to them. In this article, we examine the hypothesis that victim blaming can be significantly reduced when people mimic the behavior of the victim or even a person unrelated to the crime. Participants watched a person on a video after which we assessed the extent of their spontaneous mimicry reactions (Study 1) or participants were instructed to mimic or not to mimic the movements of this person (Study 2). Then, they were informed about a rape and criminal assault and judged the degree to which they thought the victims were responsible for the crime. One of the crimes happened to the same person as the person they previously did or did not mimic. The other crime happened to a person unrelated to the mimicry situation. Results of both studies revealed that previously mimicking the victim or an unrelated person reduced the degree to which victims were being blamed.