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The role of belief in a just world for (dis)honest behavior
Personality and Individual Differences 142 (2019) 72–78
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The role of belief in a just world for (dis)honest behavior ⁎
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Simon Schindler , Kristin Wenzel, Sandra Dobiosch, Marc-André Reinhard Department of Psychology, University of Kassel, Holländische Straße 36-38, 34127 Kassel, Germany
A R T I C LE I N FO
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Dishonest behavior Cheating Personal belief in a just world Injustice
The present work examines the influence of dispositional personal belief in a just world (BJW) on (dis)honest behavior and the moderating role of just-world threats. Assuming a positive link between personal BJW and striving for justice and sensitivity to injustice, we first expected dishonesty to be negatively linked to higher levels of personal BJW. Second, assuming just-world threats to promote behavior that helps to re-establish the BJW, and considering honesty to be a matter of justice, we expected dishonest behavior to be lower after justworld threat. Due to a higher sensitivity to injustice, this should be the case especially for people who boast a high personal BJW. In two studies, we assessed participants' dispositional personal (and general) BJW and manipulated just-world threat. Afterwards, we assessed dishonesty by using a dice task (Study 1, N = 135), or an anagram task (Study 2, N = 147), respectively. In both studies, higher levels of personal BJW were negatively linked to dishonesty. Additionally, in Study 1, participants in the high (vs. low) threat condition showed less dishonesty, especially when having a high personal BJW. Results of Study 2 did not support this idea. In both studies, general BJW did not predict dishonesty.
1. Introduction With the present work, we aimed to shed light on the role of believing in a just world for dishonest behavior. Specifically, we addressed the question of how dishonest behavior is affected through people's personal belief in a just world (BJW). We further explored the interaction hypothesis that being confronted with an unjust situation decreases dishonesty, especially for people with a strong personal BJW. 1.1. Dishonest behavior People generally value honesty, trustworthiness, and credibility (e.g. Geißler, Schöpe, Klewes, Rauh, & von Alemann, 2013). Nevertheless, dishonest behavior can be observed throughout our daily lives (e.g., DePaulo, Kashy, Kirkendol, Wyer, & Epstein, 1996; Serota, Levine, & Boster, 2010). However, empirical evidence shows that even when people have the opportunity to cheat as much as they want without the possibility of getting caught, they do not cheat to the fullest possible extent (e.g., Abeler, Becker, & Falk, 2014; Fischbacher & Föllmi-Heusi, 2013; Gneezy, 2005; Mazar, Amir, & Ariely, 2008; for a recent metaanalysis, see Abeler, Nosenzo, & Raymond, 2016). People are constantly motivated to maintain a positive self-concept (Mazar et al., 2008; Shalvi, Dana, Handgraaf, & De Dreu, 2011). That is, when being tempted with the benefits of cheating, people are simultaneously
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confronted with personal psychological costs of violating the rule of honesty (e.g., experience of negative emotions; Battigalli, Charness, & Dufwenberg, 2013). As a result, people try to find a balance between these differing motivational forces and often cheat a little bit, but not as much as they could, so that they can still sustain their positive selfconcept. Dishonest behavior has been further found to be related to personality traits (e.g., honesty–humility; Hilbig & Zettler, 2015) and situational cues, such as norm priming (Mazar et al., 2008), loss- or gain-framing (Schindler & Pfattheicher, 2017), mortality salience (Schindler et al., 2018), or existing justifications for cheating (Shalvi et al., 2011). 1.2. Belief in a just world According to just-world theory, individuals have a need to believe that they live in a world where everyone actually gets what they deserve and deserve what they get, and where good things happen to good individuals and bad things to bad individuals (Lerner, 1977, 1980; for a recent review, see Ellard, Harvey, & Callan, 2016). This belief functions as an interpersonal contract and is essential for people to feel safe, positive, and in control, as well as to be optimistic and to perceive the world as a predictable and manageable place (Dalbert, 2009; Hafer & Sutton, 2016; Lerner, 1980). Research on BJW investigates individual differences in BJW and
Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (S. Schindler), [email protected] (K. Wenzel), [email protected] (M.-A. Reinhard).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.01.037 Received 24 June 2018; Received in revised form 10 December 2018; Accepted 23 January 2019 0191-8869/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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(e.g., Dalbert & Umlauft, 2009), and more faith in its comprising social contract (Sutton et al., 2017). Assuming (dis)honesty to be a matter of (un)just behavior and thus an important part of the social contract that the BJW implies, we expect that higher levels of personal BJW are negatively linked to the extent of dishonesty. Several findings can be interpreted as indirect evidence for this idea. First, personal BJW was found to be positively linked to interpersonal trust (Bègue, 2002; Zuckerman & Gerbasi, 1977). Second, Schindler and Reinhard (2015) argued that high (vs. low) personal BJW was linked to a lower motivation to detect lies, resulting from the belief that in a just world, people behave honestly. In line with this argument they found worse performance in lie detection for judges with high (vs. low) personal BJW. Moreover, engaging in honest behavior can be assumed to be one possible way of re-establishing and maintaining one's BJW. Therefore, given that being confronted with injustice increases the motivation to re-establish justice (e.g., Hafer & Bègue, 2005; Lerner, 1980), it can be expected that people show less dishonest behavior when previously having been confronted with an unjust event. Assuming higher levels of personal BJW to be linked to stronger sensitivity to injustice (e.g., Dalbert & Umlauft, 2009), threatening the BJW can be assumed to result in higher motivation to strive for justice, especially among people with a strong dispositional BJW (Dalbert, 2009). Altogether, this line of research suggests an ordinal interaction effect of just-world threat (JWT) and dispositional BJW on the motivation to re-establish justice. Specifically, we propose that the JWT effect on dishonesty should especially occur for people with high levels of personal BJW. Although there has been a great deal of research concerning either just-world theory or dishonesty, we are aware of only one empirical work connecting BJW and (dis)honest behavior. In one internet-study, Wenzel, Schindler, and Reinhard (2017) assessed personal and general BJW, followed by a measurement of dishonesty. In line with previous findings showing general BJW to be linked to antisocial tendencies, they found that higher levels of general BJW were linked to more dishonest behavior. Parallel to the considerations mentioned above, higher levels of personal BJW were expected to be linked to less dishonesty. However, in contrast to this expectation, no significant relationship between personal BJW and dishonesty could be obtained. Given the strong theoretical arguments for this hypothesis, Wenzel et al. (2017) state that this finding should be interpreted with caution and call for replications considering different operationalizations of dishonest behavior and for different samples (participants in their study were obtained online from Amazon Mechanical Turk). Furthermore, Wenzel et al.'s (2017) findings are only correlative, making problematic any inferences about the causal role of BJW. By addressing all these open questions, the present work makes an important contribution. We tested our hypotheses in two studies. In both studies, we first assessed dispositional personal and general BJW. Afterwards, we manipulated JWT by presenting participants an interview with an unblamable (high threat) or a blamable victim (low threat). While the high threat event was about getting an HIV infection in Study 1, the event in Study 2 was about a car accident. Afterwards, dishonesty was assessed by using a dice-task (Study 1) or an anagram task (Study 2), respectively.
