John H. Ellard

Belief in a Just World: Consumer Intentions and Behaviors Toward Ethical Products

Although consumers report positive attitudes toward ethical goods, their intentions and behaviors often do not follow suit. Just-world theory highlights the conditions under which consumers are most likely to prefer fair-trade products. This theory proposes that people are motivated to construe the world as a just place where people get what they deserve. In the current research, when people are confronted with high levels of injustice (communicated need is high) and avenues for justice restoration seem uncertain or unavailable, assisting others by supporting fair trade decreases. However, highlighting how injustice can be redressed through purchases enhances fair-trade support under conditions of high need. The effects are moderated by justice sensitivity factors, such as just-world beliefs and whether the product type (indulgence vs. necessity) makes the injustice of consumer privilege salient. The results suggest that communicating high need when requesting consumer prosocial actions can sometimes backfire. Marketers employing high need appeals should heighten perceptions of justice restoration potential and activate fairness-related thoughts through product positioning to encourage fair-trade purchases.

The making of a personality inventory: Help from the WWW

Data collected electronically from the World-Wide Web (WWW) in two samples (n=429 and 1,657) were compared with traditional paper-and-pencil measure data from two university samples (n=760 and 148) in three psychometric studies of a new measure of self-trust, the Self-Trust Questionnaire. With the exception of scale score variance, which was larger in WWW samples, psychometric properties of the scale were comparable across samples collected from the two sources. WWW samples were more similar to psychology student samples (predominantly young females) than to typical Internet users. On balance, findings indicate that the advantages of the WWW as a data source, including large heterogeneous samples, outweigh problems with data accuracy and generalizability, making the WWW an attractive source of data for researchers developing self-report personality inventories.

Gambling as a Search for Justice: Examining the Role of Personal Relative Deprivation in Gambling Urges and Gambling Behavior

The present article explores the hypothesis that gambling might serve a justice-seeking function for some people, as gambling might offer a means to pursuing desirable outcomes that people feel they deserve but might be unable or unwilling to attain through conventional means. In Study 1, across two separate samples, self-reports of personal relative deprivation predict problem gambling and gambling urges over and above relevant control variables. In Study 2, the authors manipulate personal relative deprivation by informing participants that they have either less or more discretionary income than “similar others.” They then give participants

The Belief in a Just World and Immanent Justice Reasoning in Adults

20 and the opportunity to gamble. The results show that a greater percentage of participants who are “relatively deprived” (vs. “not relatively deprived”) opt to gamble. Two manipulation validation studies demonstrate that the “relatively deprived” participants are preoccupied with justice during a modified Stroop task and feel resentful. Implications for understanding why people gamble are discussed.

The justice motive:History, theory, and research

Deciding that negative experiences are punishment for prior misdeeds, even when plausible causal links are missing, is immanent justice (IJ) reasoning (Piaget, 1932/1965). Three studies examined a just world theory analysis of IJ reasoning in adults (Lerner, 1980). Studies 1 and 2 varied the valence of a target persons behavior prior to them experiencing an unrelated negative (car accident, Study 1) or positive (lottery win, Study 2) outcome. Participants viewed the outcomes as the result of prior behavior most when they fit deservingness expectations (good person won the lottery, bad person injured in automobile accident), suggesting that just world concerns influenced IJ reasoning. The lottery-winning finding (Study 2) also extends IJ reasoning to positive experiences. A third study found that a manipulation of just world threat in one context (prolonged or ended suffering of an HIV victim) influenced IJ responses in a subsequent unrelated context (automobile accident scenario).

Evidence for the role of the justice motive in status generalization processes

Why do people care about justice? This chapter addresses the question from the point of view of a body of theory and research that has examined the motivational commitment people have to the assumptive belief that the world is just. Inspired by Melvin J. Lerner’s exploration of the need to believe in a just world, justice motive research, as it has come to be known, identifies deservingness as the cornerstone of people’s justice concerns. In a just world, people get what they deserve. The need to believe in a just world gives rise to a variety of behaviors and psychological processes with both constructive and destructive consequences. The search for justice makes people do altruistic acts, but also victim blaming. It can also distort recall of the past, shape expectations for the future, and even lead people to think that fortuitous harms were somehow caused by previous misdeeds. Fifty years of justice motive research has yielded significant insights into the variety of ways the justice motive appears in people’s lives. The chapter also discusses the social cognitive origins of the justice motive, current issues and trends including the role of the justice motive in people’s reactions to their own fates, construal of everyday experience, and the relation between justice motive processes and widely used measures of just world beliefs.

Weight bias as a social justice issue: A call for dialogue.

