Running head: CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 1 Academic year of 2015 – 2016
Second semester examination period
Blame the Outgroup: Can our Beliefs in a Just World Lead to Prejudice and Racism?
Anneleen De Cuyper
Ghent University
Master’s dissertation written to obtain the diploma of:
Master of Science in Psychology, main subject Personnel Management and Industrial
Psychology
Supervisor:
Roets Arne
Tutor:
De keersmaecker Jonas
De Cuyper Anneleen
01100676
[email protected]
+32 (0)475 86 57 73
Faculty of Psychology and Educational Science
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 2 Word of Thanks
I look back on this two-year experience with great gratitude. This master’s
dissertation would not have been possible without the help and support of some
important people.
First, I want to thank my supervisor, Prof. Dr. Arne Roets, for revising my thesis. He
advised me on how to structure my thesis and how to improve it in general.
Next, I would like to express my thanks to my tutor, Jonas De keersmaecker, for
revising my thesis and answering my questions regarding the instruments and data
analysis.
Furthermore, a special thanks goes out to my family for distributing both of the
questionnaires to their friends and colleagues. Without them, I would not have been able
to reach the current amount of participants.
Finally, I want to demonstrate my gratitude to all the people that filled in the
questionnaires and made this research possible.
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 3 Abstract
People can react in a rather ironic manner when being confronted with an innocent
victim. Instead of feeling compassionate, blaming the victim for his suffering is
frequent outcome behavior. This results from a high Belief in a Just World (BJW), the
belief that people generally get what they deserve. BJW can also be considered as a
system justifying ideology, which indicates the acceptance and justification of the
current economical, social and political system. In the present research, we investigate
whether BJW is related to two other system justification ideologies: Right-Wing
Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). Furthermore, we
investigate whether these ideologies have a common underlying source in Need for
Closure (NFC), and whether BJW is also associated with increased prejudice, a
prominent consequence of system justifying ideologies. Finally, we examine the
influence of victim’s group membership on the relation between BJW and various
coping strategies (i.e. prejudice, victim blaming and victim derogation). We conducted
two studies using online questionnaires. Study 1 (n = 127) showed that NFC is a source
of all three ideologies and that these ideologies are related to each other. Furthermore,
results demonstrated RWA and SDO to contribute uniquely to racism whereas BJW
contributed to prejudice toward homosexuals. In Study 2 (n = 120), we included 8
descriptions of innocent victims in our questionnaire, manipulating their identity as
either ingroup or outgroup member. The results showed an influence of both BJW and
victim’s group membership on the use of coping strategies.
Keywords: Belief in a Just World, System Justifying Ideologies, Need for Closure,
Prejudice, Victim Similarity
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 4 Index
Introduction
6
Literature review
7
Primary functions of Belief in a Just World
7
Belief in a Just World – defence strategies
9
Belief in a Just World as a System Justifying Ideology
11
Connections to other System Justifying Ideologies
13
Social Dominance Orientation
13
Right-Wing Authoritarianism
14
Antecedents of System Justifying Ideologies
15
Prejudice as a consequence of System Justifying Ideologies
16
The present research
20
Study 1
22
Method
23
Participants
23
Procedure
23
Measures
24
Results
25
Discussion
31
Study 2
34
Method
35
Participants
35
Procedure
35
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? Measures
5 36
Results
38
Discussion
41
General discussion
Implications
42
45
Theoretical implications
45
Practical implications
47
Strengths, weaknesses and future research
49
Strengths
49
Weaknesses and future research
51
Conclusion
53
References
55
Appendix
67
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 6 Blame the Outgroup: can our Beliefs in a Just World
Lead to Prejudice and Racism?
John was working late. When he returned to his car, a group of young men began to
bully him. John first ignored them and just kept walking. After a few minutes, however,
the group became more aggressive and pushed him on the ground. John could not do
anything as they kept kicking and punching him. When the group heard a car, they took
his wallet and ran away….
When people are confronted with events concerning an innocent victim like John,
they often react in a rather ironic manner. If possible, helping the victim is preferred
outcome behavior. However, when helping is not possible, the most common reaction is
not characterized by compassion but rather by blaming the innocent victim for his
suffering (Lerner, 1980).
Lerner and Simmons (1966) first examined this finding in a groundbreaking
experiment. Female students were asked to observe a peer completing an associate
learning task. When the peer made a mistake, participants believed she was given an
electric shock. The students reacted by devaluating and rejecting the peer when helping
her was not possible. Lerner and Simmons (1966) suggested that this strategy, called
victim derogation, is employed to defend people’s underlying need to believe in a just
world, which refers to people’s need to believe in a world where people generally get
what they deserve and deserve what they get. This need is beneficial to individuals
because it provides trust and confidence about their future (Lerner, 1980).
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 7 In the present dissertation, we will discuss Belief in a Just World (BJW) as a system
justifying ideology and its relation to two other system justifying ideologies: RightWing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). Next, we
will examine whether all three system justifying ideologies have a common source in
Need for Closure (NFC). Further, we study whether BJW, RWA and SDO are related to
prejudice, a well-studied consequence of system justifying ideologies. Finally, we
examine whether people endorse a different coping strategy when confronted with an
innocent ingroup victim compared to an innocent outgroup victim.
Literature review
Primary functions of Belief in a Just World
Investment in long-term goals. People generally have the need to believe that the
world is a just place, where people get what they deserve. The main reason for this
belief is that it permits to invest in long-term goals (Lerner & Miller, 1978). After all,
Belief in a Just World (BJW) assumes that one will receive the desired outcome when
one puts enough effort and energy in its attainment. In other words, when one deserves
to attain his goal, he will succeed with certainty. Moreover, BJW permits people to
perceive their environment as stable. This stability offers a heightened feeling of
certainty and will consequently increase the motivation to invest in long-term goals.
The importance of a belief in a just world to invest in long-term goals already
expresses itself during childhood when children develop a ‘personal contract’ (Lerner,
1977; Lerner & Clayton, 2011; Lerner, Miller & Holmes, 1976). Children learn to
decline immediate rewards for better, long-term results. Therefore, it is important to
believe in a just world, where each person (hence, also the child himself) gets what he
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 8 deserves based on his investments. As children become more mature, this personal
contract evolves in a stable commitment to the principles of deservingness.
Handling existential functions. One desires to maintain his belief in a just world
because of its vital function in his life. However, events that assume the world is not
just might pose a threat to this belief. For instance, people could feel threatened by
unjust events occurring to innocent others because these events indicate that injustice
might also happen to the self. As an unjust event might possibly lead to severe harm or
even death, feelings of anxiety are triggered.
Fear of death is, like the need for a sense of purpose, a dilemma inherent to the
existence of men. Belief in a Just World helps individuals to handle these two
dilemmas, the so-called ‘existential functions’ of BJW (Hafer & Rubel, 2015).
The first existential function pertains to humans’ inherent fear of death. According to
the terror management theory, this fear poses a dilemma because individuals are
directed toward self-preservation but unlike other animals, at the same time consciously
know that death cannot be avoided (Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986). People
try to solve this dilemma by developing a ‘cultural anxiety buffer’, which can be
divided into two components. The first component is cultural worldview, which
contains a set of values that needs to be observed. Believing in and living up to such a
worldview makes people be part of something that will outlive the individual
(Greenberg et al., 1997; Hafer & Rubel, 2015). The second component is self-esteem,
which represents the extent to which people believe they are able to comply with the
worldview’s standards (Greenberg et al., 1997). BJW is considered a cultural worldview
because it represents values that imply people get what they deserve. People live up to
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 9 this worldview by behaving in a prosocial manner rather than in an antisocial manner
(Hafer & Rubel, 2015).
The second existential function of Belief in a Just World is presenting individuals
with a sense of purpose in life by encouraging them to believe it is possible to obtain
valuable yet deserved results (Hafer and Rubel, 2015). Consequently, when an event
poses a threat to BJW, it will automatically threaten the individual’s sense of purpose.
This threat will cause the individual to experience fear, which Hafer and Rubel (2015)
called ‘existential anxiety’. A high level of existential anxiety consequently encourages
an individual to defend his BJW. Therefore, the authors proposed that the relation
between BJW, sense of purpose and BJW-defence is cyclical.
Hence, a belief in a just world is highly relevant for individuals because it: (a)
increases the motivation to invest in long-term goals and (b) it manages two important
dilemmas: fear of death and the need for a sense of purpose in life.
Belief in a Just World – defence strategies
As can be concluded from abovementioned findings, BJW plays an important role in
individuals’ lives. Therefore, they are motivated to maintain their level of BJW. So
when an unjust event in their surroundings poses a threat to BJW, people will try to
defend it by looking for coping mechanisms. These mechanisms will provide or restore
a sense of control over one’s own life and the environment (Barreiro, 2013). The most
prevalent coping strategy is victim blaming (Lerner, 1980). After all, when the victim is
held responsible for the outcome, the event should no longer be considered unjust, and
there is little chance the same misfortune will happen to ‘truly innocent’ people,
including oneself. This coping strategy is highly common because of its convenience.
However, it poses negative consequences for the victim as it accuses him for his
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 10 suffering disregarding his actual blame. Two different expressions of victim blaming
are distinguished: (a) blaming the person’s behavior and (b) blaming the person’s
character (i.e. victim derogation). Karuza and Carey (1984) found that people rather
have a tendency toward blaming the victim’s behavior than toward blaming the victim’s
character to defend their BJW. A possible explanation for this preference is that a
person’s behavior is believed to be more controllable than his character (Janoff-Bulman,
1979).
