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Social Justice Research

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12-06-2022

Personal Versus General Belief in a Just World, Karma, and Well-Being: Evidence from Thailand and the UK

Authors: Phatthanakit Chobthamkit, Robbie M. Sutton, Ayse K. Uskul, Trawin Chaleeraktrakoon

Published in: Social Justice Research | Issue 3/2022

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Abstract

The belief in a just world (BJW) is the belief that people get what they deserve and deserve what they get. The theory and research findings suggest that believing the world is fair to “me” (personal BJW or PBJW) is associated with positive psychological functioning, whereas believing that the world is fair to people in general (general BJW or GBJW) may not. Against a backdrop of mixed findings in samples recruited in Asian countries, we conducted two studies in Thailand (N = 177 and N = 175) and one in the UK (N = 345). Study 1 examined the relationships between PBJW, GBJW, life satisfaction, and depression in Thailand; Study 2 also included Karma and was conducted in Thailand and the UK. In both studies, PBJW uniquely predicted well-being. When controlling for BJW, belief in Karma positively predicted life satisfaction and depression only in the UK sample. In addition, Karma was uniquely predicted by GBJW but more strongly so in Thailand. Furthermore, within both samples, individuals endorsed PBJW more strongly than GBJW; comparing across samples, PBJW was more strongly endorsed in the UK than Thailand, whereas GBJW was more strongly endorsed in Thailand than the UK. However, sample nationality did not moderate associations between BJW, Karma and well-being. Results support the cultural generality of just world theory and the psychological priority of PBJW and indicate that the cultural concept of Karma does not explain relationships between just-world beliefs and well-being.

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In Study 1, we also created a 14-item affect scale borrowing positive affect items from the Affect Valuation Index by Tsai et al. (2006) (5 items, e.g., calm, relaxed, satisfied, α = .74) and negative affect items from the psychological discomfort measure by Elliot and Devine (1994) (9 items, e.g., unhappy, sad, tense, α = .85) which ask how often individuals have had each feeling during the last month (1 = never to 4 = all of the time). When we entered both BJW constructs predicting positive and negative affect, PBJW predicted positive affect (β = .49, p < .001) and negative affect (β = .− 40, p < .001) in expected ways, whereas GBJW did not predict positive affect (β = − .00, p = .960) or negative affect (β = .15, p = .062). Note that the marginal positive relationship between GBJW and negative affect is the opposite of the negative relationship predicted by the cultural specificity hypothesis.

We recruited the UK samples from the School’s research participation scheme; thus, some mature students completed our study. When we exclude mature students (age over 23) in the analyses, the main result patterns are still the same.

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Title: Personal Versus General Belief in a Just World, Karma, and Well-Being: Evidence from Thailand and the UK
Authors: Phatthanakit Chobthamkit
Robbie M. Sutton
Ayse K. Uskul
Trawin Chaleeraktrakoon
Publication date: 12-06-2022
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: Social Justice Research / Issue 3/2022
Print ISSN: 0885-7466
Electronic ISSN: 1573-6725
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11211-022-00393-4

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