Belief in a Just World as a Correlate of Psychological Well-being

Abstract

Article presents research of relationship of Belief in a Just World and Psychological well-being of adolescents. 212 adolescents aged from 13 to 18 years in schools and secondary specialized educational institutions of Voronezh were surveyed. Following methods were used for investigation of empirical constructs: “General Belief in a Just World Scale” (M. Schmitt, L. Montada, C. Dalbert), “General Belief in a Unjust World Scale” (J. Maes), “Belief in Immanent Justice Scale” (J. Maes), “Belief in Ultimate Justice Scale” (J. Maes), “5-Dimensional Belief in a Just Treatment Scale” (K. Stroebe), “Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being scale” (R. Tennart). Revealed that adolescents’ psychological well-being is positively correlated with General Belief in a Just World and its species: Belief in Immanent and Ultimate justice. It is also positively correlated with Belief in God, Nature, other people and Self-concept as sources of justice. We compared the ratio of Belief in a Just and an Unjust world in adolescents with different levels of psychological well-being. We found that psychologically advantaged adolescents’ Belief in an Unjust world is balanced by Belief in Ultimate justice; adolescents with low level of psychological well-being believe that the world is mostly unjust. This work was supported by grant RFH № 15-36-01233.