Beside victim blaming, Lerner (1980) proposed eight other, less-employed BJWdefence strategies. This total of nine strategies can be divided into three main
categories. The first category consists of two rational strategies: (a) prevention: an
attempt to prevent injustice and (b) restitution: an attempt to restore justice, for example
by helping the victim. The second category consists of four nonrational strategies or
‘psychological defences’: (a) denial-withdrawal: the physical and mental avoidance of
injustice and withdrawal from threats to BJW, (b) reinterpretation of the cause (e.g.
victim blaming), (c) reinterpretation of the character (e.g. victim derogation) and (d)
reinterpretation of the outcome (e.g. searching for benefits in the victim’s suffering).
Lerner also proposed two protective strategies: (a) the belief in ultimate justice (i.e. the
belief that justice will prevail, now or in the future) and (b) ‘multiple worldview’ (Hafer
& Bègue, 2005). People who apply the latter strategy believe that the world they live in
is distinctive from the one where injustice occurs (Hafer & Gosse, 2010). Multiple
worldviews can be seen as an extreme example of ‘psychological distancing’: a strategy
in which people psychologically dissociate themselves from the victim by believing
they will not become a victim of injustice because their own, close environment is just
(Hafer, 2000, studies 1 and 2; Hafer & Rubel, 2015). Research found that victims more
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 11 similar to the individual (i.e. ingroup victims, who belong to the close environment of
the individual) pose a bigger threat to BJW because they provide more accurate
knowledge about what might happen to the individual than do outgroup victims
(Aguiar, Vala, Correia & Pereira, 2008; Bal & van den Bos, 2010; Correia, Vala &
Aquiar, 2007; Lerner & Agar, 1972; Novak & Lerner, 1968). After all, “it’s not so
frightening when something ‘bad’ happens to one of ‘them’” (Lerner & Goldberg, 1999,
p.628).
Finally, Lerner (1980) proposed a strategy in which people say they do not believe in
a just world so BJW cannot be threatened. This so-called ‘penultimate defence’,
however, is only superficial and the internal feeling of threat will remain.
Lerner (1980) suggested that BJW-defence strategies might occur in a specific order.
Specifically, he proposed that individual’s first response to a threat to BJW is
characterized by empathy or negative feelings and followed by the remaining strategies,
as avoidance, cognitive restoration or actual restoration. However, in 2003, he restated
this by suggesting that people first experience an automatic response to the situation,
including identifying who is to blame. This immediate and automatic response can be
followed by a deeper reflection including attributions of responsibility and
considerations about the extent to which the victim got what he deserved.
Belief in a Just World as a System Justifying Ideology
BJW has important social consequences because it can be employed to justify the
current social system (Jost & Hunyady, 2005). That is, because people get what they
deserve, the current social structure is believed to be justified and reflecting a natural
order. As such, BJW can be considered strongly entwined with the system justification
theory, which suggests that people feel motivated to maintain the status quo and
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 12 therefore perceive the present economical, political and social situation as just (Jost &
Banaji, 1994; Jost, Banaji, & Nosek, 2004; Jost & Hunyady, 2002). Consequently, high
levels of system justification ideologies, including Belief in a Just World, will motivate
members of both advantaged and disadvantaged groups to justify the current system,
even if this might result in extensive costs to the latter group (Jost & Hunyady, 2005).
Not surprisingly then, research found that system justifying beliefs lead to low
support for the redistribution of resources, a low desire to help the disadvantaged group
and a decrease in moral outrage, frustration and guilt (Wakslak, Jost, Tyler, & Chen,
2007). Moreover, individuals with high BJW tend to admire successful people but also
derogate the unsuccessful (Rubin & Peplau, 1975).
Drawing from existing literature, one can conclude that a high level of Belief in a
Just World both has positive (e.g. low levels of rule-breaking behavior and delinquent
intentions; Bai, Liu & Kou, 2014) and negative consequences. For example, when the
individual is member of an advantaged group, high BJW will result in increased selfesteem, subjective well-being and ingroup-favoritism. However, when the individual is
member of a disadvantaged group, a high level of BJW will lead to a decrease in selfesteem and subjective well-being and an increase in outgroup-favoritism. Lipkus,
Dalbert & Siegler (1996) suggested that these positive and negative consequences result
from different types of BJW. More specifically, the researchers made a distinction
between BJW-self (i.e. the belief that the world is just for the self) and BJW-others (i.e.
the belief that the world is just for others). Since people with high BJW-self tend to
justify events that are bad to the self, it is related to positive consequences such as a
decrease in stress and depression and an increase in life satisfaction (Dalbert, 2001). In
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 13 contrast, BJW-others is related to negative social attitudes, for example passing harsh
judgements on innocent victims (Bègue & Bastounis, 2003).
Connections to other System Justifying Ideologies
Social Dominance Orientation. Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) is
conceptualized as “a general attitudinal orientation toward intergroup relations,
reflecting whether one generally prefers such relations to be equal versus hierarchical”
(Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth, & Malle, 1994, p.742). Individuals with a high level of
SDO prefer the status quo and hold the belief that the current political, social and
economical system is just. High SDO is therefore related to the desire for hierarchical
relations between groups, whereas low SDO is related to the preference for equal
intergroup relations. The Social Dominance Theory (Pratto et al., 1994) suggests that
SDO is an inherent characteristic of the human species and that a high level might result
in prejudice and discrimination. After all, people with a high level of SDO see
outgroups as a threat to one’s own resources and values (Esses, Hodson, & Dovidio,
2003). For instance, Licciardello, Castiglione, Rampullo, & Scolla (2014) found that
SDO was related to negative attitudes toward homosexuals.
Furthermore, SDO is positively related to ideologies that support group-based
hierarchy, such as meritocracy and racism and is negatively related to constructs as
empathy, tolerance and altruism (Pratto et al., 1994). Members of an advantaged group
tend to have a higher SDO than members of a disadvantaged group (Fischer, Hanke &
Sibley, 2012).
Relation to Belief in a Just World. As already stated, a high level of SDO can be
seen as the motivation for group-based dominance whereas a low level indicates a
preference for egalitarianism (Duckitt, Wagner, du Plessis, & Birum, 2002). Because
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 14 BJW entails the belief that people get what they deserve, this belief seems most useful
to rationalize the idea that some groups (deserve to) get more than others, and that the
existing hierarchy represents a ‘natural order’.
Right-Wing Authoritarianism. Building on Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson,
and Stanford’s (1950) seminal work “the Authoritarian personality”, Altemeyer (1981)
described Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) as a combination of: (a) a general
aggressiveness toward deviants and outgroups perceived to be sanctioned by established
authorities (i.e. authoritarian aggression), (b) the willingness to submit to established
and legitimate authorities (i.e. authoritarian submission) and (c) a strong readiness to
adhere to social norms and traditions endorsed by society and its authorities (i.e.
conventionalism). Although Altemeyer (1981) preferred to see RWA as a onedimensional construct, recent research has suggested a multidimensional approach to be
more adequate (Duckitt, Bizumic, Krauss, & Heled, 2010). Duckitt and his colleagues
renamed the three components proposed by Altemeyer (1981) to Authoritarianism
(previously
authoritarian
aggression),
Conservatism
(previously
authoritarian
submission), and Traditionalism (previously conventionalism). According to them, the
new dimensions can be seen as “attitudinal expressions of basic social values or
motivational goals that represent different, though related, strategies for attaining
collective security at the expense of individual autonomy” (p. 685).
Duckitt (2006) defined Right-Wing Authoritarianism as “the threat-driven
motivation to establish and maintain social or group security in the form of social
control, order, cohesion, and stability” (p. 686). More specifically, a high level of RWA
reflects the desire for social control, whereas a low level indicates the motivation for
autonomy (Duckitt et al., 2002). Research found that RWA is negatively correlated to
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 15 openness to experience and suggests that people who score high on RWA attempt to
compensate the lack of feeling in control by increasing their level of authoritarianism
(Dallago, Mirisola & Roccato, 2012; Mirisola, Roccato, Russo, Spagna & Vieno, 2014).
Relation to Belief in a Just World. Rubin and Peplau (1975) proposed that
authoritarianism and BJW are related since both constructs imply that powerful people
are good and powerless people are bad. On the one hand, BJW indicates that powerful
people occupy their hierarchical position because they deserve it. On the other hand,
RWA indicates the need to respect and adhere to the good and powerful authorities.
Relation to Social Dominance Orientation. Previous research also found RWA to be
related to SDO (e.g. Van Hiel, Pandelaere, & Duriez, 2004). It is important to realize
that, although RWA and SDO are both system justifying ideologies and have
similarities, the two constructs are different. For instance, whereas SDO refers to a
preference for hierarchical as opposed to equal relations between groups, RWA is a
desire for the adherence to authorities (Pratto et al., 1994). In other words, SDO can be
seen as an intergroup phenomenon whereas RWA is an intragroup phenomenon.
Furthermore, men have the tendency to score higher on SDO than women, but no
gender difference has yet been found for RWA (Altemeyer, 1998; Pratto et al., 1994).
Antecedents of System Justifying Ideologies
Research on BJW has (explicitly or implicitly) suggested a wide variety of potential
sources for heightened levels of BJW. However, one particular potential source - Need
for Closure - has greatly been ignored so far, despite its status as a key antecedent of
other prominent system justifying ideologies such as Right-Wing Authoritarianism and
Social Dominance Orientation (see Jost & Hunyady, 2005; Roets & Van Hiel, 2011a).
