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The Social Science Journal 49 (2012) 5–8

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

The Social Science Journal

j ourna l ho me pag e: www.elsev ier .com/ locate /sosc i j

amned if you do and damned if you don’t: Assigning blame to victimsegardless of their choice

tephen Rice ∗, Holly Hackett, David Trafimow, Gayle Hunt, Joshua Sandryew Mexico State University, USA

r t i c l e i n f o

rticle history:eceived 4 April 2010eceived in revised form 24 July 2011ccepted 2 August 2011

a b s t r a c t

The just world literature implies that when someone is a victim of suffering, observerswill somehow attribute the suffering to the behavior of the victim. In the current study,participants read a scenario about a person who had either converted or not converted toa new religion. This same person later either experienced no tragedy or was a victim of an

vailable online 21 October 2011unrelated brutal robbery which permanently disabled him. When the target person wasvictimized, participants were reluctant to attribute blame to the person or to his morality;however, they were quick to assign blame to the victim’s choice to convert. Interestingly,even when the victim had not converted, participants still assigned blame to the decisionto not convert.

ocial S

© 2011 Western S

According to just world theorizing, people have a gen-ral need to see the world as a just place (Lerner, 1966;erner & Miller, 1978), where if bad things happen, theyappen for a reason. In their review of the just world litera-ure, Hafer and Bègue (2005) took pains to point out Lerner1980) argument for a justice motive theory, rather thanimply focusing on reviewing the findings. We applaudafer and Bègue’s (2005) emphasis on the general justiceotive, and believe that it implies seemingly unreasonable

onsequences that nevertheless can be shown to be true.ur aim is to provide a brief demonstration with regards

o religious conversion.First, however, it is important to recognize, as Lerner

2003) did in his review, that just world effects do notlways happen. Lerner invokes Chaiken and Trope (1999)istinction between two processes people may use whenesponding to justice related events. A heuristic process

nvolves automatic and intuitive responses, whereas a sys-ematic process involves thoughtful consideration of allelevant information which requires a large amount of

∗ Corresponding author at: Department of Psychology, MSC 3452, Newexico State University, PO Box 30001, Las Cruces, NM 88003-8001, USA.

E-mail address: scrice67@gmail.com (S. Rice).

362-3319/$ – see front matter © 2011 Western Social Science Association. Publioi:10.1016/j.soscij.2011.08.003

cience Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

cognitive resources. Naturally, in situations when cognitiveresources are limited (e.g. high emotional involvement),there is insufficient cognitive resources to invoke a sys-tematic process and a heuristic process becomes dominant.Because Lerner considers just world processes to be“heuristic,” it follows that they should be predominantwhen emotional involvement is maximized. But whenemotional involvement is minimized, systematic processeswill become more important, and just world effects shouldbecome weaker.

Although we believe the foregoing reasoning—whetherthe heuristic-systematic dichotomy is or is not invoked—tobe valid, at least in part, we also believe that it gives insuf-ficient weight to the more general justice motive that webelieve plays an important role in people’s lives. A strongview of the general justice motive implies that the jus-tice motive should remain operating, even when emotionalinvolvement is high, and even during systematic processesthat have been hypothesized to replace just world ones.However, if the justice motive occurs regardless of the lackof available cognitive resources, then why do just world

effects decrease in these cases?

To begin to answer this question, consider the possibil-ity that a just world mental process occurs even in relatively“detached” situations, but that there might be additional

shed by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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6 S. Rice et al. / The Socia

processes that cover it up. For example, imagine that a par-ticipant who has just been exposed to a just world scenarioand has the usual just world reaction (e.g., the victim mustbe a bad person), but then realizes that blaming the victimis socially unacceptable. In that case, by the time the exper-imenter assesses whether a just world effect took place, theoriginal victim-blaming process is likely to have been cov-ered up by the secondary process, and the just world effectwill be weakened.

The weakening of the just world effect by a secondaryprocess should not be taken to mean that the just worldmotive no longer matters, nor should it be taken to meanthat the person stops once the secondary process takesplace. Rather, it seems more likely that the just worldmotivation does not stop, and so if an opportunity comesalong to express it in a way that does not contradict thesecondary process, then such expression will occur. Insupport of this reasoning, consider that Hafer (2000) wasable to detect an impressive amount of “preoccupation”with justice in a “Stroop task” paradigm that took placesubsequent to the former just world paradigm that sheused.

Taking this reasoning all the way, then, implies the fol-lowing.

