We want to believe people get what they deserve, so we quietly assume victims must have done something wrong. It protects our sense of safety at the cost of fairness.
What is the just world hypothesis? Read the full idea →Hearing about a robbery, people ask what the victim 'should have' done, to feel it couldn't happen to them.
Assuming poverty is purely personal failure ignores luck, circumstance, and systems.
We hunt for what a sick person did 'wrong', because random misfortune is scarier than blame.
We assume the rich earned every cent fairly, because a fair world is more comfortable to live in.
A complaint gets met with 'are you sure you didn't provoke it?', defending the belief that bad things have just causes.
That's just how memory works. Lock the just world hypothesis in with a 5-minute active-recall session — spaced repetition, no signup.
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