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 16 Need for Closure can be defined as “the desire for a definite answer on some topic,
any answer as opposed to confusion and ambiguity” (Kruglanski, 1989, p.114).
Research found that people with high NFC tend to embrace conservative ideologies,
such as RWA and SDO. After all, believing in the justice of the current system and the
preservation of the status quo helps to attain the desired predictability and certainty (Jost
& Hunyady, 2005). We suggest NFC to be an antecedent of BJW, as the latter is also a
system justifying ideology and therefore implies that the world and system are just.
Webster & Kruglanski (1994) proposed that a strong Need for Closure reflects one
end of a continuum, whereas a strong need to avoid this closure reflects the other end.
The location of one’s desire for closure on this continuum is determined by individual
personality differences. However, although having this stable character, the level of
NFC could vary depending on the situation (e.g. time pressure can enhance the
desirability of closure).
Based on the NFC scale (Webster & Kruglanski, 1994), the construct can be divided
into five facets. In particular, people with a high level of NFC prefer order and
predictability. Furthermore, they have a feeling of discomfort with ambiguity and
therefore find it highly important to make decisions as soon as possible. Finally, they
are narrow-minded since they only tend to see those aspects of the situation that support
their own cognitions.
Prejudice as a consequence of System Justifying Ideologies
Jost and Hunyady (2005) argued that system justification ideologies have a number
of potential (social) consequences, including increased perceptions of justice, decreased
support for social change (Jost, Pelham, Sheldon, & Sullivan, 2003) and a more positive
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 17 evaluation of the advantaged group as opposed to the disadvantaged group (Jost et al.,
2004). In the present research we will focus on one consequence in particular: prejudice.
Previous research already reported that RWA and SDO both result in racism and
prejudice (Sidanius & Pratto, 2001). Moreover, McFarland and Adelson (1996) and
Altemeyer (1998) found that no other individual variables better predict prejudice. This
is in line with Duckitt’s (2001) suggestion that prejudice results from two motivational
goals. The first goal, the competitively driven dominance-power-superiority motivation,
is highly similar to SDO. The second goal, the threat-driven social control and group
defence motivation, is of high resemblance to RWA.
Furthermore, although SDO and RWA are both related to racism and prejudice
toward homosexuals, SDO is found to be more closely related to the former whereas
RWA to the latter (Whitley, 1999; Stones, 2006). Based on the two motivational goals
proposed by Duckitt (2001), these findings can be explained by the difference in threat
the two outgroups pose. In particular, other ethnicity groups can activate a feeling of
intergroup competition, activating the competitively driven dominance-powersuperiority motivation. In contrast, negative attitudes toward homosexuals are more
likely to indicate the desire for social conformity, activating the threat-driven social
control and group defence motivation (Sibley, Robertson & Wilson, 2006). Hence,
SDO, on the one hand, is related to prejudice toward groups characterized by low status
or disadvantage. RWA, on the other hand, is related to prejudice toward groups that
pose a threat to society (Duckitt, & Sibley, 2010).
Previous research also found NFC to be a source of prejudice. However, this
relation can be largely explained by a tendency to adopt ‘ideologies’ which provide
clear structure, stability and predictability, such as Social Dominance Orientation and
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 18 Right-Wing Authoritarianism (see, Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003; Jost &
Hunyady, 2005; Roets, Kruglanski, Kossowska, Pierro, & Hong, 2015; Roets & Van
Hiel, 2011a). NFC has a substantial impact on how people perceive and evaluate the
social world and it heightens the use of group membership information to judge
individuals (Kruglanski & Mayseless, 1988). Consequently, people with high NFC are
more likely to use stereotypes and more extreme stereotypical ethnic evaluations
(Kruglanski & Freund, 1983; Kruglanski & Mayseless, 1988) and show higher overall
levels of prejudice (see Roets & Van Hiel, 2011a).
Based on existing literature and on BJW as a system justifying ideology, we
hypothesize that BJW may not only lead to the derogation of individual victims, but
also to the derogation of entire social groups, which could eventually result in prejudice
toward these groups. We suggest that a high level of BJW may not (only) result in
blaming an unfortunate victim but potentially (also) in blaming a disadvantaged
outgroup as a whole, and that the latter strategy might lead to a higher level of
prejudice. Hence, we want to contribute to existing findings by suggesting that, beside
the two motivational goals that are highly similar to RWA and SDO, BJW will also lead
to a higher level of prejudice.
Racism. Today the blatant and explicit type of racism has mostly been replaced by
more modern and subtle forms of racism. People are not as openly hostile anymore
toward racial outgroups, but instead express racism in an indirect and subtler manner
that is safe, socially acceptable and easy to rationalize (Brehm, Kassin, Fein, Mervielde
& Van Hiel, 2006). Possible beliefs of people who score high on modern racism are that
racial minorities receive too many opportunities and that they do not deserve their
achieved status (McConahay, 1986). Literature concerning modern racism states that
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 19 many people act in a racial ambivalent manner: even though they do not see themselves
as racist, they experience a higher level of discomfort and psychological tension when
confronted with members of racial outgroups (Hass, Katz, Rizzo, Bailey & Moore,
1992). The two system justifying ideologies, SDO and RWA, have been found to
predict a higher level of modern racism (Sibley & Duckitt, 2008). Measuring this ‘new’
form of racism is difficult because of its unconscious and subtle character. Two wellestablished scales developed to measure this construct are the Modern Racism Scale
(McConahay, 1986) and the Subtle Racism Scale (Pettigrew & Meertens, 1995). Both
scales are employed in the present research.
Modern prejudice toward homosexuals. Prejudice toward the homosexual
minority group is frequently showed in terms of rejection, discrimination and violence
(Garnets, Herek, & Levy, 1990).
Being an important issue in today’s society, research examined various antecedents
of prejudice toward the homosexual minority group. For instance, Stones (2006)
investigated whether prejudice toward homosexuals is determined by the individual’s
personality or rather by the group context. Therefore, he included the system justifying
ideologies RWA and SDO and the sexual identification of the participant. He found that
prejudice toward homosexuals is significantly related to higher levels of RWA and
SDO. In contrast, he could not find evidence for the influence of sexual identity on
prejudice. Other research confirms these results by finding that high levels of SDO and
RWA are both correlated with negative attitudes to and stereotyping of homosexuals
(Licciardello et al., 2014; Rios, 2013; Whitley, 1999).
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 20 The present research
The present research consists of two studies, both examining unique research goals.
The purpose of the first study is four-fold.
First, we test if BJW is associated with the two most prominent system justifying
ideologies, RWA and SDO.
Second, we examine whether these three worldviews have a common motivationalcognitive source in NFC. Previous research already found NFC to have an influence on
RWA and SDO (see Jost & Hunyady, 2005; Roets & Van Hiel, 2011a). However, no
similar research has yet been conducted for BJW.
Third, we investigate prejudice as a consequence of BJW. We will include racism
and homophobia as two distinct measures of prejudice. Research already found RightWing Authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orientation as antecedents of prejudice
(Sidanius & Pratto, 2001). We suggest that the other system justifying ideology, Belief
in a Just World, will also relate to prejudice as it indicates the belief that people get
what they deserve. Hence, when something bad happens to a minority group member,
people with high BJW could blame not only the individual victim but also the entire
outgroup, which could eventually lead to prejudice.
Finally, we investigate whether NFC has a direct influence on prejudice or whether
this relation is mediated by the three system justifying ideologies. Previous research
already suggested NFC to have an influence on prejudice via RWA and SDO (see Jost
et al. 2003; Jost & Hunyady, 2005; Roets et al., 2015; Roets & Van Hiel, 2011a). We
ought to replicate these relations and contribute to existing literature by examining the
possible mediating role of BJW.
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 21 In Study 2, we examine the influence of the victim’s in- or outgroup membership on
the relation between Belief in a Just World and various coping strategies. We propose
that people with high BJW will blame an individual victim for his suffering when the
victim belongs to the same social group. In contrast, when the victim is member of an
outgroup, people with high BJW will have the tendency to blame the entire outgroup
instead of the individual victim. This might eventually lead to being more prejudiced
toward this outgroup.
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 22 STUDY I
In this study, we first aim to test the relation among the three system justifying
ideologies: Belief in a Just World, Right-Wing Authoritarianism and Social Dominance
Orientation. We suggest this relation because these ideologies all assume a preference
for the status quo and a desire to maintain and justify the current economical, social and
political system (Jost & Banaji, 1994; Jost et al., 2004; Jost & Hunyady, 2002). In
particular, BJW justifies the current system by believing that we live in a just world
where everyone gets what they deserve, SDO by preferring the current group-based
hierarchy as opposed to equality and RWA by strongly adhering to established
authorities and social norms.
Second, we examine whether Need for Closure is an important source of these three
ideologies. Extensive research has already been conducted on the influence of NFC on
both RWA and SDO (see Jost & Hunyady, 2005; Roets & Van Hiel, 2011a). However,
we believe that NFC is also related to the belief that the world is a just place. For people
who have a high NFC, hence who have the need for certainty and predictability as
opposed to ambiguity, it might be efficient to believe in a just world. In particular, one
can trust on the goodness and justice of the world, leading to an increased feeling of
certainty.