conceptually distinguishes between believed justice concerning oneself (personal BJW), and the world in general (general BJW; Dalbert, 1999; for a review, see Dalbert, 2009; Furnham, 2003). Personal BJW is positively linked to subjective well-being and positive mood (Dalbert, 2002), as well as to interpersonal trust (Bègue, 2002). Furthermore, dispositional differences in personal BJW are assumed to indicate differences in the underlying need to perceive the world as just, and to maintain the social contract (Hafer & Bègue, 2005, p. 131; Sutton, Stoeber, & Kamble, 2017). In line with this assumption, higher levels of personal BJW were found to be positively associated with prosocial behavior (Bègue, 2014), and forgiveness (Bartholomaeus & Strelan, 2016). In addition, individuals with a stronger personal BJW are especially sensitive for injustices (Dalbert, 1999), strive for justice themselves (Dalbert, 2009; Lerner, 1977), are more committed to just means (e.g. Sutton & Winnard, 2007), and also prefer equal allocations in a dictator game (Dalbert & Umlauft, 2009). In contrast to personal BJW, general BJW was found to positively correlate with harsh social attitudes, antisocial tendencies (e.g. Dalbert, 2009; Hafer & Sutton, 2016), as well as with less social activism (Hafer & Sutton, 2016). Dalbert (1999) further showed that participants with a strong personal BJW suffered a decrease in their self-esteem if they were reminded of their own unfair behavior. Their own unfairness presumably contradicted the contract between them and the world. Participants with a strong general BJW, however, did not show a reduction in their selfesteem. In sum, research supports the idea that individuals with higher levels of personal (but not general) BJW value the contract more and have a higher motivation to act in the name of justice. Beyond individual differences, research on BJW also investigates the consequences of being situationally confronted with unjust events, that is, events that potentially threaten the validity of one's BJW, for example, when something terrible happens to an innocent person. In this case, according to the adaptive function of BJW, just-world theory assumes that people are motivated to reaffirm this belief. Typically, research on perceived injustice has referred to so-called secondary victimization, meaning that the victim is perceived as responsible for his/her situation and deserves to suffer because of his/her blameworthy character (Dalbert, 2009; Hafer & Bègue, 2005). However, as the first study on this phenomenon showed, such victim derogation does not occur if people are given the opportunity to directly compensate the victim (Lerner & Simmons, 1966). Thus, engaging in just behavior (e.g., helping the victim) constitutes an important and rational strategy for maintaining and re-establishing one's BJW (Hafer & Bègue, 2005; Haynes & Olson, 2006; Lerner, 1980). High levels of personal BJW indicate a higher need to perceive the world as just and to maintain the social contract (Hafer & Bègue, 2005; Sutton et al., 2017). In line with this idea, dispositional BJW was found to be linked to stronger striving for justice and stronger sensitivity to injustice (e.g., Dalbert & Umlauft, 2009). It follows that threatening the BJW of people with a strong dispositional BJW increases the motivation to maintain and re-establish the social contract (see also Dalbert, 2009, p. 12). Numerous studies across a wide range of victimizing situations (e.g., rape, cancer, AIDS, poverty, obesity, skin color, driving accidents, unemployment) support this interaction effect: observers with a strong dispositional BJW showed more secondary victimization compared to observers with a low BJW (e.g., Braman & Lambert, 2001; Correia, Vala, & Aguiar, 2001; for a review, see Montada & Lerner, 2013). Braman and Lambert (2001), for example, found that participants with high (vs. low) dispositional BJW reacted more negatively toward a victim of cancer (especially if the victim's responsibility was high). It can thus be assumed that the link between personal BJW and justice striving is strengthened when being confronted with injustice.
2. Study 1 2.1. Method To test our hypotheses, in Study 1, we relied on a dice task paradigm with a monetary incentive to cheat (cf. Fischbacher & Föllmi-Heusi, 2013). The advantage of such tasks is that the expected value serves as a statistical baseline for honest behavior. With such a paradigm, it is intended to detect dishonest behavior on the aggregate because typically full anonymity is provided, making it impossible to detect dishonest behavior on an individual level. For the current study, we used a
1.3. The present research Previous research showed that higher levels of personal BJW are linked to stronger striving for justice, stronger sensitivity to injustice 73
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multi-round task (cf. Schindler & Pfattheicher, 2017): Participants should report the number of rolled ‘4s’ after having rolled a fair, sixsided die 75 times. By assuring full anonymity, they are given the opportunity to cheat by being able to report any number they want to. That is, in sum, there are 75 chances to cheat. The known probability of 1/6 (16.67%) to throw a ‘4’ serves as the baseline. Thus, higher probabilities resulting from the reported number of rolled ‘4s’ is an indicator for dishonest behavior.
Table 1 Logistic regression results of participants' reported outcomes of rolled ‘4s’ after 75 trials as a function of personal belief in a just world, and just-world threat (N = 135). Parameter estimates Step
Predictors
(1) (2)
Personal BJW Personal BJW JWT (3) Personal BJW JWT Personal BJW × JWT Effect of JWT at low personal BJW Effect of JWT at high personal BJW
2.1.1. Participants and design Power was set to 0.80 and sample size was calculated to detect a medium effect (odds ratio = 2.5). Using G*Power (Faul, Erdfelder, Buchner, & Lang, 2009), a power analysis revealed a required sample size of N = 129 to detect a significant effect (alpha level of 0.05, onetailed) given there is a true effect. We recruited 137 participants on the campus of a German university (76 females; 131 students; Mage = 24.33, SDage = 4.43, range: 18–52). Two participants were excluded because they made no indications about their die roll. Hence, the final sample consisted of N = 135. Each participant was randomly assigned to either the high (n = 66) or low threat condition (n = 69).
B
SE
Z
p
odds ratio
−0.08 −0.09 −0.12 −0.09 −0.12 −0.06 −0.07 −0.18
0.02 0.02 0.02 0.02 0.02 0.03 0.03 0.04
−3.46 −3.64 −4.92 −3.56 −4.91 −2.24 −2.04 −4.97
< .001 < .001 < .001 < .001 < .001 .025 .041 < .001
0.92 0.92 0.89 0.91 0.88 0.95 0.93 0.84
Note. Personal BJW was z-standardized; relatively low personal BJW refers to 1 standard deviation below mean, relatively high personal BJW refers to 1 standard deviation above mean; low JWT condition = −1, high JWT condition = 1.
p < .001. To test our hypotheses, we analyzed the reported number of rolled ‘4s’ as binary outcomes (no ‘4’ vs. ‘4’) of 75 trials (i.e., proportions). Given the binomial distribution of binary outcomes, using the statistic software R, we conducted a logistic regression analyses with 75 binary trials (cf. de Smith, 2015). The results are displayed in Table 1. As expected, a significant effect of personal BJW occurred, showing that the likelihood of rolling a ‘4’ was negatively associated with higher levels of personal BJW. This effect was robust when including general BJW as additional variable. General BJW was not a significant predictor, p = .782. Regarding the JWT manipulation, analyses revealed that participants in the high threat condition reported a lower perceived possibility of avoiding getting infected with HIV (M = 3.88, SD = 1.98) than compared to participants in the low threat condition (M = 6.22, SD = 1.24), F(1, 132) = 67.59, p < .001, η2p = 0.34. As expected, the victim was perceived as less blamable in the high threat condition. The victim was also perceived as more likeable in the high threat condition (M = 4.45, SD = 1.15) compared to the low threat condition (M = 3.85, SD = 1.28), F(1, 132) = 8.13, p = .005, η2p = 0.06. There was no difference between the conditions regarding the difficulty to put oneself in the victim's situation, p = .183. More importantly, results of the regression analysis yielded a significant effect of the JWT manipulation. The likelihood of rolling a ‘4’ was significantly lower in the high (19.4%) compared to the low threat condition (23.3%). As further predicted, the findings yielded a significant JWT × personal BJW interaction (see Fig. 1). This interaction remains robust in terms of significance level when controlling for general BJW. No effect occurred for general BJW, p = .974. Decomposing the interaction revealed a significant negative effect of high (compared to low) JWT on the probability to roll a ‘4’ for relatively high (22.5% vs. 16.9%), but also for relatively low levels of personal BJW (24.1% vs. 21.7%). In line with our assumptions, the JWT effect for high levels of personal BJW is, however, stronger (odds ratio = 0.84) compared to low levels of personal BJW (odds ratio = 0.93). Analyzing the interaction within conditions revealed personal BJW as a negative significant predictor in the high JWT condition, B = −0.15, SE = 0.04, Z = −4.02, p < .001, odds ratio = 0.86. In the low JWT condition, personal BJW was not a significant predictor, B = −0.05, p = .146.
