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A longitudinal study involving high school students in China found that children raised in poverty tended to hold weaker beliefs in a just world. In contrast, childhood unpredictability was not consistently linked to such beliefs. The paper was published in the Journal of Personality.
Belief in a just world refers to the psychological tendency to think that people generally get what they deserve and deserve what they get. This belief can provide a sense of order and predictability in life, helping individuals cope with uncertainty. People with stronger beliefs in a just world often interpret success as the result of hard work and failure as the consequence of personal shortcomings.
While this perspective can encourage persistence and constructive behavior, it can also lead to blaming victims of misfortune, assuming they somehow caused their own suffering. Research suggests that belief in a just world can be adaptive, by fostering optimism and resilience, but also maladaptive, by promoting judgmental or unsympathetic attitudes. It shapes responses to social issues such as poverty, crime, and inequality.
This belief is influenced by cultural values, upbringing, and personal experiences. Some individuals distinguish between justice in their own lives and justice in the wider world (personal and general beliefs), with one often being stronger than the other. The concept is widely studied in social psychology for its influence on moral reasoning and behavior.
Study authors Yuqing Jin and Ying Yang sought to examine the long-term effects of stressful childhood environments on the development of belief in a just world during adolescence. They were also interested in whether perceptions of discrimination mediated this relationship. The researchers hypothesized that childhood harshness and unpredictability would be associated with weaker belief in a just world and that perceived personal or group discrimination would play a mediating role.
In this study, childhood harshness was defined as poverty during childhood, distinct from current poverty experienced by participants. Childhood unpredictability was defined as “fluctuations in environmental conditions across space and time, indexed by changes in family ecology,” such as moving houses or changing residences.
Data came from a large longitudinal study that recruited students from a senior high school in Foshan, Guangdong province, in southeastern China. Initially, 830 first-year students took part in the survey, with 46% being girls. These students completed follow-up surveys in their second and third years. A total of 515 students completed all three surveys.
The surveys included assessments of childhood unpredictability (“When I was younger than 10, things were often chaotic in my house”), childhood socioeconomic status (e.g., “I grew up in a relatively wealthy neighborhood”), personal and general belief in a just world (e.g., “I think basically the world is a just place” or “I am usually treated fairly”), and perceptions of discrimination (personal – e.g., “I feel that I am looked down upon by others”; and general – e.g., “Basically, students with family circumstances similar to mine have lost many opportunities”).
Results indicated that participants who reported higher levels of childhood harshness tended to report lower levels of belief in a just world, both personal and general. Childhood unpredictability was linked to slightly lower levels of personal belief in a just world, but not consistently across all time points.
Higher perceptions of both personal and group discrimination were associated with weaker belief in a just world. Participants who experienced more childhood harshness and unpredictability also tended to report greater perceptions of personal and group discrimination.
The authors tested statistical models suggesting that childhood harshness leads to higher perceptions of personal discrimination, which in turn reduce belief in a just world. Results supported this possibility.
“Using a three-wave longitudinal design, we found that childhood harshness negatively predicted both personal and general belief in a just world, while childhood unpredictability was not significantly associated with it. Moreover, personal discrimination perception (but not group discrimination perception) mediated the longitudinal relationship between childhood harshness and belief in a just world,” the study authors concluded.
The study adds to scientific understanding of how childhood conditions shape beliefs and attitudes later in life. However, it should be noted that the childhood data were based on participants’ recollections as high school students rather than information collected during childhood, leaving room for reporting bias.
The paper, “How Childhood Shapes Adolescents’ Belief in Justice: A Longitudinal Study Examining the Link Between Childhood Stressful Environment and Belief in a Just World,” was authored by Yuqing Jin and Ying Yang.