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Sidanius, 2002), political conservatism (for a review, see Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003), control beliefs (e.g., Crandall, 1994), the Protestant work ethic (e.g., Crandall, 1994; Katz & Hass, 1988), and opposition to equality (e.g., Jost & Thompson, 2000). For example, Jost and Thompson (2000) found that, overall, the more African Americans were opposed to equality in society, the more favorably they felt toward White European Americans relative to African Americans, and the less they supported affirmative action programs aimed at African Americans. Similar trends were found for European-American respondents. Possessing relatively favorable feelings toward the dominant group in society can justify the dominant group’s place (or at least does not delegitimize it). The outcome of such justification might be decreased motivation to change the existing hierarchy by, for example, promoting policies aimed at improving the lot of certain disadvantaged groups, such as African Americans.

A BJW can also contribute to the justification of the status quo (Jost & Hunyady, 2005; Olson & Hafer, 2001). Our discussion of this topic is divided into three sections. First, we review past literature suggesting that a strong BJW is related to justification of the status quo, mediated by attitudes and attributions that increase perceptions of deservingness and fairness. Second, we discuss in detail one potential implication of this process; namely, that a strong BJW promotes less perceived discrimination. We present a recent study testing the association between individual differences in BJW and reactions to personal experiences with discriminatory treatment, as well as the moderating effect of situational ambiguity on this association. Third, we discuss more broadly the role that moderators and mediators might play in the link between beliefs and ideologies, and justification of the societal status quo.

BELIEF IN A JUST WORLD AND JUSTIFICATION

OF THE STATUS QUO

A BJW is an assertion that the world is a fair place wherein people get what they deserve and, often, deserve what they get (Lerner, 1980; Rubin & Peplau, 1975). Although, according to just-world theory, the vast majority of people hold a BJW to some degree and in some form (Lerner, 1980), individual differences exist in the strength of people’s explicitly professed BJW (for reviews of the individual difference literature, see Furnham, 2003; Furnham & Procter, 1989). Individual differences in the strength of people’s BJW are assessed with the use of various explicit self-report measures. Rubin and Peplau’s (1975) Just World Scale has been the most popular such measure in past research, although newer scales with better psychometric properties

are overtaking the use of this older tool (for a review, see Furnham, 2003). Example items from one of the more recent scales—Lipkus’s (1991) Global Belief in a Just World Scale—are “I feel that people get what they deserve” and “I basically feel that the world is a fair place.” Respondents rate the degree to which they agree or disagree with each statement. (For examples of two other recent just-world measures, see Dalbert, 2001.)

Individual differences reflected in varying scores on just-world scales might arise from a number of different sources. For example, the trajectory of intrinsic developmental forces linked to an underlying need to believe in a just world (Lerner, Miller, & Holmes, 1976), direct personal experiences (Schmitt, 1998), and socialization (see Dalbert & Sallay, 2004) all might lead to variability in the strength of people’s BJW. Related to the issue of the origins of a BJW, a strong BJW may partly reflect a relatively cold cognitive structure for viewing the world and partly a more motivational construct—a belief that people are motivated to maintain in the face of contradictory evidence (see Hafer & Bègue, 2005). Regardless of the source of a BJW and regardless of its more or less motivational nature, a number of studies have presented evidence that a BJW contributes to the justification of the status quo.

One source of evidence that a strong BJW may justify the status quo comes from studies documenting a negative relation between the strength of individuals’ BJW, as assessed by the aforementioned scales, and social action-related variables. Endorsement of a BJW has been found to relate to less involvement in political and social activism in general (e.g., Rubin & Peplau, 1973) and to a belief that political involvement is ineffective (Smith, 1985). With respect to action aimed specifically at one’s own disadvantaged group, Hafer and Olson (1993) surveyed women in the workforce and found that a strong BJW was associated with fewer behaviors directed at changing the situation of working women as a whole. Engagement in actions directed at improving one’s own job situation was also negatively correlated with individual differences in BJW, whether those actions constituted attempts to change one’s situation directly or through protest (Hafer & Olson, 1998). These associations between a strong BJW and less motivation to alter a current situation (or more pessimistic beliefs about such attempts) indicate that people with a strong belief in a just world often see the status quo as justified and, therefore, see change as unnecessary.