Third, we investigate the influence of all system justification ideologies, but most
importantly of Belief in a Just World, on prejudice. Previous research already found
significant positive relations between both SDO and RWA and different types of
prejudice, for instance prejudice toward ethnic minority groups and prejudice toward
homosexuals (Stones, 2006; Whitley, 1999). We will include both types of prejudice in
order to attempt a replication of previous findings. However, our principal aim is to
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 23 contribute to existing findings by examining whether a high level of BJW will lead to
high levels of racism and/or prejudice toward homosexuals.
Finally, we investigate the role of the system justifying ideologies on the relation
between Need for Closure and prejudice. NFC has already been found to increase the
use of group membership information to judge individuals (Kruglanski & Mayseless,
1988) and to increase prejudice toward outgroups (see Roets & Van Hiel, 2011a).
However, the influence of Need for Closure on prejudice is suggested to be explained
by the embracement of system justifying ideologies as Right-Wing Authoritarianism
and Social Dominance Orientation (see Jost et al., 2003; Jost & Hunyady, 2005; Roets
et al., 2015; Roets & Van Hiel, 2011a). We will attempt to replicate these findings and
more importantly to make a contribution by examining the possible mediating role of
another system justifying ideology, Belief in a Just World.
Method
Participants
A total of 127 (69 male, 58 female) individuals participated in this study. All
participants originated from Flanders (Belgium). Since we aimed to examine the
amount of prejudice toward ethnic and sexual minority outgroups, no members of these
groups were included in the study. The respondents’ average age was 47.71 years (SD =
19.49) and ranged from 18 to 83 years.
Procedure
Participants were approached via e-mail and were asked to complete an online
questionnaire. Because all participants were from Flanders, the questionnaire was in
Dutch. Participation to the study was voluntary and respondents agreed to the use of
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 24 their data for scientific research. Complete anonymity and confidentiality were
guaranteed.
Measures
Unless noted otherwise, people were asked to indicate the extent to which they
agreed with a particular statement using a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly
disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).
Need for Closure. To assess participants’ Need for Closure, they were asked to
complete a 15-item scale developed by Roets and Van Hiel (2011b). This scale is based
on the revision conducted by Roets and Van Hiel (2007) of the original Need for
Closure Scale (Webster & Kruglanski, 1994) (e.g. “I do not like uncertain situations”).
According to Nunnally (1978), the Cronbach’s α of a scale should be at least .70 to be
considered reliable. The Cronbach’s α of the shortened version of the revised Need for
Closure Scale was .87, which is well above the recommended threshold. Participants
scored the items using a 6-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6
(strongly agree).
Belief in a Just World. We measured individual differences in Belief in a Just
World using an 11-item scale, which is a combination of the seven-item Global Belief
in a Just World Scale (Lipkus, 1991) and the seven-item Personal Belief in a Just World
Scale (Dalbert, 1999) (e.g. “I believe people get what they deserve”). Comparable items
of these two original scales were omitted. The Cronbach’s α of the combined scale was
.89.
Right–Wing Authoritarianism. To assess the degree to which participants desire
social security, control and order, Right-Wing Authoritarianism was measured using an
11-item scale (Altemeyer, 1981; see also Onraet, Van Hiel, Roets & Cornelis, 2011)
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 25 (e.g. “You can only live in this complex world when you trust on experts and
specialists”; Cronbach’s α = .83).
Social Dominance Orientation. We examined whether participants prefer groupbased hierarchy as opposed to egalitarianism using the 16-item SDO scale of Ho et al.
(2012; e.g. “Some groups of people are simply inferior to other groups”; Cronbach’s α
= .89). According to previous research of Jost and Thompson (2000), the SDO scale can
be divided into two facet scales. The first facet scale measures the level of preference
for egalitarianism, which corresponds to low SDO. The second facet scale measures the
support for group-based dominance and reflects a high level of SDO. These scales had a
reliability of .86 and .73 respectively.
Racism. We measured the individual differences in racism using the 12-item Subtle
Racism Scale (Pettigrew & Meertens, 1995; e.g. “I have sympathy for immigrants”;
Cronbach’s α = .86) and the seven-item Modern Racism Scale (McConahay, Hardee &
Batts, 1981; e.g. “Racist groups are no longer a threat for immigrants”; Cronbach’s α =
.88).
Modern prejudice toward homosexuals. We measured the amount of prejudice
toward homosexuals using an eight-item variation of the Modern Sexism Scale of
Swim, Aikin, Hall and Hunter (1995) (e.g. “Society has reached the point where
homosexuals and heterosexuals have equal opportunities for achievement”; Cronbach’s
α = .79).
Results
Table 1 provides an overview of the means, standard deviations and correlation
coefficients among the variables included in this study.
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 26 Table 1
Univariate statistics and Pearson correlations among the variables of Study 1 (N=127)
Variables
Mean
SD
1
1. Need for Closure
3.77
.77
2. Belief in a Just
World
3.56
.99
.21*
3. Right-Wing
Authoritarianism
3.87
1.00
.46***
.30**
4. Social
Dominance
Orientation
2.80
.93
.16†
.21*
.44***
5. Modern Racism
3.57
1.18
.38***
.28**
.63***
.48***
6. Subtle Racism
4.47
.89
.31**
.15
.56***
.46***
.69***
.13
.29**
7. Modern
3.78
.92
.17
Prejudice toward
Homosexuals
†
p < .10, *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001
2
†
.23*
3
.18
4
†
5
6
.17†
The relation between the three System Justifying Ideologies
The results regarding the correlations between the three system justifying ideologies
demonstrate that BJW is positively correlated to RWA and SDO. Furthermore, RWA
and SDO did also correlate significantly to each other. Hence, we found support for the
suggested relation between all three system justifying ideologies.
Need for Closure as a source of the three System Justifying Ideologies
We examined the correlations between NFC and the three system justification
ideologies. The results demonstrate that NFC is significantly correlated to BJW and
RWA and marginally significantly to SDO. Hence, the results support our hypothesis of
Need for Closure being a common source of the three system justification ideologies:
Belief in a Just World, Right-Wing Authoritarianism and Social Dominance
Orientation.
The influence of System Justifying Ideologies on prejudice
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 27 The correlations between the system justifying ideologies and prejudice demonstrate
that all three ideologies are related to modern racism. Furthermore, BJW was found
positively related to modern prejudice toward homosexuals. In contrast, RWA and SDO
were related to subtle racism.
Next, we examined the unique influence of BJW, RWA and SDO on prejudice.
Therefore, we conducted three regression analyses where the three system justifying
ideologies were included as independent variables. Respectively modern racism, subtle
racism and modern prejudice toward homosexuals were included as the dependent
variable.
The first regression analysis demonstrated that BJW did not have a unique
contribution to modern racism (ß = .08, p = .841). However, we did find evidence for
the unique and significant contribution of RWA and SDO on modern racism
(respectively ß = .50, p < .001; ß = .26, p = .002).
Results of the analysis on subtle racism also indicate a unique contribution of RWA
(ß = .45, p < .001) and SDO (ß = .28, p = .002). Similar to the first analysis, Belief in a
Just World did not contribute uniquely to subtle racism (ß = -.04, p = .658).
Whereas Belief in a Just World did not demonstrate a unique contribution to modern
or subtle racism, it did make a marginally significant unique contribution to the level of
modern prejudice toward homosexuals (ß = .19, p = .060). Also in contrast to above
findings, RWA and SDO did not contribute uniquely to modern prejudice toward
homosexuals (respectively ß = .10, p = .334; ß = .05, p = .608).
Hence, RWA and SDO contributed to the two racism scales, whereas BJW made a
unique contribution to prejudice toward homosexuals.
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 28 The mediating effect of System Justifying Ideologies on the relation between Need
for Closure and prejudice
To examine the influence of the system justifying ideologies on the relation between
Need for Closure and prejudice, we conducted three mediation analyses using
PROCESS. This is a tool written by Andrew F. Hayes to conduct mediation, moderation
and conditional process analyses using SPSS or SAS (Hayes, 2013). Respectively
modern racism, subtle racism and modern prejudice toward homosexuals were included
as dependent variables. We examined the mediation effect of the system justifying
ideologies by including them in all three analyses. Hence, no separate analyses were
conducted per system justifying ideology.
The first path analysis (Figure 1) did not demonstrate a direct effect of NFC on
modern racism. However, NFC did influence modern racism in an indirect manner
through the mediator Right-Wing Authoritarianism. In contrast, Belief in a Just World
and Social Dominance Orientation did not contribute uniquely to the indirect effect of
NFC on modern racism.
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? Belief in a Just
World
.27*
.55***
Need for Closure
.19†
Right-Wing
Authoritarianism
Social
Dominance
Orientation
29 .08
.52***
Modern Racism
.34**
Note. N = 127. Unstandardized coefficients are reported.
†
p < .10, *p < .05, ** p < .01, ***p < .001
Direct effect of Need for Closure on modern racism: B = .20, SE B = .12, p = .103, 95% CI [-.04, .44]
Indirect effect of Need for Closure on modern racism via Belief in a Just World: B = .02, SE B = .03,
95% CI [-.02, .11]
Indirect effect of Need for Closure on modern racism via Right-Wing Authoritarianism: B = .29, SE B
= .08, 95% CI [.15, .48]
Indirect effect of Need for Closure on modern racism via Social Dominance Orientation: B = .06, SE B
= .05, 95% CI [-.01, .21]
Total effect of Need for Closure on modern racism: B = .57, SE B = .14, p < .001, 95% CI [.30, .84]
Figure 1. Path analysis showing that System Justifying Ideologies mediate the effect of Need for
Closure on modern racism.
