Sources of justice & cultural worldviews

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People’s Belief in a Just World (BJW) plays an important role in coping with misfortune and unfairness. So far research has not considered who or what is the source of this just world (the question of ‘justice from whom/what?’). We have constructed a scale, the 6-Dimensional Belief in a Just Treatment Scale (BJT6), which distinguishes six causal dimensions of BJW (God, Nature, Other People, Self,Chance, Fate)(Stroebe, Postmes, Täuber, Stegeman, & John, M.S., 2015). In this project I focus on this question and argue that people’s coping with and actions in response to major life events and their emotional well-being is determined by the sources individuals see as being responsible for justice. In different lines of research, I consider how beliefs about the sources of justice affect, among others, responses to major life events (e.g., traumatic life events, man-made earthquakes). In addition, in collaboration with Robbie Sutton, I study how the BJT affect responses to immanent justice.

Researchers:

• Tom Postmes
• Susanne Tauber
• Melissa-Sue John
• Alwin Stegeman
• Peter de Jong
• Brian Ostafin
• Robbie Sutton

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Cooperations exist within the department:

• Peter de Jong clinical psych
• Brian Ostafin clinical psych

Cooperations exist within faculty, university, (inter)nationally:

• Susanne Tauber (University of Groningen, FEB)
• Melissa-Sue John (Worcester Polytechnic Institute)
• Robbie Sutton (University of Kent)

Representative publications:

• Stroebe, K., Postmes, T., Täuber, S., Stegeman, A., & John, M. S. (2015). Belief in a Just What? Demystifying Just World Beliefs by Distinguishing Sources of Justice. PloS one, 10(3), e0120145.

Successful grant proposals or other achievements:

PhD projects or smaller reserach projects

Theme:

University's focus areas:

• Sustainable Society

Other information, worth spreading, e.g. existing web sites: