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Karmic belief—the expectation that actions bring about morally congruent outcomes within and across lifetimes—is central to many, particularly Eastern, religions. This research (N = 704) examined whether karmic beliefs and cultural context (predominantly Christian Americans and Hindu Indians) moderated the indirect effect of learning about others’ morally congruent or incongruent negative outcomes on immanent justice reasoning (causally attributing misfortune to someone’s prior misdeeds) through perceived deservingness. Results revealed that the indirect effect of congruency on immanent justice attributions via deservingness was stronger for people higher in karmic beliefs, because they strengthened the effect of congruency on immanent justice attributions and the relationship between deservingness and immanent justice attributions. The indirect effect of congruency on immanent justice attributions through deservingness was also stronger in the United States. These results highlight the role that karmic beliefs play in how people reason about the causes of others’ fortunes and misfortunes.

White and Remington (2019) found that autistic people may have increased anthropomorphic tendencies to ascribe human-like attributes to non-human agents. However, it was unclear from their study whether this relationship holds after accounting for socio-demographic variables known to be associated with anthropomorphism. The psychometric properties of the anthropomorphism questionnaire they used has also not been investigated, raising concerns about whether it measures the same construct in people with differing levels of autistic traits. Addressing these issues, we re-examined the relationship between autism and anthropomorphism in a large sample of adults ( N = 492). Conceptually replicating White and Remington, we found that autistic traits were significantly associated with greater anthropomorphic tendencies, even after accounting for age and sex (Study 1). Equally, psychometric concerns with the anthropomorphism questionnaire were revealed, leading us to refine this measure and re-analyse the data. A less clear-cut but significant association between autistic traits and anthropomorphism was found (Study 2). Our refined anthropomorphism measure also had improved psychometric properties, particularly showing that it is suitable for future autism research. Our findings are discussed in relation to individual differences in social-cognitive processing and we outline future directions for investigating mechanisms linking anthropomorphism and social cognition in autism. Lay abstract Anthropomorphism is the tendency to attribute human-like qualities (e.g. thoughts and feelings) to non-human entities (e.g. objects and weather systems). Research by White and Remington (2019) suggested that anthropomorphism is more common in autistic compared to neurotypical adults, which is interesting given that autistic individuals sometimes misunderstand the thoughts and feelings of other people. In this article, we re-examined the link between autism and anthropomorphism in a large sample of adults with varying degrees of autistic traits, with several important methodological advances on previous research. Across two studies, we found that individuals with more autistic traits reported greater anthropomorphic tendencies. As part of these analyses, we had to develop a new, refined measure of anthropomorphism, which showed better reliability and validity than the original measure. This measure will be useful in future autism-related research. Overall, advancing White and Remington’s study, these findings help us to better understand individual differences in socially relevant processes, including those that may be enhanced in autism (e.g. anthropomorphism).

Autism and anxiety are thought to be related to extreme demand avoidance (EDA), which is characterised by intense avoidance of everyday demands. However, the relative importance of autism and anxiety to EDA has yet to be investigated, and little is known about EDA in adulthood. We conducted two online survey studies (Ns= 267 and 549) with adults in the general population to establish the relative importance of autistic traits and anxiety as predictors of demand avoidance, using dominance analysis. Both autistic traits and anxiety were unique and equally important predictors of demand avoidance. These findings suggest EDA is linked to autism and are consistent with the theory that demand avoidance behaviours are potentially anxiety-driven in adults.

Following the popularity of dual process models in social and cognitive psychology, there is major interest in the possibility that autism is associated with impaired "fast" intuitive thinking but enhanced "slow" or "rational" deliberative thinking. If correct, this has great potential to help understand various strengths and difficulties characteristic of autism. Previous empirical investigations of this phenomenon, however, are marred by concerns about the measurement of intuitive and deliberative processing, as well as broader problems in clinical psychological science (e.g., small underpowered studies, lack of replication). Making a step change, we conducted four large-scale studies to examine dual processing in autism, including a preregistered comparison of 200 autistic and nonautistic adults. Participants completed contemporary cognitive and self-report measures of intuitive and deliberative processing, as well as a psychometrically robust measure of general cognitive ability. Except for lower self-reported intuitive thinking, we found no unique contributions of autism to intuitive or deliberative thinking across all four studies, as evidenced by frequentist and Bayesian analyses. Overall, these studies indicate that intuitive and deliberative thinking is neither enhanced nor particularly impaired in relation to autism. We deliberate on the implications of these findings for theories of autism and future investigation of strengths and difficulties in autistic people. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The 10-item Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ10) is frequently used to screen for high autistic traits in clinical practice and research. For the past decade, however, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has recommended the use of an incorrect ≥7 cut-off value, instead of the correct ≥6 value specified in the original research on the AQ10. Our inspection of the literature suggests that this discrepancy has proliferated across research, generating confusion over the past decade. After examining use of the AQ10 cut-offs in previous research, we drew on five datasets (overall N = 7612) to empirically test the consequences of applying different AQ10 cut-off values for the interpretation of research. Our analyses showed that a one-point difference in the AQ10 cut-off – the error made in the NICE guidelines – significantly changed the effect sizes of autism-related associations in 3 of the five datasets by up to 59.75% and made the relationships non-significant in two datasets. This demonstrates that the (mis)use of the AQ10 cut-off can be consequential for research, hence we discuss the urgent need to establish and apply appropriate autism screening cut-off values in future research.