Similar findings can be concluded from the path analysis on subtle racism (Figure 2).
Need for Closure did not show a significant direct effect on subtle racism, but rather an
indirect effect through Right-Wing Authoritarianism. Also in line with the path analysis
concerning modern racism, the two other system justification ideologies, Belief in a Just
World and Social Dominance Orientation, did not show a significant unique mediation
effect.
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? Belief in a Just
World
.26*
.55***
Need for Closure
.19
Right-Wing
Authoritarianism
Social
Dominance
Orientation
30 -.04
.36***
Subtle Racism
.28**
Note. N = 127. Unstandardized coefficients are reported.
†
p < .10, *p < .05, ** p < .01, ***p < .001
Direct effect of Need for Closure on subtle racism: B = .11, SE B = .10, p = .275, 95% CI [-.09, .30]
Indirect effect of Need for Closure on subtle racism via Belief in a Just World: B = -.01, SE B = .02,
95% CI [-.07, .03]
Indirect effect of Need for Closure on subtle racism via Right-Wing Authoritarianism: B = .20, SE B =
.06, 95% CI [.10, .34]
Indirect effect of Need for Closure on subtle racism via Social Dominance Orientation: B = .05, SE B
= .04, 95% CI [-.00, .16]
Total effect of Need for Closure on subtle racism: B = .35, SE B = .11, p = .001, 95% CI [.14, .56]
Figure 2. Path analysis showing that System Justifying Ideologies mediate the effect of Need for
Closure on subtle racism.
The path analysis on modern prejudice toward homosexuals demonstrated slightly
different results (Figure 3). Similar to the two path analyses on racism, no direct effect
was found of Need for Closure on modern prejudice toward homosexuals. However,
this path analysis did not show a significant effect of Right-Wing Authoritarianism.
Instead, it was Belief in a Just World that contributed uniquely to the indirect effect of
NFC on prejudice toward homosexuals. Social Dominance Orientation did not
demonstrate a significant unique effect on this relation.
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? Belief in a Just
World
.26*
.55***
Need for Closure
.19
Right-Wing
Authoritarianism
Social
Dominance
Orientation
31 .17†
.06
Prejudice toward
Homosexuals
.06
Note. N = 127. Unstandardized coefficients are reported.
†
p < .10, *p < .05, ** p < .01, ***p < .001
Direct effect of Need for Closure on modern prejudice toward homosexuals: B = .11, SE B = .12, p =
.373, 95% CI [-.14, .36]
Indirect effect of Need for Closure on modern prejudice toward homosexuals via Belief in a Just
World: B = .04, SE B = .03, 95% CI [.00, .13]
Indirect effect of Need for Closure on modern prejudice toward homosexuals via Right-Wing
Authoritarianism: B = .03, SE B = .06, 95% CI [-.07, .16]
Indirect effect of Need for Closure on modern prejudice toward homosexuals via Social Dominance
Orientation: B = .01, SE B = .03, 95% CI [-.03, .11]
Total effect of Need for Closure on modern prejudice toward homosexuals: B = .20, SE B = .11, p =
.082, 95% CI [-.03, .42]
Figure 3. Path analysis showing that System Justifying Ideologies mediate the effect of Need for
Closure on modern prejudice toward homosexuals.
Discussion
First, we found that the three system justifying ideologies are significantly related to
each other. These ideologies all legitimize the current social, economical and political
system: Belief in a Just World by believing everyone gets what he deserves, RightWing Authoritarianism by adhering to established authorities and Social Dominance
Orientation by justifying the current hierarchical system as opposed to a system where
intergroup relations are equal.
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 32 In line with our expectations, we found evidence for Need for Closure as a common
source of all three system justification ideologies. This supports our hypothesis that
NFC influences not only Right-Wing Authoritarianism and Social Dominance
Orientation, but also Belief in a Just World. People who dislike unclear and ambiguous
events might have a preference for believing that the world is a just place. When
everything happens for a reason and everyone gets what he deserves, the world is likely
to be more predictable and transparent.
Furthermore, we found that the system justifying ideologies predict different types of
prejudice. In particular, BJW was significantly related to modern prejudice toward
homosexuals, whereas the two other system justifying ideologies, RWA and SDO, were
related to subtle racism. All three ideologies were related to modern racism. However,
when examining the unique contribution of each ideology to modern racism, only RWA
and SDO contributed significantly. Hence, although BJW was related to modern racism,
it did no longer make a unique contribution when the two other ideologies were
included. We will extend on this finding in our second study by investigating whether
the relation between BJW and prejudice is influenced by the group membership of an
innocent victim. More specifically, we will test whether a high BJW will lead to a
different coping strategy when the victim is an ingroup member as opposed to an
outgroup member.
Finally, we found evidence for the mediating effect of system justifying ideologies
on the relation between Need for Closure and prejudice. In particular, we found that
Right-Wing Authoritarianism mediated the relation between Need for Closure and
racism. Belief in a Just World, on the other hand, mediated the relation between Need
for Closure and modern prejudice toward homosexuals. Social Dominance Orientation
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 33 did not significantly mediate any relation between NFC and prejudice. However, we
only examined the relative contribution of the three system justifying ideologies. SDO
might mediate the relation between NFC and prejudice when the other two ideologies
are excluded from the analysis. These findings are partially in line with our prediction
about the mediating effect of the system justification ideologies on the relation between
NFC and prejudice.
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 34 STUDY II
The aim of the second study is to examine the influence of the victim’s group
membership on the relation between Belief in a Just World and the type of coping
strategy employed. The existence of unjust events in the world might pose a severe
threat to one’s Belief in a Just World. Because this belief is of great importance for
one’s functioning, one might react to this threat by employing several coping strategies
in order to restore his BJW. The most prominent coping strategy is blaming the
individual victim for his suffering (Lerner, 1980). However, we suggest that which
coping strategy is employed, greatly depends on the innocent victim himself. Drawing
from previous research, we expect that victims similar to the individual will pose a
bigger threat to BJW (Aguiar et al., 2008). We extend on previous work by proposing
that a different coping strategy will be employed when the victim is highly similar to
oneself compared to when there are few similarities. Particularly, we assume that when
similarity is high (i.e. the victim is member of the ingroup), individuals with a high
level of Belief in a Just World will apply victim blaming as defence strategy. Using this
strategy, they can blame the victim’s behavior or the victim’s character (i.e. victim
derogation). However, when similarity is low because the victim is an outgroup
member, a threat to BJW may lead individuals to distance themselves from the victim
relying on group membership. This strategy could represent a specific version of the
endorsement of multiple worldviews, where people psychologically dissociate
themselves from the victim by believing they will not become a victim of injustice
because their own, close environment is just (see Hafer & Rubel, 2015). As such, there
would be less need to blame the individual victim. However, the reliance on group
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 35 membership to distance oneself from the victim could increase prejudice toward the
entire outgroup.
In our study, we will make the ingroup-outgroup distinction based on race.
Consequently, if high BJW individuals indeed derogate the outgroup when similarity to
the victim is low, we expect that they will show higher levels of racism than when
similarity to the victim is high.
Method
Participants
In total 122 individuals from Flanders (Belgium) participated in this study. However,
two participants failed to correctly answer the control questions (e.g. “Please, check
number 'five' for this control question”). This suggests that they did not fill in the
questionnaire carefully. Therefore, we excluded these two participants before
conducting any analyses. As in the first study, we only included members of the
Flemish majority group. We aimed to investigate whether a different coping strategy is
employed when confronted with an innocent ingroup victim compared to an innocent
outgroup victim. Therefore, it was important to only include members of the same
social group in this study. Moreover, members of a minority group might employ a
different BJW-defence strategy than members of the majority group (e.g. more
compassionate). Hence, to avoid biased results, we only included members from the
Flemish majority group in this study. So our final sample consisted of 120 Flemish
participants. Of these participants, 27.5 percent were male (N = 33). The respondents’
average age was 37.29 years (SD = 19.75) and ranged from 18 to 83 years.
Procedure
Because all respondents were Flemish, the questionnaires were in Dutch.
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 36 Participants completed the same online questionnaire as in the first study. However,
during this study, participants were also asked to read eight scenarios involving a victim
of crime or misfortune beyond the victim’s control. To manipulate the extent of
similarity to the victim, we distinguished two conditions where: (a) all the victims had
Flemish names and thus belonged to the participants’ ingroup or (b) all the victims had
names of foreign origin and thus belonged to an outgroup. Participants were randomly
assigned to one of these two conditions. After each scenario, the amount of victim
blaming and victim derogation was measured.
Measures
Unless noted, people were asked to indicate the extent to which they agree with a
particular statement using a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7
(strongly agree).
Belief in a Just World. The level of BJW was measured by the same scale as used
in Study 1, so an 11-item combination scale of the seven-item Global Belief in a Just
World Scale (Lipkus, 1991) and the seven-item Personal Belief in a Just World Scale
(Dalbert, 1999). The Cronbach’s α of this scale was .85, which is well above the desired
threshold proposed by Nunnally (1978).
Scenarios. The participants were asked to read eight scenarios we developed, all
including the description of an event that resulted in harm to an innocent victim. Hence,
the scenarios posed a threat to the individual’s BJW (for example, “In spite of the
promise she made to her parents to go grocery shopping, Ann is enjoying a lazy day at
home. A big storm is coming and people have been recommended to stay inside their
house during the afternoon. Ann really wants to fulfil her promise and leaves the house,
despite the warning. On her way to the supermarket a scaffold of a house falls on Ann,
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 37 caused by the heavy squalls. She was badly injured”; see appendix for the remaining
scenarios).
