The Impact Of The Victim's Innocence, Group Category On The Threat To The Belief In A Just World

The belief in a just world theory has shown that this belief serves important adaptive functions, and it is fundamental in maintaining mental health. If the belief in a just world for a variety of reasons is threatened, then people would not be able to adapt to society, and can not make their mind to achieve coordinated and balanced , which will seriously affect their mental health. In recent years, the threat to the belief in a just world has become the focus of researchers. In this paper, a review was presented on the definition, development, measures, functions, and current research situations of the belief in a just world. Then, two experiments were designed based on the experimental paradigm of implicit Measures in order to explore the impact of the victim's innocence, group category on the threat to the belief in a just world.In the first study, we analyze the impact of the victim's innocence on the threat to the belief in a just world in the interindividual level. Results of study shown that after being confronted with an innocent victim, participants took more time to identify the color of the mask when the words that preceded it were related to justice than when the words that preceded it were neutral. The same die not happen when the participants were confronted with a non-innocent victim.In the second study, we analyze the impact of the victim's innocence , group category on the threat to the belief in a just world in the intergroup level. Results of study shown that a higher difference between latencies for words related to justice and neutral words in the ingroup condition than in the outgroup condition; a higher latency for words related to justice than neutral words in the ingroup innocent condition, no significant difference between latencies for words related to justice and neutral words in remaining conditions(non-innocent ingroup victim, non-innocent outgroup victim, and innocent outgroup victim).Finally, The conclusions as follows: an innocent victim threatens the belief in a just world more than a non-innocent victim and people's belief in a just world will be threatened after the confrontation with an ingroup victim than with an outgroup victim, and people's belief in a just world would be a greater threaten when the victims are the innocent than the victims are the non-innocent.