Strengths-based approaches to autism are increasing in research and clinical practice. Such approaches suggest facilitating autistic people to increase the use of their strengths leads to positive outcomes (e.g. improved well-being). However, despite proliferation of strengths-based clinical and educational interventions, these approaches are grounded on several assumptions that remain uninvestigated. Little is known about the specific strengths of autistic people, nor their current knowledge and use of their strengths. Critically, no research has directly tested if autistic people’s strengths knowledge and use is in fact associated with positive outcomes. Conducting an exploratory study, including the first well-powered comparisons of the self-reported strengths, strengths knowledge, and strengths use of matched autistic and non-autistic samples ( N = 276), we found that autistic and non-autistic participants reported similar strengths. While autistic people reported lower strengths knowledge and use, strengths use in autism strongly predicted better quality of life, subjective well-being, and lower levels of anxiety, depression, and stress. Thus, strength-based approaches and clinical interventions designed to increase strengths use may pose a valuable method for boosting well-being in autism. However, we suggest such approaches should focus on individuals’ strengths more generally, rather than perceived autism-specific abilities. Lay abstract It is often suggested that supporting autistic people to identify and use their strengths will lead to positive outcomes. However, little research has explored if this is true. To date, no research has explored whether autistic people already have knowledge of and use their strengths, nor whether increased strengths knowledge and use is linked to good outcomes, such as a better quality of life, well-being and improved mental health. Comparing large samples of autistic and non-autistic people, this study tested these unanswered questions. We found that autistic and non-autistic people reported similar strengths, but autistic people reported less knowledge and use of their strengths compared to non-autistic people. Importantly however, autistic people who reported using their strengths often had better quality of life, well-being and mental health than autistic people who reported using their strengths less frequently. We, therefore, propose that supporting autistic people to use their strengths more often may be a valuable way to boost well-being in this population.

Mentalising, also known as "Theory of Mind", is the ability to understand and infer the cognitions of others, such as their perceptions, intentions, and beliefs. Although several tools have been designed to measure mentalising in adults, there exist methodological and practical limitations. Many of the existing measures conflate mentalising with similar constructs (e.g., empathy), and most are lengthy measures that are unsuitable for large population-based studies and clinical practice. These issues are currently hampering clinical and non-clinical investigations into mentalising and related social-cognitive abilities. Drawing on questionnaire measures of social cognition, we conceived a self-report mentalising scale, the Four-Item Mentalising Index (FIMI; Studies 1a and b). The FIMI was developed through a series of studies examining its factor structure and reliability (Studies 2a and b) and by testing its construct validity against a cognitive mentalising task, autistic traits, and comparing scores in autistic and non-autistic people (Studies 3a and b). Together, we demonstrate that the FIMI is a conceptually and methodologically robust tool for measuring mentalising ability in the general population, including autistic and non-autistic people. Future research directions and practical (clinical) applications of the scale are discussed, with a focus on improving understanding and management of (a)typical mentalising ability. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Previous research has found a negative relationship between individual differences in personal relative deprivation (i.e., resentment stemming from the belief that one is worse off than similar others) and prosociality. Whether personal relative deprivation causes reductions in people’s willingness to act for the benefit of others, however, is yet to be established. Across six studies, we experimentally examined whether experiences of personal relative deprivation via unfavourable (vs. favourable or lateral) social comparisons of affluence reduced prosociality towards known others and strangers. We found that making hypothetical (Study 1) or real (Study 2) unfavourable social comparisons of affluence in workplace contexts reduced participants’ organisational citizenship behavioural intentions. Furthermore, adverse social comparisons of affluence reduced generosity towards the targets of those comparisons during a Dictator Game (Studies 3 to 6). Across studies we also measured participants’ subjective and objective socioeconomic status and found, contrary to previous theory and research, no consistent relationship between status and prosociality, and no modulation of this relationship by either local or macro-level inequality. These results suggest that local, specific interpersonal comparisons of affluence play a more dominant role in people’s willingness to act for the benefit of a comparison target than do their subjective or objective class rank or the prevailing income inequality of the state in which they reside.

