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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
Two factors increase the threat for individuals’ belief in a just world (BJW) posed by an innocent victim:
the degree of the observer’s explicit endorsement of BJW and the fact that the victim shares a common
identity with the observer. In this paper, we aim to investigate whether or not these two factors (BJW and
ingroup identification) have an interaction effect on each of two mechanisms that reduce the threat to
BJW: victim derogation and psychological distancing from the victims. In two studies with university students
we predicted and found that BJW interacted with identification with an ingroup victim to predict
victim derogation (Study 1) and disidentification from the group shared with the victim (Study 2). In
Study 1, the positive relationship between BJW and derogation was significant for strongly identified participants
but not for weakly identified participants. In Study 2, high BJW was associated with low ingroup
identification only when group salience was activated.
Description
Keywords
Belief in a just world Victim derogation Social identification Social identity Psychological distancing
Citation
Personality and Individual Differences, 53 (6), 747-752