Comparing personal and general beliefs in a just world and in an unjust world in relation to well-being

Abstract

The current studies aimed to advance knowledge on the relationship between injustice perceptions and well-being by investigating whether Belief in Just (BJW) and in an Unjust World (BUJW) have different associations with people's well-being. In two studies (Study 1, N = 258; Study 2, N = 573), we examined whether well-being is associated differently with just and unjust world beliefs, and we further extended the study of these distinct associations to the differentiation between personal and general beliefs in a (un) just world. In both studies, we confirmed that a one-second-order factor model of BJW was positively associated with a latent variable of well-being. Furthermore, for the first time, we examined and confirmed that a one-second-order factor of BUJW—combining General BUJW and Personal BUJW—was also significantly associated with well-being. We further compared the differences between each of the personal and general BJW compared with the BUJW. We found that the factor associated with personal beliefs, either Personal BJW or Personal BUJW, instead of general beliefs, is the one consistently linked to well-being. The current studies pave the way for further studies on just and unjust world beliefs, considering the relevance of both just/unjust and personal/general frames.