Suppose participants are presented with a target per-son who performs a behavior or does not, and latersuffers or does not suffer in a way irrelevant to thebehavior. Finally, they have the opportunity to makeattributions that contradict (e.g., saying that the per-son is immoral or that they feel negatively about theperson) or do not contradict (e.g., the behavior is respon-sible) the hypothesized secondary processes. Given thatemotional involvement is low, the foregoing reasoningsuggests that participants should be well aware that blam-ing the victim (e.g., by saying the victim is immoral ornegative in general) is socially unacceptable, and so weexpect an effect on this variable to be weak—a predic-tion that would be consistent with the literature thatLerner (2003) reviewed. Secondly, because it is not con-sidered to be socially unacceptable to blame behaviors,even when there is little reason to link behaviors with out-comes, the just world motivation that continues even aftersecondary processes should cause impressive “behaviorblaming.”

Furthermore, and most surprisingly, it is possible toderive a prediction even in the case where the per-son does not perform the behavior. Imagine the casewhere the person does not perform the behavior andnevertheless suffers. Secondary processes prevent the par-ticipants from attributing the suffering to the personbeing immoral or generally negative, but the motivationfor an explanation continues. If the motivation is suf-ficiently strong, as we hypothesize will be so, we seenothing to get in the way of blaming the non-behavior!Thus, participants will not only assign blame when aperson performs a behavior, but also will assign blamefor not performing the behavior, assuming in both cases

there is a later misfortune. Put more colloquially, as ourtitle indicates, people really are “damned if they do anddamned if they don’t,” provided that misfortune thenensues.

Journal 49 (2012) 5–8

1. Methods

1.1. Participants

Fifty-one undergraduate students (31 female) from NewMexico State University participated in the experiment forpartial course credit. The mean age was 22.08 (SD = 7.88).

1.2. Materials and stimuli

The experimental display was presented via Survey-Monkey on a Dell PC with a 20′′ monitor using 1024 × 768resolution.

1.3. Procedure

Participants first signed a consent form and then sat21′′ from the experimental display. Subsequently, they readthe instructions and then read a story about a person whoeither did or did not convert to a new religion:

Joe is an undergraduate student. A month ago, Joe wasgiven the opportunity to convert to a new religion. HeDID convert (did NOT convert).

This was crossed with participants learning nothingnew about Joe or finding out that Joe was recently robbedand beaten:

Last week, Joe was robbed and beaten unconscious out-side his school building. He was taken to the hospital,where he lay in a coma for two months. He will neverregain the ability to walk.

Following each scenario, participants wereasked to rate: (a) How do you feel about Joeas a person? (b) How moral do you thinkJoe is? and (c) How do you feel about Joe’sconversion? These ratings were given on a 7-pointscale (i.e. Extremely Negative to Extremely Positive orExtremely Moral to Extremely Immoral). After fillingout the questionnaire, participants were debriefed anddismissed.

1.4. Design

We employed a within-participants design. The order ofpresentation between conditions was random.

2. Results

We analyzed the data with a Conversion (target per-son converted or did not convert) × Robbed (target personwas robbed or not) × Ratings (feelings about target or targetmorality or feelings about the conversion/lack of conver-sion) within-participants ANOVA. The data are presentedin Fig. 1.

There was a Conversion main effect, F(1, 50) = 4.00,

p = .05, �2

p = .07, prep = .85, and a Ratings main effect, F(1,50) = 12.97, p = .05, �2

p = .21, prep = .88. The main effect ofRobbed approached significance, F(1, 50) = 3.86, p = .055,�2

p = .07, prep = .87. Of greater theoretical importance were

S. Rice et al. / The Social Science Journal 49 (2012) 5–8 7

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tinues. And if there arises an opportunity for expressingthat motivation, without violating “secondary” processes,such expression will occur. The findings are consistent

Fig. 1. Conversion × Robbed × Ratings within-

he interactions between Rating and Conversion, F(2,00) = 3.39, p < .05, �2

p = .06, prep = .90, and between Rat-ng and Robbed, F(2, 100) = 3.98, p < .05, �2

p = .07, prep = .92.ecause of these interactions, we divided the followingnalyses into two sections, depending on whether or notoe converted.

In the conditions where Joe did convert, post-hoc t-testsevealed no differences between the ratings of how theyelt about Joe or how moral Joe was (all ps > .10); however,here was a significant difference between the rating ofow they felt about Joe’s conversion, t(50) = 2.85, p < .01,

= .81, prep = .97. Clearly, when Joe was robbed and beaten,articipants felt much more negative about his prior con-ersion.

