Belief in a Just World as Cognitive Constraint

Lerner and Miller (1978) discuss Belief in a Just World (BJW) in terms of

• The belief that one lives “in a world where people generally get what they deserve.” 
• The belief that the “physical and social environment . . . [are] stable and orderly.” (pp. 1030–1031). 

Here, some people may have beliefs about causality that make them feel, generally, that they can influence their personal and social environment (Rotter’s Locus of Control Scale). Other people perceive greater randomness in this psychosocial environment. Unfortunately, the Locus of Control scale seems to conflate perceiving randomness in the environment with perceiving the difficulty of attaining positive actions and avoiding negative ones, rather than being a simple measure of perceived environmental uncertainty. If it emphasized the possibility of good luck to what degree would its correlation with BJW be reduced (Furnham, 2003)? Luck is mentioned in the scale but the scale consistently discusses luck in terms of lack of control over whether valued outcomes are achieved rather than their spontaneous attainment: “Without the right breaks, one cannot be an effective leader” and “Getting a good job depends mainly on being in the right place at the right time,” for example.

Scales measuring Belief in a Just World examine beliefs that life, in some domains, is generally just or unjust. Justice and injustice can be immanent (present events are just or unjust) and ultimate (justice or injustice is an ultimate outcome of world events). Measured domains include the personal, interpersonal, and sociopolitical and beliefs in a just or unjust world can vary across each domain. Many of the benefits of belief in a just world are within the personal and interpersonal domain.

Belief in a Just World is correlated with greater long-term goal striving, a decreased sense of personal risk, and greater subjective and objective well-being. It seems that believing that one’s actions will generally be rewarded increases one’s willingness to commit resources. Or, alternatively, believing that one’s actions will sometimes go without reward decreases willingness to invest resources. I haven’t yet read research distinguishing between these perspectives. It also seems that those who are high in Belief in a Just World tend to have a decreased sense of environmental threat (moderated, I assume, by personal evaluations of virtue). This decreased threat could encourage a promotion focus, encouraging greater risk-taking. Risk-taking can be beneficial, maximizing outcomes, at least in environments that have a certain degree of safety. Last, personal well-being could be influenced not only by the greater rewards that come from greater resource commitment, but by a worldview that decreases the likelihood of ruminating on those negative outcomes that one cannot control and that encourages seeing these negative outcomes as in some way less negative or more positive.

Belief in a Just World is alternatively praised as a being correlated with subjective measures of personal well-being criticized for being associated with victim blaming and derogation. Both of these practices are moderated by several variables, both in the short and longer terms, and the relationship between BJW and political orientation has proved subtle (Furnham, 2003).