The belief in a just world and memory reconstruction

The belief in a just world (BJW; Lerner, 1980) gives rise to judgments of people that can be distorted by knowledge of their outcomes. Thus, innocent victims may find themselves being derogated as a result of observers' awareness of their suffering. Across four studies, the present research examined whether people might similarly distort their memories of the past as means to maintaining a BJW in the present. In a first study, participants were exposed to either a “good” or “bad” person who won a lottery. Subsequent recall of the lottery value reflected participants' justice concerns, such that the average lottery amount recalled was lowest when the less deserving person won. In a second study, before being asked to recall the lottery prize, participants were presented with a scenario designed to threaten or affirm their BJW. The results demonstrated that the effect of the winner's moral worth on lottery recall was more pronounced under just world threatening conditions. The results of this study suggest that remembering a BJW-congruent past might serve a compensatory means by which people maintain a sense of justice.;The implications of examining observer memory distortions of past injustices for Just World theory are discussed, as are the limitations of this research and possible future research directions.;In a third study, we examined whether the level of an innocent victim's physical attractiveness has consequences for observers' justice-related reactions. 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. Demonstrating this link between physical attractiveness stereotyping and observer justice concerns allowed us to test in a fourth study whether the suffering status of an innocent victim influences participants' recognition memory of the victim's level of physical attractiveness. Consistent with victim derogation effects, participants who learned that the woman suffered a great deal remembered her to be less physically attractive than when her suffering was minimal. However, self-reports of the victims character revealed more positive perceptions when she suffered a great deal.