A Study On The Belief In A Just World And Its Relationship With Students' Distress At School, Ways Of Coping

Melvin J. Lerner developed his theory of belief in a just world in 1965, which is an important theory in social psychology now. This theory states that most people have the need to believe in a just world in which people get what they deserve. This belief enables people to confront their physical and social environment as though it were stable and orderly (Lerner&Miller, 1978). On the one hand, belief in a just world has negative effects, such as it is associated with the tendency to devalue victims; on the other hand, this theory has many positive psychological benefits. Right now, belief in a just world is seen as a powerful personal resource that helps protect and maintain physical and mental health, buffer emotional stress, reduce negative emotion, strengthen subjective well-being.Because of lack of certain scales, we first revised the foreign scales that already existed about middle school students'perceived justice. With these scales, we studied the relationship among belief in a just world, perceived teacher justice, perceived peer justice, perceived parents justice, perceived grades justice, institutional trust, ways of coping and students'distress at school. The conclusions are as follows:(1)Revised Just School Climate Scale, Just Family Climate Scale, Just Peer Climate Scale have satisfactory reliability and validity, so they can be used to measure students'perceived teacher justice, perceived peer justice, perceived parents justice.(2)Students'belief in a just world, perceived teacher justice, perceived peer justice, perceived parents justice, perceived grades justice, institutional trust, distress at school have significant demographic difference.(3)There are significant correlations among students'belief in a just world, perceived teacher justice, perceived peer justice, perceived parents justice, perceived grades justice, institutional trust, ways of coping, distress at school.(4)Belief in an unjust institution has direct effects on students'distress at school, and belief in a just institution has indirect effects on students'distress at school. Perceived teacher justice, perceitved peer justice, perceived parents justice, problem solving, fantasy mediate between belief in an unjust institution and students'distress at school. Perceived teacher justice, perceived peer justice, perceived parents justice, problem solving mediate between belief in a just institution and students'distress at school.