Do you believe that life is fair and that people generally get what they deserve? If so, you may have fallen victim to the just world hypothesis.

What is the just world hypothesis?

The just world hypothesis is a tendency to believe that the world is a just place and that we will all eventually get what we deserve. The theory posits that because we believe the world is a just place, we look for reasons to explain the absence of injustice.

This effort on our part to justify injustice in this way often results in blaming the victims of injustice. We do this even when the victim has no control over his or her misfortune. Our automatic tendency to blame the victim makes us question the victim’s behavior, rather than looking at the circumstances.

It is easy to see how some people can fall into the trap of mental bias. It fits with our childhood memories. When we were children, we were always told: “Work hard and you will succeed,” and “Eat all your greens and you will grow old and strong.” We believe that our destiny is in our hands.

But not only that, we also believe that good things come to those who are good. As a result, bad things happen to bad people. It fits well with our narrative of the world.

So we automatically assume that good people have earned their success. They deserve their good fortune. We label good people with other good qualities, such as hard work, honesty, and intelligence. On the other hand, bad people will get what they deserve. After all, you get out of life what you put into it. We label these bad people as lazy, stupid, and dishonest.

Examples of the just world hypothesis

We blame women for their sexual assaults because of what they were wearing at the time of the attack, or where they were at the time of the attack, or because their past sexual behavior has been questioned.

We look at homeless people and think to ourselves: “This would never happen to me.” They must have done something to get into this situation. Little do we realize that the majority of us are only 3 months away from becoming homeless. Addicts are blamed for their addiction without knowing the full background of the individual. Although we know that addiction is a disease and not a choice.

We view the poor as lazy and without ambition. They are believed to have great chances of success in life, but they choose not to study. We don’t even think about how money affects families, and that many poor children don’t have the opportunity to go to university because they help pay the household bills.

Where does the just world hypothesis come from?

Melvin Lerner is a social psychologist and coined the term just world theory or hypothesis. Stanley Milgram’s research was taken one step further. You will remember that Milgram conducted the infamous “Obedience to Authority” study. Lerner wanted to know how people came to terms with harsh regimes that encouraged suffering, and why they were willing to accept laws and norms in society that led to miserable outcomes for many.

Lerner expanded Milgram’s experiments. In his study, he gave a woman electric shocks for making errors on a memory task. The woman was his partner and no actual shocks were administered. However, two groups saw the woman. Some groups can help women while others cannot.

Lerner consistently found that the group that could do something to alleviate a woman’s suffering was more sympathetic to her plight. The group that could only watch had a much lower opinion of the woman.

“Seeing an innocent person suffer without the possibility of reward or compensation led people to reduce the attractiveness of the victim in order to achieve a more favorable fit between her fate and her character.” Lerner et al.

Why do we believe in a just world?
We have control over our lives
No one likes to hear about suffering around the world, or even in our neighborhood. So when we encounter something unpleasant, it is easier to blame the victim for their fate. This way, we can control what happens to us. We are not vulnerable in the same way that victims are.

For example:

Walk in the park late at night and you’ll be assaulted.
Buy a house in that area and you will be flooded.
Wear that crop top and you’re asking to be raped.
It makes us feel safe
When there is nothing we can do about a situation, we try to rationalize it in our minds so that it makes sense. In other words, “there is no such thing as an innocent victim.” By doing this, we reduce any anxiety we may feel. We feel safe again because once we know that these victims “deserve” what was happening to them, we no longer need to feel afraid.

After all, only bad things happen to bad people, right? And we’re not such bad people, so we’ll be fine. Moreover, we need the world to be a fair and safe place. Because the alternative is too frightening for us to comprehend.

When we feel powerless to do anything about something wrong, we move on to the next best thing and blame the victim. We want to believe that things happen for a reason. It gives us a sense of control over the world.