Funder: Medical Research Council; FundRef: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000265, Funder: Whorrod Doctoral Scholarship, The autonomic nervous system (ANS) is responsible for the functioning of the heart, bladder, pupils and several other bodily functions. Therefore, when the ANS functions abnormally, individuals can experience a number of physical symptoms, including dizziness, abnormal sweating and digestive difficulties. Currently, it is unclear if autistic adults experience ANS dysfunction. Therefore, in this study, we investigated whether autistic adults report more ANS-related physical symptoms, indicating greater ANS dysfunction, and whether this may be related to autism, or rather anxiety, depression, or stress. The findings suggest that ANS dysfunction, where found in autism, is due to co-occurring stress and anxiety. We therefore propose that treating stress and anxiety may be an effective way to ameliorate ANS-related health problems in autistic adults.

Immanent justice reasoning involves causally attributing someone’s bad outcome to their prior immoral actions. Building on the idea that causality is mentally linked with spatial proximity, we investigated whether such reasoning might lead participants to spatially bind together immoral actions and bad outcomes. Across four experiments ( N = 553, Mechanical Turk workers), participants positioned sentences describing other people’s bad (vs. good) outcomes closer in space to previous immoral behaviors. This effect was observed both when the position of the initial action remained in a fixed location and when it “chased” the outcome across the screen. Importantly, we also found that this spatial positioning of immoral actions and bad outcomes is mediated by perceived deservingness of the outcome and is not merely due to perceived similarity of events. These findings suggest that perceived deservingness biases the spatial proximity of representations of others’ random bad outcomes and their prior immoral actions.

Research during the 1960s found that observers could be moved enough by an innocent victim’s suffering to derogate their character. However, recent research has produced inconsistent evidence for this effect. We conducted the first meta-analysis ( k = 55) of the experimental literature on the victim derogation effect to test the hypothesis that it varies as a function of the emotional impactfulness of the context for observers. We found that studies which employed more impactful contexts (e.g., that were real and vivid) reported larger derogation effects. Emotional impact was, however, confounded by year of appearance, such that older studies reported larger effects and were more impactful. To disentangle the role of emotional impact, in two primary experiments we found that more impactful contexts increased the derogation of an innocent victim. Overall, the findings advance our theoretical understanding of the contexts in which observers are more likely to derogate an innocent victim.

We examined the causal order of relationships between rape myth acceptance (RMA), victim blaming, and memory reconstruction. In Study 1, RMA-congruent memory (or alternatively, victim blaming) mediated the relationship between RMA and victim blaming (memory reconstruction). In Study 2, similar relationships emerged between RMA, victim blaming, and memory reconstruction. Although no mediation of RMA occurred in Study 2 independently, a mini meta-analysis of Studies 1 and 2 data replicated both patterns of mediation observed in Study 1. In Study 3, memory accuracy for neutral details of a rape scenario was unrelated to RMA. Manipulating memory to be more (vs. less) RMA congruent had no effect on victim blaming (Study 4), although manipulating perceived victim blameworthiness (Studies 5 and 6) produced RMA-congruent memory reconstruction when the victim was more (vs. less) blameworthy. The results suggest that, via victim blaming, RMA motivates a memory reconstruction process that explains and justifies victim blaming after the fact.

We examined Gollwitzer et al.’s (1) study on autism and better social psychological knowledge with interest, given its large samples and open dataset. We commend the authors for raising the bar for autism research, which is typically underpowered and rarely draws on social psychology. Notably, their research follows recent investigations of autism-related strengths, and findings that certain social processes (e.g., social motivation) are unimpaired in autistic people who compensate for their social difficulties (2⇓–4). Gollwitzer et al.’s article, together with recent research, is a move toward greater appreciation for autism and neurodiversity in society (5). Notwithstanding our enthusiasm for the research, we are surprised that a positive relationship between an autism trait questionnaire and … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: p.shah{at}bath.ac.uk. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

It has been proposed that atypical empathy in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is due to co-occurring alexithymia. However, difficulties measuring empathy and statistical issues in previous research raise questions about the role of alexithymia in empathic processing in ASD. Addressing these issues, we compared the associations of trait alexithymia and autism with empathy in large samples from the general population. Multiple regression analyses showed that both trait autism and alexithymia were uniquely associated with atypical empathy, but dominance analysis found that trait autism, compared to alexithymia, was a more important predictor of atypical cognitive, affective, and overall empathy. Together, these findings indicate that atypical empathy in ASD is not simply due to co-occurring alexithymia. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s10803-019-04080-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The climate agenda has gathered extraordinary pace due to Greta Thunberg and other autistic environmentalists. Thunberg's autism is widely used to explain and celebrate, but also diminish and denigrate, her activism. However, despite speculation linking autism, pro-environmental action, and climate change belief, there is neither psychological theory nor empirical evidence on this topic. We therefore considered theoretical reasons for and against this potential association, and examined whether autistic traits were positively, if at all, linked to pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors, and climate change belief. In three preregistered studies (N = 2288), including nationally representative samples and well-powered frequentist and Bayesian analyses, we found substantial evidence that autistic traits were associated with engagement in fewer pro-environmental behaviors. Further, autistic traits were neither predictive of pro-environmental attitudes nor climate change belief. We conclude that, irrespective of environmental attitudes or climate change belief, autism and mental health conditions may present barriers for pro-environmental action. Suggestions for understanding the psychological factors underlying climate action and a more inclusive environmental agenda are discussed.

