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Just-world phenomenon
 
 
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The just-world phenomenon, also called the just-world theory, just-world fallacy, just-world effect, or just-world hypothesis, refers to the tendency for people to want to believe that the world is "just
Justice

Justice is the concept of morality rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, fairness and equity."...
" so strongly that when they witness an otherwise inexplicable injustice they will rationalize it by searching for things that the victim might have done to deserve it.






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The just-world phenomenon, also called the just-world theory, just-world fallacy, just-world effect, or just-world hypothesis, refers to the tendency for people to want to believe that the world is "just
Justice

Justice is the concept of morality rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, fairness and equity."...
" so strongly that when they witness an otherwise inexplicable injustice they will rationalize it by searching for things that the victim might have done to deserve it. This deflects their anxiety, and lets them continue to believe the world is a just place, but at the expense of blaming victims for things that were not, objectively, their fault.

History

One study gave women what appeared to be painful electric shocks while working on a difficult memory problem. Those who observed the experiment appeared to blame the victim for her fate, praised the experiment, and rated her as being less physically attractive than did those who had seen her but not the experiment.

In another study, subjects were told two versions of a story about an interaction between a woman and a man. Both variations were exactly the same, except at the very end the man rape
Rape

Rape, also referred to as sexual assault, is an assault by a person involving sexual intercourse with or sexual penetration of another person without that person's consent....
d the woman in one and in the other he proposed marriage
Marriage

Marriage is a social, spirituality, or law union of individuals. This union may also be called matrimony, while the ceremony that marks its beginning is usually called a wedding and the married status created is sometimes called wedlock....
. In both conditions, subjects viewed the woman's (identical) actions as inevitably leading to the (very different) results

The just-world phenomenon was first theorized by Melvin Lerner.

Historically this concept can be dated back to the theodicy of Leibniz, a theory that was attacked by Voltaire
Voltaire

Fran?ois-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire, was a French Age of Enlightenment writer, essayist, and philosophy known for his wit, philosophical sport, and defense of civil liberty, including freedom of religion and free trade....
 in his novel Candide
Candide

Candide, ou l'Optimisme is a ian the Age of Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire, English translations of which have been titled Candide: Or, All for the Best ; Candide: Or, The Optimist ; and Candide: Or, Optimism ....
. In a similar way, Imre Lakatos
Imre Lakatos

Imre Lakatos was a philosopher of Philosophy of mathematics and Philosophy of science, most famous today worldwide for his thesis of the fallibility of mathematics and its 'methodology of proofs and refutations', and also for introducing the concept of the 'research programme' in his methodology of scientific research programmes....
 has argued against the notion of "instant rationality" in the philosophy of science.

See also

  • Karma
    Karma

    Karma is the concept of "action" or "deed" in Indian religions understood as that which causes the entire cycle of causality originating in ancient India and treated in Hindu, Jain, Sikh and Buddhism philosophies....
  • Denial
    Denial

    Denial is a defense mechanism postulated by Sigmund Freud, in which a person is faced with a fact that is too uncomfortable to accept and rejects it instead, insisting that it is not true despite what may be overwhelming evidence....
  • Cognitive dissonance
    Cognitive dissonance

    Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The "ideas" or "cognitions" in question may include attitude and beliefs, and also the awareness of one's behavior....
  • List of cognitive biases
    List of cognitive biases

    A cognitive bias is a pattern of deviation in judgment that occurs in particular situations .Implicit in the concept of a "pattern of deviation" is a standard of comparison; this may be the judgment of people outside those particular situations, or may be a set of independently verifiable facts....
  • Mean world syndrome
    Mean World Syndrome

    Mean World Syndrome is a phenomenon where the violence-related content of mass media convinces viewers that the world is more dangerous than it actually is, and prompts a desire for more protection than is warranted by any actual threat....
  • Victim blaming
    Victim blaming

    Victim blaming is holding the victims of a crime, an accident, or any type of abusive maltreatment to be entirely or partially Moral responsibility for the unfortunate incident that has occurred in their life, often when the victim had performed no actions to facilitate the incident....
  • Best of all possible worlds
    Best of all possible worlds

    The phrase "the best of all possible worlds" was coined by the German people philosopher Gottfried Leibniz in his 1710 work Essais de Th?odic?e sur la bont? de Dieu, la libert? de l'homme et l'origine du mal ....
  • Hindsight Bias
    Hindsight bias

    Hindsight bias is the inclination to see events that have occurred as more prediction than they in fact were before they took place. Hindsight bias has been demonstrated experimentally in a variety of settings, including politics, games and medicine....
    , or, "I Knew It All Along" Effect


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