2.1.2. Materials and procedure Participants completed the study in cubicles to increase anonymity. After the demographic measures, we assessed participants' personal and general BJW by using the scales of Dalbert (1999). The personal BJW scale consisted of seven items (α = 0.91; e.g., “I believe that, by and large, I deserve what happens to me”). The general BJW scale consisted of six items (α = 0.90; e.g., “I am convinced that in the long run, people will be compensated for injustices”). Participants responded to all items on a 6-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). Then, after some distractor items on mood and sleeping habits, we included a JWT manipulation, consisting of a high and a low threat condition. Participants were asked to read an excerpt from an interview, to put themselves in the position of the interviewee, and to experience the story themselves emotionally (cf. Callan, Shead, & Olson, 2009; Halabi, Statman, & Dovidio, 2015). The excerpt in the high threat condition was about a person getting infected with HIV after having protected sex. The excerpt in the low threat condition was about a person getting infected with HIV after having unprotected sex. To exclude the possibility of sex effects, we matched the interviewee's sex and the following story to the participant's sex. Being confronted with such scenarios have been shown to produce heightened justice concerns, for example, in the form of attentional biases toward justice-related stimuli (e.g., Aguiar, Vala, Correia, & Pereira, 2008; Correia, Vala, & Aguiar, 2007; Hafer, 2000). Afterwards, we assessed how difficult it was for participants to put themselves in the presented situation. Participants were then introduced to the dice game. They were instructed to roll the three dice in front of them 25 times, to count the number of times they rolled a ‘4’, and to write down the total number when finished. To give participants an incentive to cheat, they were further told that the participant who rolled the most ‘4s’ would gain 100 Euros. As a manipulation check, we additionally measured whether it was possible for the person to avoid getting infected with HIV (i.e., how blamable the person was for the negative outcome) and how much they liked the person. Participants responded to the two items on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (no, not at all/not at all) to 7 (yes, for sure/very much). Finally, we asked them about the presumed topic of the study. 2.2. Results
2.3. Discussion
In line with previous research (Dalbert, 1999), personal BJW was positively correlated with general BJW, r = 0.20, p = .021 (Mpersonal = 3.94, SDpersonal = 0.89, Mgeneral = 2.50, SDgeneral = 0.82). Overall, the mean probability to roll a ‘4’ was 0.21 (SD = 0.14) and significantly higher than the expected probability of 0.17, t = 3.77,
Results of this study provide evidence for the hypothesis that higher levels of personal BJW are negatively related to dishonest behavior. That is, the likelihood of rolling a ‘4’ significantly decreased with higher levels of personal BJW. General BJW was unrelated to dishonesty. Furthermore, results provided evidence for our hypothesis that 74
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check, we measured whether it was possible for the person to avoid the car accident, how difficult it was for them to put themselves in this situation, and how much they liked the person. Participants were then introduced to the anagram task (cf. Cameron & Miller, 2009). They were told that they would have to work on 10 anagrams (a word formed by rearranging scrambled letters), which they had to solve in a given time. Each anagram was presented on one screen and after 30 s participants had to self-report if they had been able to solve the anagram (“Yes”) or not (“No”). Because they were not asked to write down the correct answer, they were given the opportunity to cheat in full anonymity through reporting that they solved one or more tasks although they actually had not. As a measure of dishonesty, we included five unsolvable anagrams, that is, the scrambled letters did not form an existing word. Thus, indicating having solved one or more of these unsolvable anagrams can be interpreted as dishonest behavior. To give participants an incentive to cheat, we linked task performance to their self-esteem. That is, they were told that the number of solved anagrams was a valid predictor for intelligence and future work-success, and that people could solve eight out of the ten anagrams on average. Finally, we asked them about the presumed topic of the study.
Fig. 1. Probability of participants' reported outcomes of rolled ‘4s’ after 75 trials as a function of just-world threat and personal belief in a just world (N = 135).
3.2. Results
dishonesty is lower after JWT. As further expected, this was especially the case for participants with high levels of personal BJW. That is, for them, there was a significantly lower likelihood of rolling a ‘4’ in the high compared to the low threat condition.
Again, personal BJW was positively correlated with general BJW, r = 0.33, p < .001 (Mpersonal = 4.40, SDpersonal = 0.86, Mgeneral = 2.79, SDgeneral = 0.92). Further, 98 participants (66.7%) were completely honest because they did not indicate to have solved any of the unsolvable anagrams, whereas 49 participants (33.3%) showed dishonest behavior by falsely indicating to have solved at least one of the five unsolvable anagrams. To test our hypotheses, we analyzed the false indication as a binary variable (no false indication vs. at least one false indication). Given the binomial distribution of binary outcomes, we conducted logistic regression analyses. The results are displayed in Table 2. As expected, a significant effect of personal BJW occurred, showing that the likelihood of false indications (having solved at least one unsolvable anagram) decreased with higher levels of personal BJW. This effect was robust when including general BJW. General BJW was again not a significant predictor, p = .478. Regarding the JWT manipulation, we first examined the questions concerning the manipulation check, whereas analyses revealed that participants in the high threat condition reported a lower perceived possibility of avoiding the car accident (M = 2.27, SD = 1.08) than compared to participants in the low threat condition (M = 4.45, SD = 0.70), F(1, 145) = 213.05, p < .001, η2p = 0.60. As expected, the victim was perceived as less blamable in the high threat condition. In line with previous research, the victim was also perceived as more likeable in the high threat condition (M = 3.82, SD = 1.03) compared to the low threat condition (M = 2.62, SD = 0.82), F(1, 145) = 61.38,
3. Study 2 Although Study 1 provided good support for our idea, conceptual replications have an important value (cf. Brandt et al., 2014; Crandall & Sherman, 2016), especially regarding the ongoing debate about replicability of psychological findings (e.g., Makel, Plucker, & Hegarty, 2012; Open Science Collaboration, 2015). Therefore, in Study 2, we tested our hypotheses by applying a different threat scenario as well as a different cheating paradigm. In Study 1, we investigated dishonest behavior in a non-performance context. To draw conclusions that also apply to cheating in performance situations, in Study 2, we used an anagram task-paradigm. 3.1. Method 3.1.1. Participants and design Power was set to 0.80 and sample size was calculated to detect a medium effect (odds ratio = 2.5). Using G*Power (Faul et al., 2009), a power analysis revealed a required sample size of N = 129 to detect a significant effect (alpha level of 0.05, one-tailed) given there is a true effect. We recruited 147 participants (103 females; 97 German students; Mage = 28.24, SDage = 11.25, range: 18–70). No participants were excluded. Each participant was randomly assigned to either the high (n = 71) or low threat condition (n = 76).
Table 2 Logistic regression results of participants' false indication of solved unsolvable anagrams as a function of personal belief in a just world, and just-world threat (N = 147).
3.1.2. Materials and procedure Participants accessed the study via an Internet link. After the demographic measures, we assessed participants' personal (α = 0.89) and general BJW (α = 0.79) by using the same scales as in Study 1 (Dalbert, 1999). Then, we again included a JWT manipulation (cf. Callan et al., 2009). The manipulation was similar to the one in Study 1, only the unjust event was changed. This time the excerpt in the high threat condition was about a person getting paralyzed after a car accident although the person was levelheaded and drove especially slowly and carefully. In contrast, the excerpt in the low threat condition was about a person getting paralyzed after a car accident due to alcohol consumption and excessive speed. Again, the interviewee's sex and the participant's sex were matched. Parallel to Study 1, as a manipulation
Parameter estimates Model
Predictors
B
SE
Z
p
odds ratio
(1) (2)
Personal Personal JWT Personal JWT Personal
−0.44 −0.44 −0.00 −0.44 0.01 0.16
0.18 0.18 0.18 0.18 0.18 0.18
−2.43 −2.47 −0.02 −2.38 0.06 0.89
.015 .015 .983 .018 .949 .374
0.65 0.65 1.00 0.65 1.01 1.18
(3)
BJW BJW BJW BJW × JWT
Note. No false indication = 0, at least one false indication = 1; personal BJW was z-standardized; low JWT condition = −1, high JWT condition = 1. 75
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p < .001, η2p = 0.30. Unexpectedly, there was also a significant difference between the conditions regarding the difficulty to put oneself in the victim's situation. Participants in the high threat condition (M = 3.48, SD = 1.11) found it more difficult to put themselves in the victim's situation compared to participants in the low threat condition (M = 2.87, SD = 0.91), F(1, 145) = 13.68, p < .001, η2p = 0.08. Results of the regression analysis did not show any effect of the JWT manipulation on false indications as well as no interaction effect with personal BJW.