First impressions based on physical characteristics and superficial information predict a wide variety of social judgments and outcomes. We build on recent work examining the effects of such impressions on the communication of scientific research and ideas to the general public. A large diverse sample viewed and evaluated scientific TED talks, while a separate group viewed short, silent excerpts of each video and judged the speakers on three core sociocognitive traits: competence, morality, and sociability. Neither the perceived scientific quality nor the entertainment value of the talks was meaningfully predicted by the thin-slice judgments; likewise, they were independent of the speakers’ age, gender, ethnicity, and attractiveness. We propose that these null results arise because the influence of superficial visual cues was overwhelmed by the wealth of more diagnostic information and by our participants’ attentiveness to this information. Our results suggest limits to the predictive power of superficial impressions.

The extent to which an individual believes in free will is associated with a number of positive life outcomes, including their own subjective well-being. However, it is not known whether the belief that one has free will per se is uniquely associated with subjective well-being over and above potential confounding variables. We examined a sense of personal control as one such confound—specifically, whether the association between free will belief and subjective well-being is based, in part, on the degree to which an individual feels a sense of personal control over their life. In Study, 1 trait-level belief in personal control significantly uniquely predicted satisfaction with life and stress, over and above the contribution of free will belief. In Study 2, within-person daily fluctuations in stress and depression were not significantly predicted by daily changes in free will belief over and above the contribution of personal control/choice. The findings provide new insight into the relationship between free will belief and subjective well-being.

Drawing on social comparison and equity theories, we investigated the role that perceived similarity of a comparison target plays in how resentful people feel about their relative financial status. In Study 1, participants tended to choose a comparison target who was better off, and they selected a target they perceived to be more similar than dissimilar along dimensions that surrounded their financial outcomes. In Study 1, perceived relative disadvantage was positively associated with resentment regardless of the perceived similarity of the comparison target. The results of Studies 2 to 5b clarified these findings by showing that being both similar and dissimilar to a target can cause resentment depending on the context. Using hypothetical and real social comparisons, we found that people are more dissatisfied with their financial outcomes when their comparative targets have the same background qualifications (i.e., are similar) but are financially better off (Studies 2, 3b, 4, and 5b). However, we also found that when the comparative financial contexts were similar (i.e., equal affluence), participants were more dissatisfied when their target for comparison had lower qualifications (i.e., was dissimilar; Studies 2, 3a, 4, and 5a). In all cases, perceptions of unfairness mediated the effects of social comparison on financial dissatisfaction. Taken together, these studies address some of the ambiguities around what it means to be similar to a target in the context of social comparisons of affluence, and they underscore the importance of perceived unfairness in the link between social comparison and resentment with one’s financial status.

We propose that personal relative deprivation (PRD)—the belief that one is worse off than similar others—plays a key role in the link between social class and prosociality. Across multiple samples and measures (total N = 2,233), people higher in PRD were less inclined to help others. When considered in isolation, neither objective nor subjective socioeconomic status (SES) was meaningfully associated with prosociality. However, because people who believe themselves to be at the top of the socioeconomic hierarchy are typically low in PRD, these variables act as mutual suppressors—the predictive validity of both is enhanced when they are considered simultaneously, revealing that both higher subjective SES and higher PRD are associated with lower prosociality. These results cast new light on the complex connections between relative social status and people’s willingness to act for the benefit of others.

First impressions based on facial appearance predict many important social outcomes. We investigated whether such impressions also influence the communication of scientific findings to lay audiences, a process that shapes public beliefs, opinion, and policy. First, we investigated the traits that engender interest in a scientist's work, and those that create the impression of a "good scientist" who does high-quality research. Apparent competence and morality were positively related to both interest and quality judgments, whereas attractiveness boosted interest but decreased perceived quality. Next, we had members of the public choose real science news stories to read or watch and found that people were more likely to choose items that were paired with "interestinglooking" scientists, especially when selecting video-based communications. Finally, we had people read real science news items and found that the research was judged to be of higher quality when paired with researchers who look like "good scientists." Our findings offer insights into the social psychology of science, and indicate a source of bias in the dissemination of scientific findings to broader society.

Across five studies, we found consistent evidence for the idea that personal relative deprivation (PRD), which refers to resentment stemming from the belief that one is deprived of deserved outcomes compared to others, uniquely contributes to materialism. In Study 1, self-reports of PRD positively predicted materialistic values over and above socioeconomic status, personal power, self-esteem, and emotional uncertainty. The experience of PRD starts with social comparison, and Studies 2 and 3 found that PRD mediated the positive relation between a tendency to make social comparisons of abilities and materialism. In Study 4, participants who learned that they had less (vs. similar) discretionary income than people like them reported a stronger desire for more money relative to donating more to charity. In Study 5, during a windfall-spending task, participants higher in PRD spent more on things they wanted relative to other spending categories (e.g., paying off debts).