In the conditions where Joe did not convert, post-hoc t-ests again revealed no differences between the ratings ofow they felt about Joe or how moral Joe was (all ps > .10).owever, and interestingly, there was again a significantifference between the rating of how they felt about Joe’son-conversion, t(50) = 2.04, p < .05, d = .58, prep = .93. In thisase, even though Joe did not convert, participants never-heless were negative about the decision.

. Discussion

The purpose of this study was twofold. First, we pre-icted that when emotional involvement is low, the justorld effect would be weakened by the secondary pro-

ess that blaming the victim was socially unacceptable. Inther words, participants should attribute a person’s mis-ortune to the person’s behavior rather than the personimself. Second, we predicted that even though this sec-ndary process overrides the usual just world reaction, theust world motivation to provide an explanation for a per-on’s misfortune continues and should be expressed if anpportunity arises. In other words, when participants can-

ot attribute a person’s misfortune to the person himself orhe person’s behavior, they should attribute the misfortuneo the person’s non-behavior. The data clearly supportedoth of these claims. The only significant differences found

nts ANOVA. Standard error bars are included.

were in relation to how participants felt about Joe’s conver-sion, and not about Joe himself. Furthermore, even whenJoe did not perform a behavior, participants subsequentlyassigned blame to Joe’s non-conversion, in the presence oflater misfortune.

We would like to be clear about a potential limita-tion of the current study, the current sample consisted ofpredominantly college-aged students and this may limitthe generalizability of the findings1. Although this sam-pling issue may seem like a potential limitation, there arealso reasons to consider the choice of the sample as astrong point of the current study. The scenarios that wedesigned consisted of the target person, Joe, who was acollege student; similarly, the present sample was alsocomposed of college students who could relate to the tar-get person lending some external validity to the scenarioitself.

An additional limitation of the current research is thatit was conducted in a laboratory setting. In settings outsideof the laboratory, people may react differently because ofadditional factors. For example, in out-of-lab settings peo-ple often have more detailed information about people theyencounter. It is important to keep in mind however, thatpeople often do make relatively uninformed judgmentsabout people with only a limited amount of information,similar to the present study.

Although the data are interesting in their own right,they are particularly noteworthy because of their impli-cations for the strength of just world motivation. Recallthat we used a rather non-involving paradigm where justworld effects generally are weaker than usual, or even failto happen. Rather than assume that lack of just worldeffects means a similar lack of just world motivation,we argued that just world motivation nevertheless con-

1 We wish to thank a thoughtful reviewer for pointing out this potentiallimitation.

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not only with this reasoning, but also with the generalfocus on just world motivation that has been advocated byHafer (2000) and Hafer and Bègue (2005). Although thesefindings seem incompatible from a “common sense” per-spective, their derivation from the notion of just worldmotivation demonstrates its ability to make successful“risky” predictions (Popper, 1959; Roberts & Pashler, 2000;Trafimow, 2003).

References

Chaiken, S. & Trope, Y. (1999). Dual process theories in social psychology.New York: Guilford.

Hafer, C. L. (2000). Do innocent victims threaten the belief in a just world?Evidence from a modified Stroop task. Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology, 79, 165–173.

Journal 49 (2012) 5–8

Hafer, C. L. & Bègue, L. (2005). Experimental research on just-world theory:Problems, developments, and future challenges. Psychological Bulletin,131, 128–167.

Lerner, M. (1966). Observer reaction to the innocent victim: Compassionor rejection? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 4(2), 203–210.

Lerner, M. (1980). The Belief in a Just World. New York: Plenum Press.Lerner, M. J. (2003). The Justice Motive: Where Social Psychologists Found

It, How they Lost It, and Why They May Not Find It Again. Personalityand Social Psychology Review, 7(4), 388–399.

Lerner, M. J. & Miller, D. T. (1978). Just world research and the attri-bution process: Looking back and ahead. Psychological Bulletin, 85,1030–1051.

Popper, K. (1959). The logic of scientific discovery. New York, London: BasicBooks, Hutchinson. [480 p., Translation of Logik der Forschung, 1934].

Roberts, S. & Pashler, H. (2000). How persuasive is a good fit? A commenton theory testing. Psychological Review, 107, 358–367.

Trafimow, D. (2003). Hypothesis testing and theory evaluation at theboundaries: Surprising insights from Bayes’s theorem. PsychologicalReview, 110, 526–535.