Beliefs in a Just World and Reactions to Personal Deprivation

ABSTRACT We hypothesized that strong believers in a just world would be motivated to perceive personal deprivation as fair and to report little resentment, compared to weak believers in a just world In two experiments, subjects performed a computer task to earn points toward a goal that had desirable consequences In the first study, some subjects chose their computer task, whereas other subjects were randomly assigned to a task In the second study, some subjects decided not to practice the task before the test trial, whereas other subjects learned after the test trial that the experimenter had forgotten to give them the opportunity to practice All subjects received bogus feedback indicating that they did not earn any points The predicted relation between beliefs in a just world and perceived fairness was obtained in both experiments, especially within the choice condition of Experiments and the experimenter error condition of Experiments The results show that beliefs in a just world have implications not only for perceptions of others, but also for self‐perception