From blaming to helping innocent victims, just-world research has revealed that observers react to victimization in a variety of ways. Recent research suggests that such responses to victimization require effortful thought, whereas other research has shown that people can react to these situations intuitively. Along with manipulating just-world threat, across seven experiments, we manipulated or measured participants’ level of mental processing before assessing judgments of victim derogation, blame, willingness to help, and ultimate justice reasoning. The effect of just-world threat on these responses held constant over a range of manipulations/measures, suggesting that the processes involved in maintaining a belief in a just world are not restricted to the rational, deliberative level of mental processing but also occur intuitively.

The derogation of innocent victims may bolster perceivers' implicit faith that the world is a just place. A key theoretical outcome of this faith is the ability to put aside smaller, short-term rewards for larger, long-term rewards. The empirical relation between victim derogation and participants' preferences for smaller-sooner versus larger-later rewards was examined in two studies using delay-discounting paradigms. In Study 1 (n=381), the more college students and Internet users derogated a victim of misfortune, the less they subsequently discounted larger-later rewards, but only when their faith in justice was threatened (perpetrators of the misfortune were unpunished). In Study 2 (n=238), informing Internet users that a victim was of bad (versus good) moral character decreased delay discounting. These results demonstrate that derogating victims of misfortune, although damaging to others, yields an important psychological benefit for the self by putting aside smaller-sooner rewards for larger-later rewards. © 2013 Elsevier Inc.

Religious teachings endorse notions of ultimate justice (a misfortune is compensated in the long run) and immanent justice (a misfortune is caused by previous misdeeds). The current research examined whether individual differences in observers’ religiosity moderated ultimate and immanent justice reasoning in response to an unfortunate accident that occurred to either a good or bad person. Results showed that participants higher in religiosity perceived greater ultimate justice for the victim regardless of his moral worth. Participants higher in religiosity engaged in greater immanent justice reasoning when the victim was bad, but not when he was good. Perceived deservingness of the accident mediated the effect of the victim’s moral worth on immanent justice attributions more strongly among participants higher in religiosity.

When confronted with bad things happening to good people, observers often engage reactive strategies, such as victim derogation, to maintain a belief in a just world. Although such reasoning is usually made retrospectively, we investigated the extent to which knowledge of another person's good or bad behavior can also bias people's online expectations for subsequent good or bad outcomes. Using a fully crossed design, participants listened to auditory scenarios that varied in terms of whether the characters engaged in morally good or bad behavior while their eye movements were tracked around concurrent visual scenes depicting good and bad outcomes. We found that the good (bad) behavior of the characters influenced gaze preferences for good (bad) outcomes just prior to the actual outcomes being revealed. These findings suggest that beliefs about a person's moral worth encourage observers to foresee a preferred deserved outcome as the event unfolds. We include evidence to show that this effect cannot be explained in terms of affective priming or matching strategies. © 2012 American Psychological Association.

Research has shown that people often reinterpret their experiences of others’ harm and suffering to maintain the functional belief that people get what they deserve (e.g., by blaming the victim). Rather than focusing on such reactive responses to harm and suffering, across 7 studies we examined whether people selectively and proactively choose to be exposed to information about deserved rather than undeserved outcomes. We consistently found that participants selectively chose to learn that bad (good) things happened to bad (good) people (Studies 1 to 7)—that is, they selectively exposed themselves to deserved outcomes. This effect was mediated by the perceived deservingness of outcomes (Studies 2 and 3), and was reduced when participants learned that wrongdoers otherwise received “just deserts” for their transgressions (Study 7). Participants were not simply selectively avoiding information about undeserved outcomes but actively sought information about deserved outcomes (Studies 3 and 4), and participants invested effort in this pattern of selective exposure, seeking out information about deserved outcomes even when it was more time-consuming to find than undeserved outcomes (Studies 5 and 6). Taken together, these findings cast light on a more proactive, anticipatory means by which people maintain a commitment to deservingness.

Drawing on just-world theory and research showing that older persons are generally assigned a devalued status in society, we examined the impact of an innocent victim's age on observer perceptions of injustice and punishment reactions. In three experiments, we demonstrated that observers perceived the suffering of an older (vs. younger) person as less unfair, which, in turn, reduced their willingness to punish the harm doer. In Study 1, participants rated a car accident as less unfair and consequently punished the harm doer less when the victim was older. In Study 2, participants recommended punishing a harm doer less when the victim was older (vs. younger) when the need to believe in a just world was threatened (i.e., only when the victim was innocent). In Study 3, only participants higher in ageism perceived the suffering of an older (vs. younger) victim as less unfair and, consequently, recommended less punishment for the harm doer.

