Putting the “I” and “Us” in Justice: Derogatory and Benevolent Reactions Toward Innocent Victims in Self-Focused and Other-Focused Individuals

Abstract

Reactions toward innocent victims can range from harsh derogatory reactions to great effort to alleviate the victims’ ill fates. Using insights from research on just-world theory and perspective taking, the current paper investigates both negative and positive reactions toward innocent victims. Specifically, we propose that self-focused versus other-focused motives can evoke derogatory versus more benevolent reactions, respectively, toward innocent victims. By manipulating self-focus versus other-focus, we indeed show in two studies that a self-focus enhanced indirect victim blaming and derogation and decreased helping of innocent victims. Furthermore, when participants were focused on another person these effects attenuated. Taken together, these findings extend previous studies on just-world theory and show that both blaming and helping can be viable strategies to deal with unjust situations.