Female participants got scenarios involving female victims and male participants got
scenarios involving male victims. This way, gender as a salient social category could
not influence perceived similarity between the participants and the victim. We used a
two-way between subject design. In the first condition, the victims had Flemish names.
In the second condition, the victims had names of foreign origin. After reading each
scenario, victim blaming and victim derogation were measured. Prejudice was measured
at the end of the series.
Victim blaming. We assessed the degree to which participants blamed the innocent
victim for his suffering using four items (e.g. “The victim can be considered guilty for
what has happened”; Cronbach’s α = .72).
Victim derogation. We measured the amount in which participants derogated the
innocent victim using four items. Participants were asked to demonstrate on a 7-point
Likert scale how they felt about the victim (e.g. disdainful versus reverential affect
toward the victim; Cronbach’s α = .92). The two end points (i.e. 1 and 7) indicated the
opposite affects (e.g. 1 = disdainful, 4 = neutral and 7 = reverential).
Racism. To examine the level of racism, participants completed the 12-item Subtle
Racism Scale (Pettigrew & Meertens, 1995; Cronbach’s α = .88) and the 10-item
Modern Racism Scale (McConahay, 1986). The latter scale had a reliability below the
recommended threshold of .70 (Cronbach’s α = .64). However, when item 10 (i.e. “ It is
easy to understand the anger of the foreigners who live here in Belgium”) was excluded,
the reliability of the scale increased to .78. Therefore, we deleted this item before
conducting further analyses.
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 38 Furthermore, we asked participants to indicate on a 7-point Likert scale how they
feel about foreigners. The same four items were used as employed for victim
derogation. However, now it measured the affect toward foreigners in general as
opposed to the affect toward the individual innocent victim (e.g. disdainful versus
reverential affect toward foreigners (1 = disdainful and 7 = reverential); Cronbach’s α =
.94). A high score on this scale represents a low level of racism.
Results
Nineteen male (that is 57,6% of all male participants) and 44 female (that is 51% of
all female participants) participants filled in the questionnaire with scenarios involving
victims of foreign origin. The remaining 14 male and 43 female participants completed
the questionnaire with scenarios involving ingroup victims.
Table 2 provides an overview of the means, standard deviations and correlation
coefficients among the variables of this study.
Table 2
Univariate statistics and Pearson correlations among the variables of Study 2 (N=120)
Variables
Mean
SD
1
2
3
4
1.BJW
3.28
.86
2. Victim blaming
3.15
.64
.21*
3.Victim
derogation
5.22
.83
.10
-.45***
4. Modern racism
3.66
.79
.23*
.38***
-.23*
5. Subtle racism
4.15
.88
.14
.32***
-.31**
.72***
6. Positive affect
4.53
1.06
-.04
toward foreigners
†
p < .10, *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001
-.36***
.56***
-.56***
5
-.72***
The relation between BJW and various coping strategies
The correlations between BJW and the coping strategies demonstrate a positive
relation of the system justifying ideology to victim blaming and modern racism.
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 39 Consistent with the findings of Study 1, BJW did not correlate with subtle racism.
Furthermore, no significant correlation was found between BJW on the one hand and
victim derogation and positive affect toward foreigners on the other hand.
Moderating effect of ethnic group membership of the victim on the relation
between Belief in a Just World and various coping strategies
We conducted five regression analyses to examine whether ethnic group membership
of the victim moderates the relationship between the level of Belief in a Just World and
the type of coping strategy employed. Group membership was coded as 1 = ingroup, -1
= outgroup.
In the first analysis we investigated, in addition to their main effects, the effect of the
interaction between BJW and the victim’s ethnic group membership on victim blaming.
Results demonstrate a main effect of BJW on victim blaming (ß = .21, p = .02). Further,
the group membership of the victim had a marginally significant effect on victim
blaming (ß = .16, p = .078). So in line with our hypothesis, participants blamed ingroup
victims more for their misfortune than outgroup victims. Contrary to our hypothesis,
however, no significant effect was found of the interaction between Belief in a Just
World and ethnic group membership of the victim on victim blaming (ß = .01, p =
.884).
In the second analysis, we examined whether the interaction between Belief in a Just
World and the victim’s ethnic group membership could have a significant effect on
victim derogation. However, no significant effects were found of BJW (ß = .10, p =
.291), group membership of the victim (ß = -.10, p = .277) or of their interaction (ß =
.01, p = .881) on victim derogation.
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 40 Finally, we conducted three regression analyses with the different racism scales,
namely modern racism, subtle racism and positive affect toward foreigners, as
dependent variables (Tables 3-5). Results only demonstrate a significant main effect of
Belief in a Just World on modern racism. Hence, the victim’s group membership and
the interaction between Belief in a Just World and the victim’s group membership did
not demonstrate any effect on racism.
Table 3
Results of Regression Analysis of modern racism
Modern Racism
Steps and Variables
1. BJW
Group membership
1
2
ß
p
ß
p
.23*
.013
.909
.24*
.010
.911
-.01
2. BJWxMEMBERSHIP
-.01
.08
.362
ΔR2
.05*
.06*
Adjusted R2
.04*
.03†
Note. N = 120 Standardized regression coefficients are reported for the respective regression
steps.
†
p < .10, *p < .05, ** p < .01, ***p < .001
Table 4
Results of Regression Analysis of subtle racism
Subtle Racism
Steps and Variables
1. BJW
Group membership
1
ß
p
ß
p
.14
.136
.557
.14
.139
.559
.05
2. BJWxMEMBERSHIP
ΔR2
Adjusted R
2
2
.05
.01
.932
.02
.02
.01
-.00
Note. N = 120. Standardized regression coefficients are reported for the respective regression
steps.
†
p < .10, *p < .05, ** p < .01, ***p < .001
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 41 Table 5
Results of Regression Analysis of positive affect toward foreigners
Positive Affect toward Foreigners
Steps and Variables
1. BJW
Group membership
1
2
ß
p
ß
p
-.04
.659
.290
-.05
.618
.291
-.10
2. BJWxMEMBERSHIP
-.10
-.04
.642
ΔR2
.01
.01
Adjusted R2
-.01
-.01
Note. N = 120. Standardized regression coefficients are reported for the respective regression
steps.
†
p < .10, *p < .05, ** p < .01, ***p < .001
Based on these findings, we did not find any support for our hypothesis that the type
of coping strategy employed by people with a high level of Belief in a Just World
depends on the group membership of the victim. However, results demonstrate
additional support for the relation between BJW and modern racism found in our first
study. In addition, we found that people with high BJW blame innocent victims more
for their suffering than people with low BJW. Finally, we found that participants do
blame individual ingroup victims more than outgroup victims but that this effect does
not depend on their level of BJW.
Discussion
In this study, we examined the possible influence of the victim’s group membership
on the relation between Belief in a Just World and various coping strategies. In
particular, we proposed that an innocent victim belonging to the ingroup would lead
people with high BJW to blame the individual victim for his suffering. In contrast, an
innocent victim belonging to an outgroup would lead people, who strongly endorse the
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 42 belief that the world is a just place, to blame the entire outgroup. The latter coping
strategy could eventually lead to being more prejudiced toward this outgroup.
However, the study failed to find evidence for this proposition. We did find that
strong Belief in a Just World is related to more victim blaming and modern racism. This
provides evidence for the well-suggested role coping strategies play when people are
confronted with events that pose a threat to their highly relevant Belief in a Just World.
In particular, we found that people who strongly endorse BJW, blamed innocent victims
more for their suffering than did people who do not strongly endorse this belief. So
when an innocent victim poses a threat to the justice and goodness of the world, a
convenient way to maintain this justice-belief is by blaming the individual victim. In
addition, people with a high Belief in a Just World demonstrated a higher level of
modern racism than did people with low Belief in a Just World. This provides support
for our proposition that racism can be a possible coping strategy people with high Belief
in a Just World employ after being confronted with events that threaten this belief.
However, we could not find evidence for the influence of the victim’s group
membership on the relation between Belief in a Just World and racism. Furthermore, we
found that participants blamed ingroup victims more than outgroup victims. However,
this effect was only marginally significant and did not depend on participants’ level of
BJW.
General discussion
We conducted these two studies because of our interest in possible antecedents and
consequences of Belief in a Just World, a system justifying ideology that refers to the
belief that the world is a just place where everyone gets what they deserve. In addition,
we wanted to examine the association of BJW with other system justifying ideologies
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 43 and whether BJW leads to different coping strategies depending on the in- versus
outgroup membership of the victim.
Study 1 provided evidence for the relation between BJW and two other system
justifying ideologies: Right-Wing Authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orientation.
Furthermore, we suggested Need for Closure, which is the desire for predictability
and certainty as opposed to ambiguity, as a possible source of Belief in a Just World
because of its well-supported influence on other system justifying ideologies, such as
Right-Wing Authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orientation (see Jost & Hunyady,
2005; Roets & Van Hiel, 2011a). We replicated the effect of Need for Closure on RWA
and SDO. Moreover, we found evidence for the significant influence of Need for
Closure on BJW. Hence, this suggests that Need for Closure is a common antecedent of
various system justifying ideologies, in particular of Belief in a Just World, Right-Wing
Authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orientation.
