When Explanations for Poverty Help Explain Social Policy Preferences: The Case of European Public Opinion Amidst the Economic Recession (2009–2014)

Individuals hold beliefs about what causes poverty, and those beliefs have been theorized to explain policy preferences and ultimately cross-country variations in welfare states. However, there has been little empirical work on the effects of poverty attributions on welfare state attitudes. We seek to fill this gap by making use of Eurobarometer data from 27 European countries in the years 2009, 2010 and 2014 to explore the effects of poverty attributions on judgments about economic inequality as well as preferences regarding the welfare state. Relying on a four-type typology of poverty attribution which includes individual fate, individual blame, social fate and social blame as potential explanations for poverty, our analyses show that these poverty attributions are associated with judgments about inequality and broadly defined support for the welfare state, but have little or no effect on more concrete policy proposals such as unemployment benefits or increase of social welfare at the expense of higher taxes.

What’s in a Word? Just vs. Fair vs. Appropriate Earnings for Self and Others

Despite Rawls’ famous call to distinguish between justice and fairness, these and other justice-related words often seem to be used interchangeably by both ordinary people and justice researchers. Based on a survey-embedded question wording experiment (N = 4534) fielded in Germany as part of the GESIS Panel, we explore the effects of three justice words— “just,” “fair,” and “appropriate”—on the sense of justice about earnings for self and others. We observe differences in the just reward, justice evaluation, and justice consequences by justice word. For example, justice evaluations of one’s own earnings are more negative, i.e., deeper in the underreward territory, signaling larger just rewards, when using “just” instead of “fair” or “appropriate” in the question wording. No such clear pattern emerges for justice evaluations of others’ earnings. Our analyses show the decreasing effect of an underreward situation on psychosocial health to be significantly stronger in the “just” condition compared to the “fair” condition but do not reveal differential consequences by justice word for measures of satisfaction and trust. Overall, the observed differences by justice words are moderate in size. Nonetheless, our findings suggest caution for justice researchers in communicating with peers and respondents and warrant further inquiry extending research on the role of “justice language” to other language–country contexts.

Injustice Without Evidence: The Unique Role of Conspiracy Theories in Social Justice Research

Conspiracy theories are widespread and have a profound impact on society. The present contribution proposes that conspiracy theories are explanatory narratives that necessarily contain justice judgments, as they include attributions of blame and accusations of unethical or criminal conduct. Conspiratorial narratives also are mental simulations, however, and may elicit genuine feelings of injustice also without evidence of actual malpractice. Indeed, conspiracy theories sometimes describe unfair events that are unlikely to have occurred, unethical authorities that might not actually exist, and so on. Here I propose two complementary processes that stimulate belief in evidence-free conspiracy theories: (1) Existential threats instigate biased mental processing and motivated reasoning, that jointly promote an alternative perception of reality; and (2) group allegiances shape how people perceive, interpret, and remember facts to highlight the immoral qualities of competing outgroups. Due to these processes, conspiracy theories elicit a set of distinct reactions such as poor health choices and rejection of science. Moreover, evidence-free conspiracy theories require interventions beyond traditional approaches to install justice principles, such as debunking falsehoods and reducing polarized intergroup distinctions. I conclude that the scientific study of conspiracy theories is part of, and has a unique place in, social justice research.

Legitimacy of Authority and Protest Actions in Response to Collective Disadvantages

A wealth of evidence has demonstrated that individuals’ participation in collective actions largely derives from perceived group disadvantages. In the present research, we hypothesized that engagement in protest activities can be attenuated if the disadvantages originate from legitimate figures of authority. Across three experiments based on vignettes describing a hypothetical work setting (total N = 670), we found consistent support for this prediction. In Study 1, we showed that intention to participate in a protest movement in reaction to an unfavourable distribution of outcomes was lower when legitimacy of the group’s authority was high (vs. low). In addition, a reduction in anger was found to play a mediating role. Studies 2 and 3 further demonstrated that these effects only occurred when participants were confronted with a relatively low disadvantage (as opposed to a high disadvantage). In an attempt to identify underlying mechanisms, Study 3 emphasized the moral implications that lie behind responses to high (vs. low) disadvantageous decisions and that shape resistance processes. Taken together, these findings call for more consideration for the role of group authorities in the comprehension of collective action tendencies and give insights to better understand how and when authority legitimacy can serve to perpetuate social disparities and hinders the fight against injustices.

Beliefs on Sexual Violence in the Context of System Justification Theory: The Role of Hostile Sexism and Beliefs in Biological Origins of Gender Differences

Estimates suggest that around 20% of women may have experienced rape. Various misconceptions about rape (i.e., rape myths) are closely related to victim blaming. In our studies we tested the link between system justification, beliefs in biological origins of gender differences, ambivalent sexism and beliefs concerning sexual violence. Study 1 was conducted among 433 Polish students. The sequential mediation analysis suggests that system justification predicts the level of rape myth acceptance through beliefs in biological origins of gender differences and then hostile (but not benevolent) sexism. In Study 2, conducted among 197 Polish students, we tested the relationship between beliefs in biological origins of gender differences and beliefs concerning sexual violence using experimental design. Contrary to our expectations, students who read the text about social origins of gender differences perceived the survivor of a hypothetical acquaintance rape as less credible, and proposed a lower sentence for a stranger rape perpetrator, compared to participants who read about biological origins of gender differences. We suspect that this is due to experiencing reactance when confronted with social explanations of gender differences. We discuss implications for research and policy.