A strong BJW might lead to justification of the status quo in many ways. First, a strong BJW has been related to attributions that legitimize the negative or positive circumstances of certain individuals and groups (see Olson & Hafer, 2001). For example, with respect to negative circumstances, researchers have found a positive correlation between some form of BJW and a greater tendency to hold the elderly at fault for their poorer financial and

health situations (Bègue & Bastounis, 2003; MacLean & Chown, 1988), attribute poverty to poor people’s character and behavior (e.g., Campbell, Carr, & MacLachlan, 2001; Smith, 1985) or downplay the role of external factors (e.g., Cozzarelli, Wilkinson, & Tagler, 2001), and blame sexual harassment victims for unwanted advances (De Judicibus & McCabe, 2001). With respect to positive outcomes, Smith (1985) found that a strong BJW predicted attributions of wealth to internal causes. Regardless of the valence of the target’s outcomes, people who strongly endorse a BJW presumably see the existing situation as more fair because targets are seen as simply getting what they deserve, as a function of their complicity in their fate (see Feather, 1999; Heuer, Blumenthal, Douglas, & Weinblatt, 1999). These increased perceptions of fairness (compared to the perceptions of those with a weaker BJW) would act to justify the situation and maintain the societal status quo (see Kay, Jost, & Young, 2005; Olson & Hafer, 2001; Tyler, 2006).

Second, studies have also shown, although somewhat less consistently, that individual differences in BJW are related to evaluations of targets reaping a negative (c.f., Ambrosio & Sheehan, 1991; Cozzareli et al., 2001; Crandall & Martinez, 1996; Maes, 1998) or positive fate (e.g., Dion & Dion, 1987; Rubin & Peplau, 1973) that would seem to legitimize the status quo. For example, Crandall and Martinez (1996) found that American participants expressed greater dislike of fat people the higher their scores on a just-world scale. With respect to positive circumstances, Rubin and Peplau (1973), in their classic study of the 1971 U.S. draft lottery, found that men who scored higher on a just-world scale were more likely to prefer individuals (in terms of liking, favorable feelings, etc.) who were assigned to relatively desirable rather than relatively undesirable draft numbers, even though the assignment was random. Again, regardless of the positive or negative nature of the target’s fate, those with a strong BJW presumably see the person’s situation as more fair than do those with a weak BJW, because it is perceived as relatively deserved. The deservingness in this case, however, is not a function of any direct responsibility the individual is perceived to have for his or her outcomes, but rather because she or he is simply a good or likable person (e.g., Appelbaum, 2002; Feather, 1999).

Aside from these mostly correlational investigations, a number of experiments have presented participants varying in the strength of their BJW with explicit evidence of injustice (for a review, see Hafer & Bègue, 2005). The reasoning is usually that people scoring higher on the individual difference measure of BJW have a particularly strong need to maintain this belief and, thus, will be more motivated to engage in strategies for restoring the belief when it is threatened by contradictory evidence. Although the success of individual differences in this context is sporadic, some studies show that, under conditions of presumed threat, those with a strong BJW express more

than do weak believers the kinds of attributions and attitudes that are found in the correlational literature. For example, Correia and Vala (2003, Study 2) conducted a study in which participants were presented with an interview of a victim of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). When the victim contracted the disease through no fault of her own—that is, when her situation was more unjust and, therefore, threatening the belief in a just world— participants who strongly endorsed a BJW gave more negative evaluations of her on a number of personality traits compared to those with a weak BJW. When the victim’s situation was less threatening to a BJW (i.e., she was partly responsible for her fate), those with a strong or weak BJW did not differ in their evaluations. The reactions of those with a strong BJW to the innocent victim presumably justified the status quo by increasing perceptions of fairness through interpreting the victim’s character as undesirable and, therefore, less undeserving of a negative fate. In this case, however, participants are responding to a specific contradiction to a BJW (which is presumably threatening) rather than to generally positive or negative outcomes, as is the case for many of the correlational studies noted earlier.

We have argued that strong endorsement of a BJW is related to attributions and attitudes that can legitimate the status quo. Moreover, we have reasoned that these processes do so by increasing the perceived deservingness of targets and, therefore, the perceived fairness of the situation. A growing body of literature supports our assertion that a strong BJW is ultimately connected to increased perceptions of fairness in a variety of contexts (Hafer & Olson, 1998; Olson & Hafer, 2001). Furthermore, because a strong BJW is related to perceived fairness in contexts that are not explicitly covered by the content of just-world scales, this relation is not likely due simply to overlap between BJW scales and criteria measures.

Evidence of a relation between individual differences in BJW and perceived fairness can be found in both correlational and experimental research. In correlational investigations, individual differences in BJW are related to the perceived fairness of broad societal systems, such as the distribution of wealth (Ng & Allen, 2005), as well as the perceived fairness of more specific criteria, including students’ perceptions of their grades and teachers (Dalbert & Maes, 2002) and prisoners’ perceptions of their treatment by the courts (Otto & Dalbert, 2005). A strong BJW has also been shown to predict greater perceived fairness of explicitly negative outcomes, both those of others (e.g., Dalbert, Fisch, & Montada, 1992) and of oneself (e.g., Ball, Trevino, & Sims, 1994). Hafer and Correy (1999), for example, examined the relation between individual differences in BJW and students’ reactions to a grade they had received that was lower than expected. Not only did these authors find a relation between a stronger BJW and greater perceived fairness of the grade, but,