The Meaning of Students’ Personal Belief in a Just World for Positive and Negative Aspects of School-Specific Well-Being

• Published in: Social justice research 2016-03, Vol.29 (1), p.73-102
• Main Authors: Donat, Matthias, Peter, Felix, Dalbert, Claudia, Kamble, Shanmukh V.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Anthropology; Associations; Attitudes; Behavioral Science and Psychology; Belief & doubt; Comparative analysis; Complaints; Cultural differences; Justice; Locus of control; Neuroticism; Personality and Social Psychology; Philosophy; Political Science; Psychology; Self esteem; Sexes; Social classes; Social conditions; Social justice; Social Policy; Social problems; Social welfare; Sociology; Special education; Student attitudes; Student teacher relationship; Students; Teachers; Well being
• ISSN: 0885-7466; 1573-6725
• DOI: 10.1007/s11211-015-0247-5

In two cross-sectional questionnaire studies with N  = 1792 German and Indian students, aged between 12 and 17 years, we investigated the relation between personal belief in a just world (BJW) and positive as well as negative dimensions of school-specific well-being. Furthermore, we considered students’ personal experience of teacher justice as possible mediator in this relation and controlled for confounding effects of gender, neuroticism, and locus of control. In Study 1, we used multilevel modeling to analyze the German data and to control for class-level effects. In accordance with our hypotheses, Study 1 showed that the more students believed in a personal just world, the better their positive attitudes toward school, their academic self-esteem, and their enjoyment in school were, and the less somatic complaints in school, social problems in school, and worries toward school they experienced. These associations partly differed between classes, but generally persisted when controlled for sex, neuroticism, and locus of control. Finally, the association between personal BJW and well-being was at least partly mediated by students’ personal experience of teacher justice. In Study 2, we focused on the generalizability of the pattern of results across different cultural contexts. However, we did not aim to carry out comparative research. Results from bootstrap mediation analyses were predominantly the same as in Study 1. The adaptive functions of BJW and implications for future school research are discussed.