with the notion that acting honestly can serve as a function to maintain or re-establish one's BJW, direct evidence for the assumed process is not provided. Future research could, for example, investigate whether the confrontation with injustice actually threatens the belief in a just world and whether this is followed by higher motivation to re-establish justice. Results of Study 2 did, however, not support this idea. As already mentioned above, this could be due to a confound between dishonesty and self-esteem regarding the incentive to cheat. In Study 1, we used a monetary incentive and found the effect of injustice confrontation. Furthermore, in Study 2, it was more difficult for participants to put themselves in the victim's situation in the high threat condition, questioning the effectiveness of the JWT manipulation. Moreover, in contrast to Study 1, Study 2 was an internet study, reducing control over the experimental setting and increasing random noise. Regarding our JWT manipulation in particular (i.e., reading a scenario), high experimental control might be crucial for an effective manipulation. Despite these problems, we believe that reporting results of this study is valuable. First, results support the role of personal BJW in predicting dishonest behavior in a performance context, whereas in Study 1 we used a non-performance cheating-paradigm. A second argument relates to the ongoing debate in psychology about good scientific practices. One common, but in several ways problematic, strategy is to suppress null findings and to only report significant findings (John, Loewenstein, & Prelec, 2012; Rosenthal, 1979). In light of this debate, we felt encouraged to report results of Study 2 even though it does not support all of our hypotheses. This clearly helps uncover the falseness of theoretical ideas (Lakens & Etz, 2017). Wenzel et al. (2017) found higher levels of general BJW to be linked to more dishonest behavior but found no effect of personal BJW. Results of the present studies clearly contradict these findings. In both studies, we found higher levels of personal BJW to be linked to lower dishonesty, but no effect of general BJW occurred. Given that Wenzel et al. provided good theoretical arguments for the effect of personal BJW, taking a closer look at the differences in the methodology might lead to new insights. In contrast to Wenzel et al. (2017), dishonest behavior in the present studies was always assessed after a JWT manipulation including a low threat control condition. Given that we did not include a pure baseline control condition, a direct comparison seems difficult. A further difference refers to the order of assessment of personal and general BJW. While Wenzel et al. first assessed general BJW, in the present two studies, personal BJW was assessed first. This might seem trivial at first glance, however, looking at the mean scores of general and personal BJW suggests that the order of assessment might be relevant. In line with previous findings (Dalbert, 2009), in all three studies, levels of personal BJW were higher than levels of general BJW. However, Wenzel et al. (2017) reported substantially higher average levels of general BJW (M = 3.77, SD = 1.06) compared to the two present studies (Study 1: M = 2.50, SD = 0.82; Study 2: M = 2.79; SD = 0.92). There are good reasons that this is (at least to some degree) due to the order: General BJW is understood differently when assessed after personal BJW. In this case, general BJW rather excludes the BJW for oneself and rather refers exclusively to the BJW for others. Given that injustice can be assumed to be often actually higher when thinking about the lives of other people in the world (at least compared to people in Western affluent societies), levels of general BJW are likely to be substantially lower than levels of personal BJW. This is, however, less likely the case when general BJW is assessed first, because this still includes justice for oneself. Looking at the bivariate correlations between personal and general BJW further supports the role of assessment order. While Wenzel et al. report a strong correlation (r = 0.54), in the present studies only weak to moderate correlations are found (Study 1: r = 0.20; Study 2: r = 0.33). Thus, when assessing general BJW first, the two concepts seem to overlap to a larger degree than when assessing personal BJW first. Regarding future research on dispositional BJW in general, these considerations suggest the assessment of BJW for others
3.3. Discussion Results of this study provide evidence for the hypothesis that higher levels of personal BJW are negatively related to the likelihood of false indications of solved unsolvable anagrams, that is, dishonest behavior. General BJW was unrelated to dishonesty. Based on previous research (Hafer & Bègue, 2005; Haynes & Olson, 2006; Lerner, 1980), we expected that being confronted with an unjust event leads to higher motivation to maintain and to re-establish justice, that is, in our case to result in more honest behavior. Results, however, did not provide evidence for this idea: There was no main effect of JWT or an interaction effect with personal BJW on dishonesty. Results indicated that it was more difficult for participants to put themselves in the victim's situation in the high threat condition, questioning the effectiveness of the JWT manipulation. Further, the missing effect of JWT could be due to the nature of the incentive to cheat, that is, the supposed link between task performance and self-esteem. Assuming the BJW to be a fundamental need (Lerner, 1977), it seems possible that the confrontation with unjust events triggers self-serving processes impeding honest behavior in this case. 4. General discussion With the present two studies, we addressed the role of BJW for dishonest behavior. Based on previous research, we proposed main effects of JWT and personal BJW, as well as an ordinal interaction between JWT and personal BJW. In both studies, personal BJW significantly predicted dishonest behavior, independent from general BJW. Higher levels of personal BJW were negatively related to the likelihood of rolling a ‘4’ (Study 1) and to the likelihood of falsely indicating to have solved at least one of five unsolvable anagrams (Study 2). These findings are in line with previous research showing personal BJW to be linked to stronger striving for justice themselves (Dalbert, 2009; Dalbert & Umlauft, 2009; Lerner, 1977), stronger sensitivity to injustice (Dalbert, 1999), and higher commitment to just means (e.g. Sutton & Winnard, 2007). In a broader sense, our results speak in favor of the importance of a high personal BJW for ethical behavior. Notably, previous research conceptualized explicit measures of personal BJW as a kind of socially strategic expression and accordingly indicated personal BJW to share some variance with the motivation to display a socially desirable image (Alves & Correia, 2008, 2010). It thus seems possible that the found negative relationship is an expression of honest norm compliance rather than justice striving. Future research should address this issue by controlling for social desirability. Furthermore, Study 1 provided support for the idea that being confronted with an unjust event results in less dishonest behavior. As further expected, the attenuating effect of JWT especially occurred when levels of personal BJW were relatively high. These findings are in line with previous work. First, according to just-world theory (Lerner, 1980), perceived injustices elicit the motivation to maintain and reestablish one's BJW by engaging in just behavior (in our case: acting honestly). Second, higher levels of dispositional BJW have been shown to be linked to stronger striving for justice and stronger sensitivity to injustice (e.g., Dalbert & Umlauft, 2009). Therefore, repair reactions after JWT can be assumed to be especially strong for people with high dispositional levels of BJW. Although findings of Study 1 are in line 76
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References
(Lipkus, Dalbert, & Siegler, 1996) rather than the use of general BJW. Regarding the operationalization of our JWT manipulations, participants were confronted with injustice by reading about an unjust event (HIV infection and car accident). Although the confrontation with such events is well established when aiming to question the validity of the BJW (Hafer & Bègue, 2005), most studies use stronger manipulations, for example, by presenting participants an interview with the victim on video (e.g., Callan et al., 2009; Callan, Ellard, & Nicol, 2006). Lerner (2003) argues that low impact threats (i.e., weak arousal and emotions as in our studies) only lead to automatic justice striving responses when there is less time to think about one's reaction. Given that we did not include a distraction task between the independent and the dependent variable, it seems justified to assume that the honesty reaction after the JWT was rather based on the automatic justice motive than the result of a thoughtful decision to act in line with the honesty norm. To address the potential problem of transparency and demanding effects, we checked participants' answers on the presumed topic of the Study 1. Only 9 participants (6.6%) mentioned a combination of justice aspects and honesty. Additionally, when excluding these participants from the sample, results remained unchanged. In sum, we conclude that our findings are unlikely to be the result of transparency, demanding effects or a purely normative desirable reaction. It should be additionally noted that lower levels of dishonesty in Study 1 result from a short, singular injustice confrontation. The effect of repeatedly and prolonged experiencing injustice remains still an open question (Cubela, Adoric, & Kvartuc, 2007). It thus seems a fruitful way for future research to investigate the relevance of the nature of JWT. Finally, it should be emphasized that in our studies, we used convenience samples consisting mostly of German students, which is inherently limited with respect to generalizability. Consequently, we refrain from claiming that our samples are representative of a specific population. Summarizing the results of the three so far conducted studies on the role of BJW for dishonest behavior provides a heterogeneous picture. While the study of Wenzel et al. (2017) revealed general (but not personal) BJW to predict dishonesty, the present two studies revealed personal (but not general) BJW to predict dishonesty. Furthermore, in Study 1, we found evidence for the interplay of personal BJW and threatening this belief, thus providing first evidence for the causal role of BJW. All studies substantially differ in their methodologies, which likely explain the existent inconsistencies thus far. More research is clearly needed to draw valid conclusions about the actual role of BJW for dishonest behavior.
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Declaration of conflicting interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Acknowledgements We thank Verena Deist, Sarah Ivarsson, Winuss Mohtezebsade, and Lina Marie Rolke for their help with data collection.
