Belief In A Just World And The Pursuit Of Long-term Goals:Effect And Mechanism

Social equity and justice are challenged, in this social atmosphere, some people are focusing on immediate interests, ignoring the long-term interests. This problem is now concerned in the society. Government explicitly proposed to change the current social mentality. Therefore, there is a need to explore the psychological mechanism: why some people ignore long-term goals, focusing on the immediate interests. Based on the current reality and the perspective of belief in a just world, the present research we explore this topic:the psychological mechanism of how belief in a just world influences individual long-term goal.Based on two research perspectives of belief in a just world, we subdivided into two small studies:Study 1A regarded the belief in a just world as personality traits, using questionnaire method. Study 1B considered the belief in a just world as basic motivation, using scenario method and manipulating the strength of belief in a just world.The two studies is aimed at exploring how college students’belief in a just world influence their career goals after graduation. The results show that belief in a just world is a relatively stable personality traits, just world beliefs have promotion effect for college students to pursue career goals after graduation. But we could not prove the belief in a just world is a motivation variable.Based on two research perspectives of belief in a just world, we subdivided into two small studies:Study 2A regarded the belief in a just world as personality traits, using questionnaire method. Study 2B considered the belief in a just world as basic motivation, using scrambled sentence paradigm. The two studies is aimed at exploring how employees’belief in a just world influence their vocational delay of gratification. The results indicate that belief in a just world is a relatively stable personality traits, just world beliefs promote employees’s vocational delay of gratification. But we could not prove the belief in a just world is a motivation variable.According to the above two studies, study 3 regarded the belief in a just world as personality traits. Putting in perceived control, we explore its potential mediate effect between belief in a just world and family goal commitment.190 adults participated in this study. After controlling unrelated variables, perceived control played partial mediate effect between belief in a just world and family goal commitment. The higher one’s belief in a just world is, the higher he perceived control, and the higher his family goal commitment is.