On the Psychology of the Belief in a Just World: Exploring Experiential and Rationalistic Paths to Victim Blaming

Abstract

This article examines why people may blame innocent victims of robbery or sexual assault. We propose that in experiential mind-sets associative links are formed between the victim and the negative event. As the creation of such links is independent of explicit beliefs, people in experiential mind-sets produce negative reactions to the victim independent of their just-world beliefs. Rationalistic mind-sets, however, instigate propositional and consistency-based reasoning. For people who strongly endorse just-world beliefs (such as people who have strong predispositions to believe that the world is just or whose just-world beliefs have been threatened strongly), learning about an innocent victim creates a logically inconsistent system of beliefs. This inconsistency can be resolved by blaming the victim. For people who only weakly endorse just-world beliefs, there is no inconsistency in the first place and therefore no need to blame the victim. Two experiments support this line of reasoning.

Putting the “I” and “Us” in Justice: Derogatory and Benevolent Reactions Toward Innocent Victims in Self-Focused and Other-Focused Individuals

“…Moreover, although we did not include an explicit manipulation check in our current studies, earlier studies did show that social proximity heightens a BJW threat (e.g., Bal & Van den Bos, 2010;Correaia et al, 2007). Moreover, our findings in the control condition of Study 1, showing that people blamed a proximal victim more than a distal victim, are in line with many earlier studies that included various other successful BJW threat manipulation (e.g., Hafer, 2000b, Loseman & Van den Bos, 2012Van den Bos & Maas, 2009;Van Prooijen & Van den Bos, 2009). Hence, we believe crime proximity to be a valid manipulation of BJW threat.…”

“…We further propose that an other-focus will decrease derogatory reactions toward innocent victims and enhance helping of the victims involved. Consistent with earlier studies (e.g., , Hafer, 2000b, Loseman & Van den Bos, 2012Van den Bos & Maas, 2009;Van Prooijen & Van den Bos, 2009), we expect to find these effects especially following a high BJW threat. In these instances, people have a clear need to restore their BJW, whereas under a low BJW threat, reactions can be less pronounced (Hafer, 2000b).…”

Back to the Future of Dissonance Theory: Cognitive Consistency as a Core Motive

“…From a cognitive consistency perspective, one could argue that information about an innocent victim creates a conflict between the general belief that the world is a just place in which people get what they deserve and the belief that the victim is a good person who did not deserve his or her misfortune (Van den Bos & Maas, 2009). To the extent that people are motivated to retain their belief in a just world (because it provides a sense of justice and fairness), a potential way to resolve this inconsistency is to reject the proposition that the victim is a good person who did not deserve his or her misfortune.…”

Perceptions of the Self and most People’s Reactions towards Innocent and Noninnocent Victims

“…In these situations non secondary victimization reactions are more likely and approved of (but see van den Bos & Maas, 2009).…”

“…These surprising reactions play an important role in the lives of individuals who witness undeserved suffering -they protect their "fundamental delusion" that the world is just- (Lerner, 1980). Without questioning these findings, our approach aims to complement them by focusing on the normative processes guiding reactions to victims, an issue which the literature has generally neglected (but see Lerner, 2003; see also van den Bos & Maas, 2009, for an empirical approach). Specifically, our main goal was to investigate individuals' perceptions of what they and most people approve of and how they typically react towards victims presented as either contributing or not contributing to their deep and permanent suffering.…”