Appendix A. Supplementary data Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.01.037. 77
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Personality and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid
The role of belief in a just world for (dis)honest behavior ⁎
T
Simon Schindler , Kristin Wenzel, Sandra Dobiosch, Marc-André Reinhard Department of Psychology, University of Kassel, Holländische Straße 36-38, 34127 Kassel, Germany
A R T I C LE I N FO
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Dishonest behavior Cheating Personal belief in a just world Injustice
The present work examines the influence of dispositional personal belief in a just world (BJW) on (dis)honest behavior and the moderating role of just-world threats. Assuming a positive link between personal BJW and striving for justice and sensitivity to injustice, we first expected dishonesty to be negatively linked to higher levels of personal BJW. Second, assuming just-world threats to promote behavior that helps to re-establish the BJW, and considering honesty to be a matter of justice, we expected dishonest behavior to be lower after justworld threat. Due to a higher sensitivity to injustice, this should be the case especially for people who boast a high personal BJW. In two studies, we assessed participants' dispositional personal (and general) BJW and manipulated just-world threat. Afterwards, we assessed dishonesty by using a dice task (Study 1, N = 135), or an anagram task (Study 2, N = 147), respectively. In both studies, higher levels of personal BJW were negatively linked to dishonesty. Additionally, in Study 1, participants in the high (vs. low) threat condition showed less dishonesty, especially when having a high personal BJW. Results of Study 2 did not support this idea. In both studies, general BJW did not predict dishonesty.
1. Introduction With the present work, we aimed to shed light on the role of believing in a just world for dishonest behavior. Specifically, we addressed the question of how dishonest behavior is affected through people's personal belief in a just world (BJW). We further explored the interaction hypothesis that being confronted with an unjust situation decreases dishonesty, especially for people with a strong personal BJW. 1.1. Dishonest behavior People generally value honesty, trustworthiness, and credibility (e.g. Geißler, Schöpe, Klewes, Rauh, & von Alemann, 2013). Nevertheless, dishonest behavior can be observed throughout our daily lives (e.g., DePaulo, Kashy, Kirkendol, Wyer, & Epstein, 1996; Serota, Levine, & Boster, 2010). However, empirical evidence shows that even when people have the opportunity to cheat as much as they want without the possibility of getting caught, they do not cheat to the fullest possible extent (e.g., Abeler, Becker, & Falk, 2014; Fischbacher & Föllmi-Heusi, 2013; Gneezy, 2005; Mazar, Amir, & Ariely, 2008; for a recent metaanalysis, see Abeler, Nosenzo, & Raymond, 2016). People are constantly motivated to maintain a positive self-concept (Mazar et al., 2008; Shalvi, Dana, Handgraaf, & De Dreu, 2011). That is, when being tempted with the benefits of cheating, people are simultaneously
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confronted with personal psychological costs of violating the rule of honesty (e.g., experience of negative emotions; Battigalli, Charness, & Dufwenberg, 2013). As a result, people try to find a balance between these differing motivational forces and often cheat a little bit, but not as much as they could, so that they can still sustain their positive selfconcept. Dishonest behavior has been further found to be related to personality traits (e.g., honesty–humility; Hilbig & Zettler, 2015) and situational cues, such as norm priming (Mazar et al., 2008), loss- or gain-framing (Schindler & Pfattheicher, 2017), mortality salience (Schindler et al., 2018), or existing justifications for cheating (Shalvi et al., 2011). 1.2. Belief in a just world According to just-world theory, individuals have a need to believe that they live in a world where everyone actually gets what they deserve and deserve what they get, and where good things happen to good individuals and bad things to bad individuals (Lerner, 1977, 1980; for a recent review, see Ellard, Harvey, & Callan, 2016). This belief functions as an interpersonal contract and is essential for people to feel safe, positive, and in control, as well as to be optimistic and to perceive the world as a predictable and manageable place (Dalbert, 2009; Hafer & Sutton, 2016; Lerner, 1980). Research on BJW investigates individual differences in BJW and
Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (S. Schindler), [email protected] (K. Wenzel), [email protected] (M.-A. Reinhard).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.01.037 Received 24 June 2018; Received in revised form 10 December 2018; Accepted 23 January 2019 0191-8869/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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(e.g., Dalbert & Umlauft, 2009), and more faith in its comprising social contract (Sutton et al., 2017). Assuming (dis)honesty to be a matter of (un)just behavior and thus an important part of the social contract that the BJW implies, we expect that higher levels of personal BJW are negatively linked to the extent of dishonesty. Several findings can be interpreted as indirect evidence for this idea. First, personal BJW was found to be positively linked to interpersonal trust (Bègue, 2002; Zuckerman & Gerbasi, 1977). Second, Schindler and Reinhard (2015) argued that high (vs. low) personal BJW was linked to a lower motivation to detect lies, resulting from the belief that in a just world, people behave honestly. In line with this argument they found worse performance in lie detection for judges with high (vs. low) personal BJW. Moreover, engaging in honest behavior can be assumed to be one possible way of re-establishing and maintaining one's BJW. Therefore, given that being confronted with injustice increases the motivation to re-establish justice (e.g., Hafer & Bègue, 2005; Lerner, 1980), it can be expected that people show less dishonest behavior when previously having been confronted with an unjust event. Assuming higher levels of personal BJW to be linked to stronger sensitivity to injustice (e.g., Dalbert & Umlauft, 2009), threatening the BJW can be assumed to result in higher motivation to strive for justice, especially among people with a strong dispositional BJW (Dalbert, 2009). Altogether, this line of research suggests an ordinal interaction effect of just-world threat (JWT) and dispositional BJW on the motivation to re-establish justice. Specifically, we propose that the JWT effect on dishonesty should especially occur for people with high levels of personal BJW. Although there has been a great deal of research concerning either just-world theory or dishonesty, we are aware of only one empirical work connecting BJW and (dis)honest behavior. In one internet-study, Wenzel, Schindler, and Reinhard (2017) assessed personal and general BJW, followed by a measurement of dishonesty. In line with previous findings showing general BJW to be linked to antisocial tendencies, they found that higher levels of general BJW were linked to more dishonest behavior. Parallel to the considerations mentioned above, higher levels of personal BJW were expected to be linked to less dishonesty. However, in contrast to this expectation, no significant relationship between personal BJW and dishonesty could be obtained. Given the strong theoretical arguments for this hypothesis, Wenzel et al. (2017) state that this finding should be interpreted with caution and call for replications considering different operationalizations of dishonest behavior and for different samples (participants in their study were obtained online from Amazon Mechanical Turk). Furthermore, Wenzel et al.'s (2017) findings are only correlative, making problematic any inferences about the causal role of BJW. By addressing all these open questions, the present work makes an important contribution. We tested our hypotheses in two studies. In both studies, we first assessed dispositional personal and general BJW. Afterwards, we manipulated JWT by presenting participants an interview with an unblamable (high threat) or a blamable victim (low threat). While the high threat event was about getting an HIV infection in Study 1, the event in Study 2 was about a car accident. Afterwards, dishonesty was assessed by using a dice-task (Study 1) or an anagram task (Study 2), respectively.