As for its consequences, previous research already found that system justifying
ideologies have an important effect on prejudice. System justifying ideologies refer to
the belief that the current system is legitimate. In this system, authorities have important
power and intergroup relations are hierarchical as opposed to equal. Anything or anyone
that does not comply with the norms or hierarchy of the system is considered deviant.
Therefore, people with a high level of RWA and/or SDO are considered to be more
prejudiced toward outgroup members. We suggested that Belief in a Just World, being a
system justification ideology, could also lead to higher levels prejudice. This hypothesis
was supported since we found a positive correlation between BJW and both modern
racism (in Study 1 and 2) and prejudice toward homosexuals (in Study 1). However,
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 44 when we controlled for one’s level of RWA and SDO in Study 1, BJW did no longer
contribute to the level of modern racism.
Regarding the consequences of the two other system justifying ideologies (i.e. RWA
and SDO), we could not find evidence for their unique influence on prejudice toward
homosexuals. However, we did succesfully replicate findings of previous research about
the influence of Right-Wing Authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orientation on
racism, in that both ideologies contributed uniquely to a higher level of modern and
subtle racism.
Beside the influence of Need for Closure on the three system justifying ideologies,
we were also interested in the effect Need for Closure has on prejudice. In particular, in
our first study we examined whether this relation is mediated by the system justifying
ideologies. Results demonstrated a mediation effect of Right-Wing Authoritarianism on
the relation between NFC and racism. Furthermore, we found that the level of Belief in
a Just World mediated the influence of NFC on prejudice toward homosexuals. This
was to be expected, as we found that Right-Wing Authoritarianism made a unique
contribution to the level of racism whereas Belief in a Just World made a unique
contribution to the level of prejudice toward homosexuals.
Finally, in Study 2 we investigated the effect of the victim’s in- or outgroup
membership on the relation between Belief in a Just World and various coping
strategies. In line with our suggestion, Correia, Vala and Aguiar (2007) found that
people are more attentive toward justice related words compared to neutral words when
confronted with an innocent ingroup victim, whereas no such effect was found when the
innocent victim was member of an outgroup. Hence, victims belonging to the ingroup
posed a bigger threat to one’s justice belief than victims belonging to an outgroup. In
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 45 addition to these findings, we suggested that people will employ a different coping
strategy when confronted with an ingroup victim as opposed to an outgroup victim. In
particular, we proposed that blaming the individual victim for his suffering is employed
when the victim is highly similar to them. Hence, when the victim belongs to the same
social group, he poses a great threat to BJW and the only way to lower this threat is by
blaming the victim himself for what has happened. In contrast, when the victim is not at
all similar to them by being an outgroup member, the level of BJW can easily be
restored by distancing oneself from the whole outgroup. However, this can eventually
lead to being more prejudiced toward this outgroup. In our study, we did find support
for the endorsement of coping strategies when confronted with events that pose a threat
to BJW. In particular, people who strongly hold the belief that the world is a just place
blamed individual victims more for their suffering and showed higher levels of modern
racism than did people with low levels of BJW. In addition, we found that participants
blamed victims of the ingroup more than victims of an outgroup. This is consistent with
Correia, et al. (2007) who found that ingroup victims pose a bigger threat to one’s
justice belief than outgroup victims. However, in our study, this effect was unrelated to
participants’ belief that the world is a just place. Hence, we could not find support for
our suggestion that the victim’s group membership influences the relation between BJW
and the type of coping strategy employed. More research is needed to examine the
possible interaction effect of system justifying ideologies and the victim’s group
membership on victim blaming and prejudice.
Theoretical Implications
We contributed to previous research by providing evidence for Need for Closure as
an antecedent of Belief in a Just World. Although Need for Closure had already been
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 46 examined as an important source of other system justifying ideologies, such as RightWing Authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orientation (see Jost & Hunyady, 2005;
Roets & Van Hiel, 2011a), no similar research was yet conducted for BJW.
In addition, we examined whether the relation between NFC and prejudice is
mediated by system justifying ideologies. Replicating previous findings, we found that
Right-Wing Authoritarianism mediated the relation between Need for Closure and
racism (see, Jost et al., 2003; Jost & Hunyady, 2005; Roets et al., 2015; Roets & Van
Hiel, 2011a). However, we also contributed to existing work by finding evidence for
another system justifying ideology, Belief in a Just World, as an important mediator of
the relation between Need for Closure and prejudice. In particular, we found that BJW
mediated the relation between NFC and prejudice toward homosexuals.
Furthermore, we found evidence for differential relationships between the various
system justifying ideologies and prejudice. In particular, RWA and SDO were related to
subtle racism, whereas BJW had a significant relation to homophobia. All three
ideologies were related to modern racism. However, when examining the unique
contribution of each ideology, BJW no longer contributed to the level of modern racism.
This is consistent to previous findings that no other variables better predict prejudice
than RWA and SDO (Altemeyer, 1998; McFarland & Adelson, 1996). It also supports
the proposition of Duckitt (2001) that prejudice results from two motivational goals,
namely the competitively driven dominance-power-superiority motivation (similar to
SDO) and the threat-driven social control and group defence motivation (similar to
RWA).
We suggested that people who highly embrace Belief in a Just World would engage
in different coping strategies when similarity to the victim is high as opposed to low. In
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 47 particular, we proposed that high similarity (i.e. when the victim belongs to the same
social group) would lead people to blame the individual victim for his suffering. In
contrast, low similarity (i.e. when the victim is an outgroup member) would lead people
to blame the entire outgroup as opposed to only the individual victim. This could
eventually lead to being more prejudiced toward this outgroup. However, we failed to
find evidence for this proposed interaction effect. Hence, although we contributed to
previous research by suggesting the effect of similarity to the victim on the relation
between Belief in a Just World and various coping strategies, more research must be
conducted in order to investigate and extend on our findings.
Practical Implications
People’s reaction to today’s refugee crisis is a good example of the high prevalence
of prejudice in our society. More than a million migrants entered Europe in 2015
(“Migrant crisis”, 2016). Although the vast majority are innocent victims fled from war
and conflicts, people tend to display negative reactions by describing them as dangerous
(i.e. victim derogation) or by blaming them for the situation in their home country (i.e.
victim blaming). Moreover, instead of blaming the individual victim, people could have
the propensity to blame the whole outgroup for their suffering, a reaction that might
lead to higher levels of racism. The refugees as well as people’s reaction on the
situation are challenges we must meet. Finding possible sources of prejudice can be of
vital importance to lower the level of prejudice of the European population toward
foreigners. In line with this suggestion, Khera, Harvey and Callan (2014) examined the
link between Belief in a Just World and the reaction of refugee workers to refugees.
They found that heightened BJW-others led to highly negative attitudes toward
refugees. We replicated this result by finding a relation between BJW and modern
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 48 racism. However, we found that two other system justifying ideologies, RWA and SDO,
have an even greater influence on the level of racism. Based on these findings, it might
be possible to lower people’s level of prejudice toward refugees by interfering with their
system justifying ideologies.
Not only racism, but also homophobia is an issue we still face today. The most
prevalent expressions of prejudice toward homosexuals are rejection, discrimination and
violence (Garnets et al., 1990). Experiencing this negative behavior can cause
homosexuals to feel a high level of minority stress (Meyer, 1995). Minority stress can
be defined as the stress people from minority groups experience as a result of their
lower status. Meyer (1995) proposed that this type of stress can be determined by three
processes: (a) internalized homophobia, which refers to “the direction of societal
negative attitudes toward the self” (p.40, Meyer, 1995), (b) expectations of rejection and
discrimination and (c) actual prejudice. Hence, negative consequences of prejudice
toward homosexuals are the result of (the expectation of) external negative attitudes
toward the minority group as well as the internalisation of these attitudes. Our findings
can help to reduce the level of prejudice toward homosexuals and hereby lowering the
level of minority stress experienced by this minority group. In particular, present
research found that, similar to racism, the embracement of system justifying ideologies
(more specifically of BJW) has an important influence on the level of prejudice toward
homosexuals.
Hence, it might be possible to develop strategies to lower people’s level of prejudice
toward foreigners and homosexuals by responding to their embracement of system
justifying ideologies. However, a distinction must be made between RWA and SDO on
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 49 the one hand and BJW on the other hand to lower the levels of respectively racism and
homophobia.
The literature proposes various antecedents of one’s endorsement of system
justifying ideologies, such as the perception of a dangerous world and system instability
(Jost, et al., 2003; Webster & Kruglanski, 1994). However, it might be difficult to alter
one’s negative perception of the world in order to decrease the embracement of system
justifying ideologies because of the so-called negativity effect (Kanouse & Hanson,
1971). The negativity effect states that negative information has a greater impact on an
individual than positive information. So even when people perceive positive events,
more attention still will be given to the negative events. The various information
channels act accordingly by mainly communicating negative news. This will in turn
increase the need for justifying the current system and therefore will enhance the
endorsement of system justifying ideologies. However, our study proposes Need for
Closure as an important source of the system justifying ideologies. Although NFC is a
personality variable and therefore fairly stable, its level also depends on situational
variables (Webster & Kruglanski, 1994). Interference with these variables (e.g. time
pressure) might lead to a lower NFC and consequently to lower endorsement of system
justifying ideologies. In addition, our study found that NFC is not only an important
source of RWA and SDO, but also of BJW. Hence, interfering with the situational
variables that influence one’s NFC might not only help to reduce racism but also
prejudice toward homosexuals.