Several lines of research have provided evidence for a relation between personal relative deprivation and gambling. Despite this knowledge, little is known about possible psychological mechanisms through which personal relative deprivation exerts its influence on gambling. The authors of this research sought to examine one such mechanism: the desire for immediate rewards. Using complementary approaches to studying psychological mechanisms, they tested in four studies the general hypothesis that personal relative deprivation translates into gambling urges and behavior in part via increased desires for immediate, even if smaller, rewards. Study 1 showed that an experimental manipulation of personal relative deprivation increased participants' preferences for smaller-sooner over larger-later rewards during a delay-discounting task. Studies 2 and 3 showed that a decreased willingness to delay gratification led to increased gambling behavior. Study 4 showed that preferences for smaller-sooner over larger-later rewards statistically mediated the relation between self-reported personal relative deprivation and gambling urges among a community sample of gamblers. The implications and potential applications of these findings are discussed.

In immanent justice reasoning, negative events are attributed to some prior moral failing, even in the absence of a physically plausible causal link between them. Drawing on just-world theory, we examined immanent justice reasoning as an intuitive, deservingness-guided form of causal judgment. Participants were exposed to a story about a man who either did or did not cheat on his wife and who was subsequently injured in a car accident. Under either high or low cognitive load, participants rated the extent to which they believed the accident was the result of the man's prior moral failings. The results showed that participants causally attributed the man's accident to his prior conduct when he was immoral (vs. not immoral) more strongly under high cognitive load. Further, moderated mediation analyses showed that perceived deservingness of the accident mediated the effect of the man's prior immoral behavior on immanent justice attributions more strongly under high cognitive load. These results offer support for the notion that immanent justice attributions reflect an automatic tendency to assume that people get what they deserve.

Socio-legal scholars have suggested that, as a ubiquitous social system, law shapes social reality and provides interpretive frameworks for social relations. Across five studies, we tested the idea that the law shapes social reality by fostering the assumptions that people are self-interested, untrustworthy, and competitive. In Studies 1 and 2, we found that people implicitly associated legal concepts with competitiveness. Studies 3-5 showed that these associations had implications for social perceptions, self-interested attitudes, and competitive behavior. After being primed with constructs related to the law, participants perceived social actors as less trustworthy and the situation as more competitive (Study 3), became more against a political issue when it conflicted with their normative self-interest (Study 4), and made more competitive choices during a prisoner's dilemma game when they believed that social relations were basically zero-sum in nature (Study 5). The implications and applications of these results are discussed. © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

We examined whether people might distort and selectively remember the past in ways that enable them to sustain a belief in a just world (BJW; Lerner, M. J. (1980). The belief in a just world: A fundamental delusion. New York: Plenum Press). In Study 1, recall of a lottery prize reflected participants' justice concerns, such that the average lottery amount recalled was lowest when a "bad" versus "good" person won. In Study 2, an unrelated experience of just world threat (versus affirmation) enhanced biased recall of the lottery prize when the winner was undeserving. In Study 3, participants who experienced a fortuitous bad break selectively remembered more bad deeds from their recent past, whereas participants who experienced a good break selectively remembered more good deeds. Study 4 demonstrates that such selective memory biases specifically serve to portray chance outcomes as more fair. Taken together, these findings offer support for the notion that reconstructing and selectively recalling the past can serve to sustain a BJW. © 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Previous theorizing and research suggest that the need to believe in a just world develops when children begin to understand the benefits of foregoing their immediate gratifications for more desirable, long-term outcomes. Drawing on this previous work, we propose that an extant just world threat may induce a desire for smaller, immediate rewards at the expense of larger, delayed rewards. Participants were exposed to the suffering of an innocent or non-innocent victim and then, in a different context, completed a temporal discounting task that assessed, across six time delays, their preferences for smaller, immediate monetary rewards versus a constant, larger, delayed reward. Consistent with our reasoning, participants exposed to the suffering of an innocent versus non-innocent victim more steeply discounted the value of the delayed reward—that is, they were willing to accept smaller immediate rewards in place of the larger, delayed reward. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.

There is an established link between risk-seeking behavior and problem gambling but it remains unclear whether problem gamblers are specifically attracted to the uncertainty of risky situations. We examined the relation between problem gambling severity and probabilistic discounting of monetary gains and losses among gamblers. Fifty-nine regular gamblers completed two discounting tasks in which they made choices between small, certain outcomes and larger, probabilistic outcomes. Contrary to our hypotheses, results showed that problem gambling severity did not relate to either type of discounting which is inconsistent with the idea that problem gamblers have a general tendency towards more risky choices relative to non-problem gamblers. Participants also completed the Gambling Expectancy Questionnaire (GEQ) that assesses affect-regulation expectancies of gambling. Based on responses to the GEQ, participants were subtyped into one of three groups and degree of discounting was compared across groups. Participants subtyped as having strong expectations that gambling augments positive mood made significantly riskier choices on both discounting tasks versus those subtyped as having strong expectations that gambling relieves negative mood and those subtyped as having neither expectation. This finding suggests that viewing gambling as a way to enhance positive mood may be related to the risk-taking element of gambling.