conceptually distinguishes between believed justice concerning oneself (personal BJW), and the world in general (general BJW; Dalbert, 1999; for a review, see Dalbert, 2009; Furnham, 2003). Personal BJW is positively linked to subjective well-being and positive mood (Dalbert, 2002), as well as to interpersonal trust (Bègue, 2002). Furthermore, dispositional differences in personal BJW are assumed to indicate differences in the underlying need to perceive the world as just, and to maintain the social contract (Hafer & Bègue, 2005, p. 131; Sutton, Stoeber, & Kamble, 2017). In line with this assumption, higher levels of personal BJW were found to be positively associated with prosocial behavior (Bègue, 2014), and forgiveness (Bartholomaeus & Strelan, 2016). In addition, individuals with a stronger personal BJW are especially sensitive for injustices (Dalbert, 1999), strive for justice themselves (Dalbert, 2009; Lerner, 1977), are more committed to just means (e.g. Sutton & Winnard, 2007), and also prefer equal allocations in a dictator game (Dalbert & Umlauft, 2009). In contrast to personal BJW, general BJW was found to positively correlate with harsh social attitudes, antisocial tendencies (e.g. Dalbert, 2009; Hafer & Sutton, 2016), as well as with less social activism (Hafer & Sutton, 2016). Dalbert (1999) further showed that participants with a strong personal BJW suffered a decrease in their self-esteem if they were reminded of their own unfair behavior. Their own unfairness presumably contradicted the contract between them and the world. Participants with a strong general BJW, however, did not show a reduction in their selfesteem. In sum, research supports the idea that individuals with higher levels of personal (but not general) BJW value the contract more and have a higher motivation to act in the name of justice. Beyond individual differences, research on BJW also investigates the consequences of being situationally confronted with unjust events, that is, events that potentially threaten the validity of one's BJW, for example, when something terrible happens to an innocent person. In this case, according to the adaptive function of BJW, just-world theory assumes that people are motivated to reaffirm this belief. Typically, research on perceived injustice has referred to so-called secondary victimization, meaning that the victim is perceived as responsible for his/her situation and deserves to suffer because of his/her blameworthy character (Dalbert, 2009; Hafer & Bègue, 2005). However, as the first study on this phenomenon showed, such victim derogation does not occur if people are given the opportunity to directly compensate the victim (Lerner & Simmons, 1966). Thus, engaging in just behavior (e.g., helping the victim) constitutes an important and rational strategy for maintaining and re-establishing one's BJW (Hafer & Bègue, 2005; Haynes & Olson, 2006; Lerner, 1980). High levels of personal BJW indicate a higher need to perceive the world as just and to maintain the social contract (Hafer & Bègue, 2005; Sutton et al., 2017). In line with this idea, dispositional BJW was found to be linked to stronger striving for justice and stronger sensitivity to injustice (e.g., Dalbert & Umlauft, 2009). It follows that threatening the BJW of people with a strong dispositional BJW increases the motivation to maintain and re-establish the social contract (see also Dalbert, 2009, p. 12). Numerous studies across a wide range of victimizing situations (e.g., rape, cancer, AIDS, poverty, obesity, skin color, driving accidents, unemployment) support this interaction effect: observers with a strong dispositional BJW showed more secondary victimization compared to observers with a low BJW (e.g., Braman & Lambert, 2001; Correia, Vala, & Aguiar, 2001; for a review, see Montada & Lerner, 2013). Braman and Lambert (2001), for example, found that participants with high (vs. low) dispositional BJW reacted more negatively toward a victim of cancer (especially if the victim's responsibility was high). It can thus be assumed that the link between personal BJW and justice striving is strengthened when being confronted with injustice.
2. Study 1 2.1. Method To test our hypotheses, in Study 1, we relied on a dice task paradigm with a monetary incentive to cheat (cf. Fischbacher & Föllmi-Heusi, 2013). The advantage of such tasks is that the expected value serves as a statistical baseline for honest behavior. With such a paradigm, it is intended to detect dishonest behavior on the aggregate because typically full anonymity is provided, making it impossible to detect dishonest behavior on an individual level. For the current study, we used a
1.3. The present research Previous research showed that higher levels of personal BJW are linked to stronger striving for justice, stronger sensitivity to injustice 73
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multi-round task (cf. Schindler & Pfattheicher, 2017): Participants should report the number of rolled ‘4s’ after having rolled a fair, sixsided die 75 times. By assuring full anonymity, they are given the opportunity to cheat by being able to report any number they want to. That is, in sum, there are 75 chances to cheat. The known probability of 1/6 (16.67%) to throw a ‘4’ serves as the baseline. Thus, higher probabilities resulting from the reported number of rolled ‘4s’ is an indicator for dishonest behavior.
Table 1 Logistic regression results of participants' reported outcomes of rolled ‘4s’ after 75 trials as a function of personal belief in a just world, and just-world threat (N = 135). Parameter estimates Step
Predictors
(1) (2)
Personal BJW Personal BJW JWT (3) Personal BJW JWT Personal BJW × JWT Effect of JWT at low personal BJW Effect of JWT at high personal BJW
2.1.1. Participants and design Power was set to 0.80 and sample size was calculated to detect a medium effect (odds ratio = 2.5). Using G*Power (Faul, Erdfelder, Buchner, & Lang, 2009), a power analysis revealed a required sample size of N = 129 to detect a significant effect (alpha level of 0.05, onetailed) given there is a true effect. We recruited 137 participants on the campus of a German university (76 females; 131 students; Mage = 24.33, SDage = 4.43, range: 18–52). Two participants were excluded because they made no indications about their die roll. Hence, the final sample consisted of N = 135. Each participant was randomly assigned to either the high (n = 66) or low threat condition (n = 69).
B
SE
Z
p
odds ratio
−0.08 −0.09 −0.12 −0.09 −0.12 −0.06 −0.07 −0.18
0.02 0.02 0.02 0.02 0.02 0.03 0.03 0.04
−3.46 −3.64 −4.92 −3.56 −4.91 −2.24 −2.04 −4.97
< .001 < .001 < .001 < .001 < .001 .025 .041 < .001
0.92 0.92 0.89 0.91 0.88 0.95 0.93 0.84
Note. Personal BJW was z-standardized; relatively low personal BJW refers to 1 standard deviation below mean, relatively high personal BJW refers to 1 standard deviation above mean; low JWT condition = −1, high JWT condition = 1.
p < .001. To test our hypotheses, we analyzed the reported number of rolled ‘4s’ as binary outcomes (no ‘4’ vs. ‘4’) of 75 trials (i.e., proportions). Given the binomial distribution of binary outcomes, using the statistic software R, we conducted a logistic regression analyses with 75 binary trials (cf. de Smith, 2015). The results are displayed in Table 1. As expected, a significant effect of personal BJW occurred, showing that the likelihood of rolling a ‘4’ was negatively associated with higher levels of personal BJW. This effect was robust when including general BJW as additional variable. General BJW was not a significant predictor, p = .782. Regarding the JWT manipulation, analyses revealed that participants in the high threat condition reported a lower perceived possibility of avoiding getting infected with HIV (M = 3.88, SD = 1.98) than compared to participants in the low threat condition (M = 6.22, SD = 1.24), F(1, 132) = 67.59, p < .001, η2p = 0.34. As expected, the victim was perceived as less blamable in the high threat condition. The victim was also perceived as more likeable in the high threat condition (M = 4.45, SD = 1.15) compared to the low threat condition (M = 3.85, SD = 1.28), F(1, 132) = 8.13, p = .005, η2p = 0.06. There was no difference between the conditions regarding the difficulty to put oneself in the victim's situation, p = .183. More importantly, results of the regression analysis yielded a significant effect of the JWT manipulation. The likelihood of rolling a ‘4’ was significantly lower in the high (19.4%) compared to the low threat condition (23.3%). As further predicted, the findings yielded a significant JWT × personal BJW interaction (see Fig. 1). This interaction remains robust in terms of significance level when controlling for general BJW. No effect occurred for general BJW, p = .974. Decomposing the interaction revealed a significant negative effect of high (compared to low) JWT on the probability to roll a ‘4’ for relatively high (22.5% vs. 16.9%), but also for relatively low levels of personal BJW (24.1% vs. 21.7%). In line with our assumptions, the JWT effect for high levels of personal BJW is, however, stronger (odds ratio = 0.84) compared to low levels of personal BJW (odds ratio = 0.93). Analyzing the interaction within conditions revealed personal BJW as a negative significant predictor in the high JWT condition, B = −0.15, SE = 0.04, Z = −4.02, p < .001, odds ratio = 0.86. In the low JWT condition, personal BJW was not a significant predictor, B = −0.05, p = .146.