Strengths
One strength of the present research lies in the various contributions to previous
findings. Although much work has already been conducted on Need for Closure as a
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 50 possible source of system justifying ideologies such as Right-Wing Authoritarianism
and Social Dominance Orientation (see Jost & Hunyady, 2005; Roets & Van Hiel,
2011a), the link between Need for Closure and Belief in a Just World has generally
been neglected. Present research extended on previous work by proposing this missing
relation between NFC and BJW. In the first study, we replicated the well-reported
relation between NFC and the two well-known system justification ideologies, RWA
and SDO. More importantly, we also found evidence for our suggestion that NFC is an
antecedent of Belief in a Just World. Next, we examined if NFC is related to prejudice
and whether this relation is mediated by system justifying ideologies. Here, we found
that Right-Wing Authoritarianism mediated the relation between NFC and racism
(replicating previous findings), whereas Belief in a Just World mediated the relation
between NFC and homophobia (extending on previous findings).
Second, instead of only examining the proposed research questions on racism, we
included a second prejudice type in our first study, namely prejudice toward
homosexuals. This provided us with interesting findings regarding the unique
contributions of system justifying ideologies on prejudice. In particular, BJW made a
unique contribution to prejudice toward homosexuals, whereas RWA and SDO
contributed uniquely to racism.
Third, research on Belief in a Just World is mostly conducted using either a
correlational or experimental design. Since our first study was a correlational study
investigating the effects of dispositional BJW, and our second was an experimental
study investigating the impact of victim membership in addition to effects of
dispositional BJW, we conducted both types of BJW-research.
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 51 Finally, instead of using participants of a single age group, such as a student sample,
we included participants of different ages. Having participants between 18 and 83 years
old limited the risk of the results being biased because of the homogeneous age or
cohort of participants.
Weaknesses and Future Research
Although our sample consisted of different age groups, the participants were selected
because of their accessibility. The disadvantage of using a convenience sample lies in
the risk of developing a voluntary response bias. Hence, there might be a significant
difference between the participants who voluntary participated in this study and people
who refused to participate. A convenience sample also increases the likelihood of not
being representative for the entire, in our case Flemish, population. In other words, a
convenience sample limits the possibility to generalize our results.
Besides being a convenience sample, our sample was also limited in number and
range. The use of a small sample can result in lower statistical power. Moreover, a small
sample limits the level of generalizability to the entire population. Further, all of our
participants originated from Belgium. Hence, we examined our research questions in a
single (part of a) country and culture, where people of Turkish, Syrian… nationality
belong to minority outgroups. Therefore, we are unable to know if similar results would
be found in countries where they are the majority ingroup and the white population is a
minority.
Future research is thus needed in order to examine our findings using a random
sample with participants that are higher in number and that originate from different
cultures. These adaptations would be beneficial for the reliability and generalizability of
the results. Moreover, it would permit to compare the results of different cultures to
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 52 each other. In a similar vein, it could be interesting to include minorities in the sample.
Then, it is possible to examine if minority groups endorse the same level of victim
blaming and derogation than the majority group or if they will demonstrate more
compassion toward other minorities.
Second, in both studies we examined the variables using questionnaires. Although
we emphasized that all results would be treated with confidentiality and anonymity, it is
possible that the participants’ answers were not completely accurate.
Third, our research design does not permit to draw any causal conclusions. However,
based on previous research and theoretical findings, we proposed the most probable and
well-supported directions of the examined relations.
Fourth, we could not find evidence for the suggested moderating effect of victim’s
group membership on the relation between Belief in a Just World and prejudice. Future
research can contribute to these findings in three possible ways. First, one could make a
distinction between BJW-self and BJW-others. Previous work already found that BJWself has positive consequences such as an increase in overall life satisfaction whereas
BJW-others has more negative consequences such as negative social attitudes toward
foreigners (Bègue & Bastounis, 2003; Dalbert, 2001). Hence, group membership of the
victim might have an influence on the relation between BJW and prejudice when a
distinction is made between BJW-self and BJW-others. In particular, a stronger
interaction is to be expected between group membership and BJW-others as opposed to
group membership and BJW-self. Second, one can test whether other measures of
similarity to the victim might have an influence on the relation between BJW and
prejudice, for instance by measuring similarity in personality or social economical
status. Finally, it is possible that variables, other than similarity to the victim, might
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 53 influence the relation between BJW and various coping strategies. Future research can
examine possible other moderators, for instance the amount of intergroup contact.
Allport (1954) suggested that prejudice toward the outgroup can be decreased when
there is frequent positive contact between in- and outgroups. Later, Pettigrew (1998)
proposed that ingroup members should have a close friendship with outgroup members
instead of having mere contact. Research confirmed this proposition and found that
cross-group friendship with homosexuals led to lower levels of prejudice and
apprehension of contact with homosexuals (Heinze & Horn, 2009; Licciardello et al.,
2014). Hodson (2008) already conducted research regarding the effect of intergroup
contact on the relation between Social Dominance Orientation and prejudice. He found
that people with a high level of SDO reported less prejudice after intergroup contact and
that this effect was mediated by increased empathy. Based on these findings, it might be
interesting to investigate the influence of intergroup contact and cross-group friendship
on the relation between BJW and prejudice.
Finally, although we already examined prejudice toward both ethnic minority groups
and homosexuals, it might be interesting to extend on our findings by including other
minority groups (e.g. people with disabilities or elderly). It is possible that people react
in a different manner to these minorities. Specifically, disabled or elderly people can be
considered weak and therefore perceived less as a threat as opposed to other ethnicities
or homosexuals.
Conclusion
The present research found evidence for important antecedents (i.e. Need for
Closure) and consequences (i.e. prejudice) of the system justifying ideology, Belief in a
Just World. In particular, we found evidence for Need for Closure as an important
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 54 source of three system justifying ideologies: Belief in a Just World, Right-Wing
Authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orientation. As for its consequences, BJW
made a unique contribution to prejudice toward homosexuals, whereas the two other
system justifying ideologies contributed uniquely to racism. We also found that Need
for Closure does not have a direct influence on prejudice but an indirect influence
through system justifying ideologies, such as Belief in a Just world and Right-Wing
Authoritarianism. Finally, we could contribute to previous research by proposing that a
high level of Belief in Just World might lead to different coping strategies depending on
the victim’s group membership. In particular, we proposed that high BJW leads to
blaming the individual victim for his suffering when the victim is member of the
ingroup, whereas high BJW leads to prejudice toward the entire outgroup when the
victim is member of this outgroup. However, we could not find evidence for this
proposed interaction effect.
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CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 67 Appendix
Scenario 1
Andrew has invited some friends over for diner. He is determined to surprise them
with the menu and goes grocery shopping after work. However, when he is at the
checkout, two armed men enter the supermarket. They order the customers to lie down
on the floor and the cashiers to hand over the money in the cash register. When the two
criminals walk to the other side of the shop, Andrew sees an opportunity to escape. He
quietly gets up en runs to the exit. However, one of the criminals notices him and shoots
him.
Scenario 2
In spite of the promise he made to his parents to go grocery shopping, Jasper is
enjoying a lazy day at home. A big storm is coming and people have been
recommended to stay inside their house during the afternoon. Jasper really wants to
fulfil his promise and leaves the house, despite the warning. On his way to the
supermarket a scaffold of a house falls on Jasper, caused by the heavy squalls. He was
badly injured.
Scenario 3
Every day, John takes the train and bike to work. Today, he has a very important
meeting at 8:30 am. His train is delayed, so John will need to hurry in order to get there
on time. He quickly takes his bike and cycles as fast as he can to the company, which is
owned by his uncle. When he quickly crosses the street, John does not see a car is
coming. The car driver vainly tries to slow down. John gets hit by the car and needs to
be taken to the hospital because of his severe injuries.
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 68 Scenario 4
Patrick is a severe smoker for several years already, despite a few attempts to stop.
He has been coughing quite badly lately. Patrick first thought it was a cold, but because
it is not getting better, he decides to see the doctor. The doctor suspects that it is
something worse and sends Patrick to the hospital for further examination. A week later
Patrick is told he has lung cancer, which has already spread around the lungs.
Scenario 5
Simon never finished his high school and now works at a textile factory. However,
this factory is closing because of recess. Simon will become unemployed, which is a big
problem because he is a single parent who needs to take care of his child.
Scenario 6
Glenn really enjoys life. Every Thursday night he goes out with his friends for a
drink. Last Thursday he was drunk and accidentally walked into someone at the
crowded café. This person reacted by punching Glenn in the face.
Scenario 7
Anthony is an ambitious employee and often works overtime. Therefore, he does not
spend a lot of time with his family. Today he decides to go home at 22:00 PM. He locks
the door to his office and walks to his car, which is parked at the end of the street.
Before he reaches his car, however, a group of young men begins to bully him. It starts
with shouting but quickly becomes worse. They push him on the floor and start kicking
him, till he begins to bleed. When the group hears a car approaching, they run away and
leave Anthony on the floor. It is not until the next day someone finds Anthony.
CAN OUR BELIEFS IN A JUST WORLD LEAD TO PREJUDICE? 69 Scenario 8
Ellen is a 17-year-old girl. Her classmate, who she has had a crush on for several
months, is throwing a party. However, her parents think she is too young and forbid her
to go. But Ellen is determined to go. To impress her classmate, she puts on a lot of
make-up and puts on a short dress. At night, she sneaks out of her bedroom window. On
her way to the party, she’s harassed by a boy. He violently takes her to an alley and
rapes her.