Responses to Victimizations and Belief in a Just World

The preparation of this volume began with a conference held at Trier University, approximately thirty years after the publication of the first Belief in a Just World (BJW) manuscript. The location of the conference was especially appropriate given the continued interest that the Trier faculty and students had for BJW research and theory. As several chapters in this volume document, their research together with the other contributors to this volume have added to the current sophistication and status of the BJW construct. In the 1960s and 1970s Melvin Lerner, together with his students and colleagues, developed his justice motive theory. The theory of Belief in a Just World (BJW) was part of that effort. BJW theory, meanwhile in its thirties, has become very influential in social and behavioral sciences. As with every widely applied concept and theory there is a natural develop mental history that involves transformations, differentiation of facets, and efforts to identify further theoretical relationships. And, of course, that growth process will not end unless the theory ceases to develop. In this volume this growth is reconstructed along Furnham's stage model for the development of scientific concepts. The main part of the book is devoted to current trends in theory and research.

Inhalt

1. An Overview: Advances in Belief in a Just World Theory and Methods.- Advances in Research on Observers' Reactions to Victims.- 2. Immanent Justice and Ultimate Justice: Two Ways of Believing in Justice.- 3. BJW and Self-Efficacy in Coping with Observed Victimization: Results from a Study about Unemployment.- 4. How Do Observers of Victimization Preserve Their Belief in a Just World Cognitively or Actionally? Findings from a Longitudinal Study.- Innovative Extensions of BJW and Self-Experienced Injustices.- 5. Individual Differences in the Belief in a Just World and Responses to Personal Misfortune.- 6. Belief in a Just World, Well-Being, and Coping with an Unjust Fate.- 7. Belief in a Just World and Right-Wing Authoritarianism as Moderators of Perceived Risk.- 8. The Belief in a Just World and Willingness to Accommodate among Married and Dating Couples.- Analytic Perspectives for Assessing the Construct: Belief in a Just World.- 9. Measuring the Beliefs in a Just World.- 10. Eight Stages in the Development of Research on the Construct of Belief in a Just World?.- 11. Methodological Strategies in Research to Validate Measures of Belief in a Just World.- Looking Back and Then Forward to the Next Generation of Research on BJW.- 12. Belief in a Just World: A Hybrid of Justice Motive and Self-Interest?.- 13. The Two Forms of Belief in a Just World: Some Thoughts on Why and How People Care about Justice.