Responses to Victimizations and Belief in a Just World

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xv

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2. Introduction

   1. An Overview

      • Melvin J. Lerner, Leo Montada

      Pages 1-7

3. Advances in Research on Observers’ Reactions to Victims

   1. Immanent Justice and Ultimate Justice

      • Jürgen Maes

      Pages 9-40

   2. BJW and Self-Efficacy in Coping with Observed Victimization

      • Changiz Mohiyeddini, Leo Montada

      Pages 41-54

   3. How Do Observers of Victimization Preserve Their Belief in a Just World Cognitively or Actionally?

      • Barbara Reichle, Angela Schneider, Leo Montada

      Pages 55-64

4. Innovative Extensions of BJW and Self-Experienced Injustices

   1. Individual Differences in the Belief in a Just World and Responses to Personal Misfortune

      • Carolyn L. Hafer, James M. Olson

      Pages 65-86

   2. Belief in a Just World, Well-Being, and Coping with an Unjust Fate

      • Claudia Dalbert

      Pages 87-105

   3. Belief in a Just World and Right-Wing Authoritarianism as Moderators of Perceived Risk

      • Alan J. Lambert, Thomas Burroughs, Alison L. Chasteen

      Pages 107-125

   4. The Belief in a Just World and Willingness to Accommodate among Married and Dating Couples

      • Isaac M. Lipkus, Victor Bissonnette

      Pages 127-140

5. Analytic Perspectives for Assessing the Construct: Belief in a Just World

   1. Measuring the Beliefs in a Just World

      • Adrian Furnham

      Pages 141-162

   2. Eight Stages in the Development of Research on the Construct of Belief in a Just World?

      • Jürgen Maes

      Pages 163-185

   3. Methodological Strategies in Research to Validate Measures of Belief in a Just World

      • Manfred J. Schmitt

      Pages 187-215

6. Looking Back and Then Forward to the Next Generation of Research on BJW

   1. Belief in a Just World: A Hybrid of Justice Motive and Self-Interest?

      • Leo Montada

      Pages 217-246

   2. The Two Forms of Belief in a Just World

      • Melvin J. Lerner

      Pages 247-269

7. Back Matter

   Pages 271-278

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The preparation of this volume began with a conference held at Trier University, approximately thirty years after the publication of the first Belief in a Just World (BJW) manuscript. The location of the conference was especially appropriate given the continued interest that the Trier faculty and students had for BJW research and theory. As several chapters in this volume document, their research together with the other contributors to this volume have added to the current sophistication and status of the BJW construct. In the 1960s and 1970s Melvin Lerner, together with his students and colleagues, developed his justice motive theory. The theory of Belief in a Just World (BJW) was part of that effort. BJW theory, meanwhile in its thirties, has become very influential in social and behavioral sciences. As with every widely applied concept and theory there is a natural develop­ mental history that involves transformations, differentiation of facets, and efforts to identify further theoretical relationships. And, of course, that growth process will not end unless the theory ceases to develop. In this volume this growth is reconstructed along Furnham's stage model for the development of scientific concepts. The main part of the book is devoted to current trends in theory and research.

• coping
• development
• employment
• fat
• relationships
• research

• Department of Psychology, University of Trier, Trier, Germany

  Leo Montada

• Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada

  Melvin J. Lerner

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