Status generalization refers to the capacity of status characteristics, such as race, gender, or occupation, to become the basis of social inequality even when such characteristics are not directly relevant to the immediate social interaction. For instance, individuals with positively valued status characteristics are more likely to assume positions of power and prestige than those of lower standing. To date, status generalization has been assumed to arise from stereotyped beliefs that associate positive standing on a status characteristic with positively valued personal attributes. Findings from two studies indicate that the capacity for status characteristics to produce power and prestige orders may also depend on peoples need to believe in a just world. In the first study, participants were fortuitously granted a position of either superior or equal power and prestige to another person. Consistent with just world predictions, participants portrayed themselves more positively relative to the other on assessments of personal attributes when they occupied a superior position than when they occupied a position of equal power and prestige. Results from a second study showed that the tendency to link personal attributes with power and prestige standing was strongest for participants who scored high on the Just World Scale. Thus, just world beliefs appear to play a role in status generalization processes.

Framing obesity a disease: Indirect effects of affect and controllability beliefs on weight bias

Weight bias is pervasive, impacting the lived experiences of individuals with large bodies in all areas of society. Weight bias negatively impacts psychological and physical health, and contributes to systemic inequity for individuals with large bodies. Given that counselling psychology has been recognised for its commitment to social justice, it is important to provide examples of the many social justice issues associated with weight bias. The purpose of this article is to position weight bias as an important social justice issue for psychologists, through the lens of 3 social justice perspectives; distributive justice, procedural justice, and ecological justice. We examine the lack of equitable distribution of opportunities and resources for individuals with large bodies in health care, the workforce, education, and within interpersonal relationships. We also discuss the lack of voice provided to individuals with large bodies with regard to the policies and practices that affect them, and the social and environmental forces that systemically influence body weight and weight bias. Finally, we encourage further dialogue between professionals across disciplines about weight bias as a social justice issue in the future design of research, education, and practice. La partialité contre les personnes obèses est omniprésente, si bien qu’elle influe sur les expériences vécues par les personnes de forte corpulence dans tous les secteurs de la société. La partialité contre les personnes obèses a des répercussions sur la santé psychologique et physique, et alimente les injustices systémiques auxquelles font face les personnes de forte corpulence. Étant donné que la « psychologie du counseling » a été reconnue pour son engagement à l’endroit de la justice sociale, il importe de fournir des exemples des nombreux enjeux de justice sociale associés à la partialité contre les personnes obèses. Le but du présent article consiste à positionner la partialité contre les personnes obèses comme un enjeu de justice sociale d’importance pour les psychologues à travers le prisme de trois perspectives de justice sociale, à savoir la justice distributive, la justice procédurale et la justice écologique. Nous nous penchons sur le manque d’équité dans la répartition des possibilités et des ressources à la disposition des personnes de forte corpulence dans les soins de santé, le travail, l’éducation et les relations interpersonnelles. Nous discutons aussi de la faible contribution des personnes de forte corpulence aux politiques et aux pratiques qui les touchent, ainsi que des forces sociales et environnementales qui influent systématiquement sur le poids corporel et la partialité contre les personnes obèses. Enfin, nous encourageons la poursuite du dialogue entre les professionnels de plusieurs disciplines au sujet de la partialité contre les personnes obèses en tant qu’enjeu de justice sociale dans la conception future de la recherche, de l’éducation et des pratiques.

Trust as an Explanation for Relational Differences in Revenge

Background/objectivesObesity has been declared a disease by the American and Canadian Medical Associations. Although these declarations sparked much debate as to the impact of framing obesity as a disease on weight bias, strong empirical research is needed to examine this impact. The current study examined the impact of framing obesity a disease on weight bias, focusing on moderating and mediating processes.Subjects/methodsA sample of 309 participants living in the United States or Canada was recruited from Crowdflower. Participants completed measures of demographics, ideology, general attitudes, and previous contact quality and quantity with people living with obesity. Participants then read one of three articles as part of an experimental manipulation framing obesity as a disease, obesity not as a disease, and a control article unrelated to obesity. Post-manipulation included measures of affect, disgust, empathy, blame, and weight bias.ResultsOrthogonal contrasts were used to compare the obesity-disease condition to the obesity-not-disease condition and control condition. The manipulation had a direct effect on affect (emotions), such that affect toward individuals with obesity was more positive in the obesity-disease condition than the obesity-not-disease and control condition combined. Exploration of moderating effects revealed that both the belief in a just world and weight satisfaction moderated the relationship between the obesity-disease manipulation and blame for obesity. Two models of indirect effects on weight bias were also examined, which demonstrated that the obesity-disease manipulation predicted less weight bias through more positive affect (model 1) as well as less weight bias through decreased blame among individuals high in belief in a just world (model 2).ConclusionsThis study further highlights the complex effects of declaring obesity a disease, uncovering a new direction for future research into the role of affect as well as indirect effects of characterising obesity a disease on weight bias.

Third-party perceptions of a layoff: Procedural, derogation, and retributive aspects of justice.

ABSTRACT We present 4 experiments that explore relational differences in how individuals respond to the harmful behavior of others, finding that revenge is less likely against romantic partners than against various other kinds of offenders (i.e., strangers, coworkers, roommates) both for a laboratory provocation and using hypothetical vignettes. We also implicate trust as a viable explanation for these findings, showing that individuals view the actions of a trusted other (i.e., a romantic partner) as less intentional relative to a less trusted other (i.e., a coworker) and that an experimental manipulation of trust in an offender alters levels of vengeful desires.