The present article explores the hypothesis that gambling might serve a justice-seeking function for some people, as gambling might offer a means to pursuing desirable outcomes that people feel they deserve but might be unable or unwilling to attain through conventional means. In Study 1, across two separate samples, self-reports of personal relative deprivation predict problem gambling and gambling urges over and above relevant control variables. In Study 2, the authors manipulate personal relative deprivation by informing participants that they have either less or more discretionary income than "similar others." They then give participants $20 and the opportunity to gamble. The results show that a greater percentage of participants who are "relatively deprived" (vs. "not relatively deprived") opt to gamble. Two manipulation validation studies demonstrate that the "relatively deprived" participants are preoccupied with justice during a modified Stroop task and feel resentful. Implications for understanding why people gamble are discussed. © 2008 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

The authors propose that the high levels of support often observed for governmental and religious systems can be explained, in part, as a means of coping with the threat posed by chronically or situationally fluctuating levels of perceived personal control. Three experiments demonstrated a causal relation between lowered perceptions of personal control and the defense of external systems, including increased beliefs in the existence of a controlling God (Studies 1 and 2) and defense of the overarching socio-political system (Study 4). A 4th experiment (Study 5) showed the converse to be true: A challenge to the usefulness of external systems of control led to increased illusory perceptions of personal control. In addition, a cross-national data set demonstrated that lower levels of personal control are associated with higher support for governmental control (across 67 nations; Study 3). Each study identified theoretically consistent moderators and mediators of these effects. The implications of these results for understanding why a high percentage of the population believes in the existence of God, and why people so often endorse and justify their socio-political systems, are discussed.

Why do people care about justice? This chapter addresses the question from the point of view of a body of theory and research that has examined the motivational commitment people have to the assumptive belief that the world is just. Inspired by Melvin J. Lerner’s exploration of the need to believe in a just world, justice motive research, as it has come to be known, identifies deservingness as the cornerstone of people’s justice concerns. In a just world, people get what they deserve. The need to believe in a just world gives rise to a variety of behaviors and psychological processes with both constructive and destructive consequences. The search for justice makes people do altruistic acts, but also victim blaming. It can also distort recall of the past, shape expectations for the future, and even lead people to think that fortuitous harms were somehow caused by previous misdeeds. Fifty years of justice motive research has yielded significant insights into the variety of ways the justice motive appears in people’s lives. The chapter also discusses the social cognitive origins of the justice motive, current issues and trends including the role of the justice motive in people’s reactions to their own fates, construal of everyday experience, and the relation between justice motive processes and widely used measures of just world beliefs.

Two studies explored Dion and Dion’s (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 775–780, 1987) suggestion that the belief in a just world may contribute to the “beauty is good” stereotype. In Study 1, we found that participants rated the death of a woman as more tragic and unfair when she was physically attractive than less attractive. Participants were also more punitive towards agents of harm when the victim was physically attractive. In Study 2, we varied the extent to which a woman suffered from a house fire and asked participants to later recognize the woman’s picture among several choices varying in physical attractiveness. Participants who learned that the woman suffered a great deal remembered her to be less physically attractive than when her suffering was minimal. The results are discussed in terms of how the justice motive contributes to the evaluative and moral importance attached to physical attractiveness.

Lower subjective socioeconomic status (SSS) and higher personal relative deprivation (PRD) relate to poorer health. Both constructs concern people's perceived relative social position, but they differ in their emphasis on the reference groups people use to determine their comparative disadvantage (national population vs. similar others) and the importance of resentment that may arise from such adverse comparisons. We investigated the relative utility of SSS and PRD as predictors of self-rated physical and mental health (e.g., self-rated health, stress, health complaints). Across six studies, self-rated physical and mental health were on the whole better predicted by measures of PRD than by SSS while controlling for objective socioeconomic status (SES), with SSS rarely contributing unique variance over and above PRD and SES. Studies 4-6 discount the possibility that the superiority of PRD over SSS in predicting health is due to psychometric differences (e.g., reliability) or response biases between the measures.

Deciding that negative experiences are punishment for prior misdeeds, even when plausible causal links are missing, is immanent justice (IJ) reasoning (Piaget, 1932/1965). Three studies examined a just world theory analysis of IJ reasoning in adults (Lerner, 1980). Studies 1 and 2 varied the valence of a target person's behavior prior to them experiencing an unrelated negative (car accident, Study 1) or positive (lottery win, Study 2) outcome. Participants viewed the outcomes as the result of prior behavior most when they fit deservingness expectations (good person won the lottery, bad person injured in automobile accident), suggesting that just world concerns influenced IJ reasoning. The lottery-winning finding (Study 2) also extends IJ reasoning to positive experiences. A third study found that a manipulation of just world threat in one context (prolonged or ended suffering of an HIV victim) influenced IJ responses in a subsequent unrelated context (automobile accident scenario).

