The personal belief in a just world and domain-specific beliefs about justice at school and in the family: A longitudinal study with adolescents

Abstract

This article investigates the relationship between the personal belief in a just world (BJW) and domain-specific beliefs about justice and examines how justice cognitions impact on adolescents' development, particularly on their achievement at school and their subjective well-being. A longitudinal questionnaire study with German adolescents aged 14-19 years was conducted over a period of five to eight months. The pattern of results revealed that evaluations of the school climate and of the family climate as being just were two distinct phenomena, both of which impacted on the personal BJW, which in turn affected the domain-specific beliefs about justice. However, the domain-specific beliefs about justice did not impact on each other directly. Moreover, an evaluation of the family climate (but not of the school climate) as being just reduced depressive symptoms, whereas depressive symptoms did not weaken the evaluation of one's family as being just. The evaluation of the school climate as being just improved the grades received in the next school report, whereas the grades received did not affect the justice evaluation of the school climate. Finally, all relationships persisted when controlling for age and gender. In sum, the pattern of findings supports the notion that justice cognitions impact on development during adolescence.

Perfectionism and the Big Five: Conscientiousness predicts longitudinal increases in self-oriented perfectionism

“…The original scales comprise 15 items to capture self-oriented perfectionism (e.g., "I strive to be as perfect as I can be") and 15 items to capture socially prescribed perfectionism (e.g., "People expect nothing less than perfection from me"). Because the perfectionism measures were part of a larger questionnaire study (Dalbert & Stoeber, 2006;Stoeber, 2002), abbreviated versions were used: Based on data from university students (Stoeber, 2000), only those items with the highest factorial validity (i.e., high factor loadings on the target factor and low loadings on the non-target factor) were included. For self-oriented perfectionism 8 items were selected (MPS Items 6,8,12,14,15,20,28,and 40), and for socially prescribed perfectionism 10 items (MPS Items 13,18,21,25,30,33,35,39,41,and 44) (Hewitt & Flett, 2004;see Stoeber, 2002;Langendörfer et al, 2006, provide further validity information).…”

Propiedades Psicométricas de la Escala de Creencia en un Mundo Justo General y Personal en el Contexto Argentino

“…Mayores puntuaciones indican mayores niveles de CMJ. La escala demostró contar con propiedades psicométricas adecuadas, tanto en su construcción original (Dalbert, 1999; CFI = 0,95; RMSEA = 0,034; α de Cronbach = 0,86), como en sucesivas evaluaciones en diferentes contextos (ver Dalbert & Stoeber, 2006; 0,74 < α < 0,91). (Muñiz, Elosua & Hamleton, 2013).…”

Assessing the Connection Between Students’ Justice Experience and Perceptions of Faculty Incivility in Higher Education

“…An explanation for this finding could be related to the assimilation function of the BJW. Students, who strongly endorsed personal BJW, were more able to interpret the social events occurred in their classes in a meaningful way, thus were inclined to evaluate their teachers' behavior towards them personally as just (Dalbert and Stoeber 2006), and consequently perceived their teachers' behavior as less uncivil.…”