Just-world hypothesis
Also known as: Just-world belief, Belief in a just world
The need to believe people get what they deserve, so victims must deserve it.
What it means
A motivated belief that the world is fundamentally fair, so that people generally get what they deserve and deserve what they get. Because randomness and undeserved suffering threaten this comforting assumption, people defend it by derogating or blaming victims, reasoning that they must have done something to invite their fate. The belief serves a protective function: it lets individuals feel that their own efforts and virtue will be rewarded and that misfortune is controllable. It is stronger when observers cannot help the victim and weaker when restitution is possible. It underlies victim-blaming in cases of assault, poverty, and illness, and shapes attitudes toward inequality and welfare.
Examples
Told a woman was assaulted, observers who could not aid her rated her as more careless or blameworthy than those who could.
Told a colleague was made redundant, coworkers start recalling times he seemed unmotivated — reasoning backwards from the outcome to a fault that would make it fair.
Hearing that a lifelong non-smoker has lung cancer, people hunt for something she must have done, because 'it was simply bad luck' leaves them exposed to the same luck.
First described in Melvin Lerner (1965; 1980).