The purpose of this study was to assess the prevalence of demonizing in the two major media that young children use (television and movies). Two content analyses were conducted using the animated feature films (n = 34) of the Walt Disney Company and after-school cartoons (n = 41). Each was coded for the modeling of the use of "evil" words when referring to a person, e.g., monster, devil, demon, wicked. Seventy-four percent of the Disney films contained "evil" references, with an average of 5.6 references per film. Forty-four percent of the after-school cartoons contained "evil" references, with an average of one per cartoon. The results are discussed within the context of children's repeated exposure to popular animated movies and cartoons and their learning to demonize people who engage in perceived "bad" behaviors.

We examined age-related differences in social comparison orientation and personal relative deprivation (PRD). In Study 1, participants (N = 1,290) reported their tendencies to engage in social comparisons and PRD. Older adults reported lower levels of social comparison tendency and PRD, and social comparison tendency mediated the relation between age and PRD. The findings reported in Study 1 were replicated in Study 2 using a sample of participants between the ages of 18 to 30 (n = 180) and 60+ years old (n = 176). Our findings provide evidence that older adults report lower levels of social comparison tendency that, in turn, relate to lower levels of PRD.

One psychosocial factor that has been identified to motivate gambling is personal relative deprivation (PRD), which refers to resentment stemming from the belief that one is deprived of a desired and deserved outcome compared to some referent. Although several lines of evidence point to a positive association between PRD and the urge to gamble, the factors that might moderate this relation have yet to be investigated. Through a quantitative research synthesis, we sought to test (a) the overall relation between PRD and gambling urges among people reporting recent gambling experience, and (b) whether this relation is moderated by problem gambling severity. Meta-analysis revealed that, overall, higher self-reported PRD was associated with stronger urges to gamble (r = .26). A meta-regression revealed that, across studies, the strength of this relation depended on problem gambling severity, such that the relation between PRD and gambling urges was stronger among samples higher in average problem gambling severity. This pattern was corroborated by an analysis of the aggregated individual participant data (N = 857), such that PRD predicted gambling urges only among participants higher in problem gambling severity. The potential practical implications and limitations of these results are discussed.

Previous research suggests that individuals from countries that adopt an adversarial legal system, such as Canada or United Kingdom, mentally associate “law” more strongly with concepts related to competition than concepts related to cooperation. We examined whether people from a country with a non-adversarial legal system show similar mental associations. Participants from Spain and the UK completed a Single-Category Implicit Association Test. Spanish participants mentally associated the law with competition less strongly than participants from the UK (the average D-score was significantly greater than zero in the predicted direction, t(189) = 8.16, p < .001; d=1.18). Exploratory analysis also suggested that this difference between the countries was stronger among participants who believed that the method of legal practice in their own country was more adversarial. Moreover, perceiving the legal system as adversarial predicted automatic associations between law and competition for UK but not for Spanish participants. These findings suggest that legal system plays a relevant role in shaping not only individuals’ actions, but their cognitive processes.

This chapter will discuss and provide evidence for the idea that the law’s existence shapes social reality by implicitly fostering the sense that people are, and perhaps should be, competitive and untrustworthy. Drawing on research from social cognition and legal studies, it will argue that people tend to associate the law with self-interestedness due to their encounter with the legal system. Through legal socialization—the acquisition of legal knowledge through direct instruction, experience and popular media—people come to mentally associate the law with competitiveness. This chapter will argue that this is precisely due to the way the legal system operates, at least in societies adopting an adversarial legal system.

We hypothesised that belief in conspiracy theories would be predicted by the general tendency to attribute agency and intentionality where it is unlikely to exist. We further hypothesised that this tendency would explain the relationship between education level and belief in conspiracy theories, where lower levels of education have been found to be associated with higher conspiracy belief. In Study 1 (N = 202) participants were more likely to agree with a range of conspiracy theories if they also tended to attribute intentionality and agency to inanimate objects. As predicted, this relationship accounted for the link between education level and belief in conspiracy theories. We replicated this finding in Study 2 (N = 330), whilst taking into account beliefs in paranormal phenomena. These results suggest that education may undermine the reasoning processes and assumptions that are reflected in conspiracy belief.

Immanent justice reasoning involves causally attributing a negative event to someone's prior moral failings, even when such a causal connection is physically implausible. This study examined the degree to which immanent justice represents a form of motivated reasoning in the service of satisfying the need to believe in a just world. Drawing on a manipulation that has been shown to activate justice motivation, participants causally attributed a freak accident to a man's prior immoral (vs. moral) behaviour to a greater extent when they first focused on their long-term (vs. short-term) goals. These findings highlight the important function believing in a just world plays in self-regulatory processes by implicating the self in immanent justice reasoning about fluke events in the lives of others.