2.1.2. Materials and procedure Participants completed the study in cubicles to increase anonymity. After the demographic measures, we assessed participants' personal and general BJW by using the scales of Dalbert (1999). The personal BJW scale consisted of seven items (α = 0.91; e.g., “I believe that, by and large, I deserve what happens to me”). The general BJW scale consisted of six items (α = 0.90; e.g., “I am convinced that in the long run, people will be compensated for injustices”). Participants responded to all items on a 6-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). Then, after some distractor items on mood and sleeping habits, we included a JWT manipulation, consisting of a high and a low threat condition. Participants were asked to read an excerpt from an interview, to put themselves in the position of the interviewee, and to experience the story themselves emotionally (cf. Callan, Shead, & Olson, 2009; Halabi, Statman, & Dovidio, 2015). The excerpt in the high threat condition was about a person getting infected with HIV after having protected sex. The excerpt in the low threat condition was about a person getting infected with HIV after having unprotected sex. To exclude the possibility of sex effects, we matched the interviewee's sex and the following story to the participant's sex. Being confronted with such scenarios have been shown to produce heightened justice concerns, for example, in the form of attentional biases toward justice-related stimuli (e.g., Aguiar, Vala, Correia, & Pereira, 2008; Correia, Vala, & Aguiar, 2007; Hafer, 2000). Afterwards, we assessed how difficult it was for participants to put themselves in the presented situation. Participants were then introduced to the dice game. They were instructed to roll the three dice in front of them 25 times, to count the number of times they rolled a ‘4’, and to write down the total number when finished. To give participants an incentive to cheat, they were further told that the participant who rolled the most ‘4s’ would gain 100 Euros. As a manipulation check, we additionally measured whether it was possible for the person to avoid getting infected with HIV (i.e., how blamable the person was for the negative outcome) and how much they liked the person. Participants responded to the two items on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (no, not at all/not at all) to 7 (yes, for sure/very much). Finally, we asked them about the presumed topic of the study. 2.2. Results
2.3. Discussion
In line with previous research (Dalbert, 1999), personal BJW was positively correlated with general BJW, r = 0.20, p = .021 (Mpersonal = 3.94, SDpersonal = 0.89, Mgeneral = 2.50, SDgeneral = 0.82). Overall, the mean probability to roll a ‘4’ was 0.21 (SD = 0.14) and significantly higher than the expected probability of 0.17, t = 3.77,
Results of this study provide evidence for the hypothesis that higher levels of personal BJW are negatively related to dishonest behavior. That is, the likelihood of rolling a ‘4’ significantly decreased with higher levels of personal BJW. General BJW was unrelated to dishonesty. Furthermore, results provided evidence for our hypothesis that 74
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check, we measured whether it was possible for the person to avoid the car accident, how difficult it was for them to put themselves in this situation, and how much they liked the person. Participants were then introduced to the anagram task (cf. Cameron & Miller, 2009). They were told that they would have to work on 10 anagrams (a word formed by rearranging scrambled letters), which they had to solve in a given time. Each anagram was presented on one screen and after 30 s participants had to self-report if they had been able to solve the anagram (“Yes”) or not (“No”). Because they were not asked to write down the correct answer, they were given the opportunity to cheat in full anonymity through reporting that they solved one or more tasks although they actually had not. As a measure of dishonesty, we included five unsolvable anagrams, that is, the scrambled letters did not form an existing word. Thus, indicating having solved one or more of these unsolvable anagrams can be interpreted as dishonest behavior. To give participants an incentive to cheat, we linked task performance to their self-esteem. That is, they were told that the number of solved anagrams was a valid predictor for intelligence and future work-success, and that people could solve eight out of the ten anagrams on average. Finally, we asked them about the presumed topic of the study.
Fig. 1. Probability of participants' reported outcomes of rolled ‘4s’ after 75 trials as a function of just-world threat and personal belief in a just world (N = 135).
3.2. Results
dishonesty is lower after JWT. As further expected, this was especially the case for participants with high levels of personal BJW. That is, for them, there was a significantly lower likelihood of rolling a ‘4’ in the high compared to the low threat condition.
Again, personal BJW was positively correlated with general BJW, r = 0.33, p < .001 (Mpersonal = 4.40, SDpersonal = 0.86, Mgeneral = 2.79, SDgeneral = 0.92). Further, 98 participants (66.7%) were completely honest because they did not indicate to have solved any of the unsolvable anagrams, whereas 49 participants (33.3%) showed dishonest behavior by falsely indicating to have solved at least one of the five unsolvable anagrams. To test our hypotheses, we analyzed the false indication as a binary variable (no false indication vs. at least one false indication). Given the binomial distribution of binary outcomes, we conducted logistic regression analyses. The results are displayed in Table 2. As expected, a significant effect of personal BJW occurred, showing that the likelihood of false indications (having solved at least one unsolvable anagram) decreased with higher levels of personal BJW. This effect was robust when including general BJW. General BJW was again not a significant predictor, p = .478. Regarding the JWT manipulation, we first examined the questions concerning the manipulation check, whereas analyses revealed that participants in the high threat condition reported a lower perceived possibility of avoiding the car accident (M = 2.27, SD = 1.08) than compared to participants in the low threat condition (M = 4.45, SD = 0.70), F(1, 145) = 213.05, p < .001, η2p = 0.60. As expected, the victim was perceived as less blamable in the high threat condition. In line with previous research, the victim was also perceived as more likeable in the high threat condition (M = 3.82, SD = 1.03) compared to the low threat condition (M = 2.62, SD = 0.82), F(1, 145) = 61.38,
3. Study 2 Although Study 1 provided good support for our idea, conceptual replications have an important value (cf. Brandt et al., 2014; Crandall & Sherman, 2016), especially regarding the ongoing debate about replicability of psychological findings (e.g., Makel, Plucker, & Hegarty, 2012; Open Science Collaboration, 2015). Therefore, in Study 2, we tested our hypotheses by applying a different threat scenario as well as a different cheating paradigm. In Study 1, we investigated dishonest behavior in a non-performance context. To draw conclusions that also apply to cheating in performance situations, in Study 2, we used an anagram task-paradigm. 3.1. Method 3.1.1. Participants and design Power was set to 0.80 and sample size was calculated to detect a medium effect (odds ratio = 2.5). Using G*Power (Faul et al., 2009), a power analysis revealed a required sample size of N = 129 to detect a significant effect (alpha level of 0.05, one-tailed) given there is a true effect. We recruited 147 participants (103 females; 97 German students; Mage = 28.24, SDage = 11.25, range: 18–70). No participants were excluded. Each participant was randomly assigned to either the high (n = 71) or low threat condition (n = 76).
Table 2 Logistic regression results of participants' false indication of solved unsolvable anagrams as a function of personal belief in a just world, and just-world threat (N = 147).
3.1.2. Materials and procedure Participants accessed the study via an Internet link. After the demographic measures, we assessed participants' personal (α = 0.89) and general BJW (α = 0.79) by using the same scales as in Study 1 (Dalbert, 1999). Then, we again included a JWT manipulation (cf. Callan et al., 2009). The manipulation was similar to the one in Study 1, only the unjust event was changed. This time the excerpt in the high threat condition was about a person getting paralyzed after a car accident although the person was levelheaded and drove especially slowly and carefully. In contrast, the excerpt in the low threat condition was about a person getting paralyzed after a car accident due to alcohol consumption and excessive speed. Again, the interviewee's sex and the participant's sex were matched. Parallel to Study 1, as a manipulation
Parameter estimates Model
Predictors
B
SE
Z
p
odds ratio
(1) (2)
Personal Personal JWT Personal JWT Personal
−0.44 −0.44 −0.00 −0.44 0.01 0.16
0.18 0.18 0.18 0.18 0.18 0.18
−2.43 −2.47 −0.02 −2.38 0.06 0.89
.015 .015 .983 .018 .949 .374
0.65 0.65 1.00 0.65 1.01 1.18
(3)
BJW BJW BJW BJW × JWT
Note. No false indication = 0, at least one false indication = 1; personal BJW was z-standardized; low JWT condition = −1, high JWT condition = 1. 75
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p < .001, η2p = 0.30. Unexpectedly, there was also a significant difference between the conditions regarding the difficulty to put oneself in the victim's situation. Participants in the high threat condition (M = 3.48, SD = 1.11) found it more difficult to put themselves in the victim's situation compared to participants in the low threat condition (M = 2.87, SD = 0.91), F(1, 145) = 13.68, p < .001, η2p = 0.08. Results of the regression analysis did not show any effect of the JWT manipulation on false indications as well as no interaction effect with personal BJW.
with the notion that acting honestly can serve as a function to maintain or re-establish one's BJW, direct evidence for the assumed process is not provided. Future research could, for example, investigate whether the confrontation with injustice actually threatens the belief in a just world and whether this is followed by higher motivation to re-establish justice. Results of Study 2 did, however, not support this idea. As already mentioned above, this could be due to a confound between dishonesty and self-esteem regarding the incentive to cheat. In Study 1, we used a monetary incentive and found the effect of injustice confrontation. Furthermore, in Study 2, it was more difficult for participants to put themselves in the victim's situation in the high threat condition, questioning the effectiveness of the JWT manipulation. Moreover, in contrast to Study 1, Study 2 was an internet study, reducing control over the experimental setting and increasing random noise. Regarding our JWT manipulation in particular (i.e., reading a scenario), high experimental control might be crucial for an effective manipulation. Despite these problems, we believe that reporting results of this study is valuable. First, results support the role of personal BJW in predicting dishonest behavior in a performance context, whereas in Study 1 we used a non-performance cheating-paradigm. A second argument relates to the ongoing debate in psychology about good scientific practices. One common, but in several ways problematic, strategy is to suppress null findings and to only report significant findings (John, Loewenstein, & Prelec, 2012; Rosenthal, 1979). In light of this debate, we felt encouraged to report results of Study 2 even though it does not support all of our hypotheses. This clearly helps uncover the falseness of theoretical ideas (Lakens & Etz, 2017). Wenzel et al. (2017) found higher levels of general BJW to be linked to more dishonest behavior but found no effect of personal BJW. Results of the present studies clearly contradict these findings. In both studies, we found higher levels of personal BJW to be linked to lower dishonesty, but no effect of general BJW occurred. Given that Wenzel et al. provided good theoretical arguments for the effect of personal BJW, taking a closer look at the differences in the methodology might lead to new insights. In contrast to Wenzel et al. (2017), dishonest behavior in the present studies was always assessed after a JWT manipulation including a low threat control condition. Given that we did not include a pure baseline control condition, a direct comparison seems difficult. A further difference refers to the order of assessment of personal and general BJW. While Wenzel et al. first assessed general BJW, in the present two studies, personal BJW was assessed first. This might seem trivial at first glance, however, looking at the mean scores of general and personal BJW suggests that the order of assessment might be relevant. In line with previous findings (Dalbert, 2009), in all three studies, levels of personal BJW were higher than levels of general BJW. However, Wenzel et al. (2017) reported substantially higher average levels of general BJW (M = 3.77, SD = 1.06) compared to the two present studies (Study 1: M = 2.50, SD = 0.82; Study 2: M = 2.79; SD = 0.92). There are good reasons that this is (at least to some degree) due to the order: General BJW is understood differently when assessed after personal BJW. In this case, general BJW rather excludes the BJW for oneself and rather refers exclusively to the BJW for others. Given that injustice can be assumed to be often actually higher when thinking about the lives of other people in the world (at least compared to people in Western affluent societies), levels of general BJW are likely to be substantially lower than levels of personal BJW. This is, however, less likely the case when general BJW is assessed first, because this still includes justice for oneself. Looking at the bivariate correlations between personal and general BJW further supports the role of assessment order. While Wenzel et al. report a strong correlation (r = 0.54), in the present studies only weak to moderate correlations are found (Study 1: r = 0.20; Study 2: r = 0.33). Thus, when assessing general BJW first, the two concepts seem to overlap to a larger degree than when assessing personal BJW first. Regarding future research on dispositional BJW in general, these considerations suggest the assessment of BJW for others
3.3. Discussion Results of this study provide evidence for the hypothesis that higher levels of personal BJW are negatively related to the likelihood of false indications of solved unsolvable anagrams, that is, dishonest behavior. General BJW was unrelated to dishonesty. Based on previous research (Hafer & Bègue, 2005; Haynes & Olson, 2006; Lerner, 1980), we expected that being confronted with an unjust event leads to higher motivation to maintain and to re-establish justice, that is, in our case to result in more honest behavior. Results, however, did not provide evidence for this idea: There was no main effect of JWT or an interaction effect with personal BJW on dishonesty. Results indicated that it was more difficult for participants to put themselves in the victim's situation in the high threat condition, questioning the effectiveness of the JWT manipulation. Further, the missing effect of JWT could be due to the nature of the incentive to cheat, that is, the supposed link between task performance and self-esteem. Assuming the BJW to be a fundamental need (Lerner, 1977), it seems possible that the confrontation with unjust events triggers self-serving processes impeding honest behavior in this case. 4. General discussion With the present two studies, we addressed the role of BJW for dishonest behavior. Based on previous research, we proposed main effects of JWT and personal BJW, as well as an ordinal interaction between JWT and personal BJW. In both studies, personal BJW significantly predicted dishonest behavior, independent from general BJW. Higher levels of personal BJW were negatively related to the likelihood of rolling a ‘4’ (Study 1) and to the likelihood of falsely indicating to have solved at least one of five unsolvable anagrams (Study 2). These findings are in line with previous research showing personal BJW to be linked to stronger striving for justice themselves (Dalbert, 2009; Dalbert & Umlauft, 2009; Lerner, 1977), stronger sensitivity to injustice (Dalbert, 1999), and higher commitment to just means (e.g. Sutton & Winnard, 2007). In a broader sense, our results speak in favor of the importance of a high personal BJW for ethical behavior. Notably, previous research conceptualized explicit measures of personal BJW as a kind of socially strategic expression and accordingly indicated personal BJW to share some variance with the motivation to display a socially desirable image (Alves & Correia, 2008, 2010). It thus seems possible that the found negative relationship is an expression of honest norm compliance rather than justice striving. Future research should address this issue by controlling for social desirability. Furthermore, Study 1 provided support for the idea that being confronted with an unjust event results in less dishonest behavior. As further expected, the attenuating effect of JWT especially occurred when levels of personal BJW were relatively high. These findings are in line with previous work. First, according to just-world theory (Lerner, 1980), perceived injustices elicit the motivation to maintain and reestablish one's BJW by engaging in just behavior (in our case: acting honestly). Second, higher levels of dispositional BJW have been shown to be linked to stronger striving for justice and stronger sensitivity to injustice (e.g., Dalbert & Umlauft, 2009). Therefore, repair reactions after JWT can be assumed to be especially strong for people with high dispositional levels of BJW. Although findings of Study 1 are in line 76
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References
(Lipkus, Dalbert, & Siegler, 1996) rather than the use of general BJW. Regarding the operationalization of our JWT manipulations, participants were confronted with injustice by reading about an unjust event (HIV infection and car accident). Although the confrontation with such events is well established when aiming to question the validity of the BJW (Hafer & Bègue, 2005), most studies use stronger manipulations, for example, by presenting participants an interview with the victim on video (e.g., Callan et al., 2009; Callan, Ellard, & Nicol, 2006). Lerner (2003) argues that low impact threats (i.e., weak arousal and emotions as in our studies) only lead to automatic justice striving responses when there is less time to think about one's reaction. Given that we did not include a distraction task between the independent and the dependent variable, it seems justified to assume that the honesty reaction after the JWT was rather based on the automatic justice motive than the result of a thoughtful decision to act in line with the honesty norm. To address the potential problem of transparency and demanding effects, we checked participants' answers on the presumed topic of the Study 1. Only 9 participants (6.6%) mentioned a combination of justice aspects and honesty. Additionally, when excluding these participants from the sample, results remained unchanged. In sum, we conclude that our findings are unlikely to be the result of transparency, demanding effects or a purely normative desirable reaction. It should be additionally noted that lower levels of dishonesty in Study 1 result from a short, singular injustice confrontation. The effect of repeatedly and prolonged experiencing injustice remains still an open question (Cubela, Adoric, & Kvartuc, 2007). It thus seems a fruitful way for future research to investigate the relevance of the nature of JWT. Finally, it should be emphasized that in our studies, we used convenience samples consisting mostly of German students, which is inherently limited with respect to generalizability. Consequently, we refrain from claiming that our samples are representative of a specific population. Summarizing the results of the three so far conducted studies on the role of BJW for dishonest behavior provides a heterogeneous picture. While the study of Wenzel et al. (2017) revealed general (but not personal) BJW to predict dishonesty, the present two studies revealed personal (but not general) BJW to predict dishonesty. Furthermore, in Study 1, we found evidence for the interplay of personal BJW and threatening this belief, thus providing first evidence for the causal role of BJW. All studies substantially differ in their methodologies, which likely explain the existent inconsistencies thus far. More research is clearly needed to draw valid conclusions about the actual role of BJW for dishonest behavior.
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Declaration of conflicting interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Acknowledgements We thank Verena Deist, Sarah Ivarsson, Winuss Mohtezebsade, and Lina Marie Rolke for their help with data collection.
Appendix A. Supplementary data Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.01.037. 77
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