General belief in a just world and resilience: Evidence from a collectivistic culture

Previous research showed that in the individualistic culture, adults endorse the personal more than the general belief in a just world (PBJW vs. GBJW). Comparatively little is known about the prevalence character and adaptive functions of GBJW, especially in the collectivistic culture. We conducted...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:European journal of personality 2011-11, Vol.25 (6), p.431-442
Main Authors: Wu, Michael Shengtao, Yan, Xiaodan, Zhou, Chan, Chen, Yiwen, Li, Juan, Zhu, Zhuohong, Shen, Xiangqin, Han, Buxin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescence
Adolescents
Adults
Belief & doubt
belief in a just world
Chinese
collectivistic
Culture
harsh realities
Just world beliefs
life satisfaction
Personality
Prevalence
Psychological trauma
Resilience
Survivor
Survivors
Trauma
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Summary:Previous research showed that in the individualistic culture, adults endorse the personal more than the general belief in a just world (PBJW vs. GBJW). Comparatively little is known about the prevalence character and adaptive functions of GBJW, especially in the collectivistic culture. We conducted three surveys among the Chinese adults and adolescents. We found that (1) Chinese adults and adolescents endorsed more GBJW than PBJW; (2) Adult survivors with high exposure to post‐earthquake trauma and adolescents in the poverty‐stricken area maintained high GBJW, with relatively lower PBJW. (3) GBJW predicted the psychological resilience in all the three samples independent of PBJW. The results imply that in contrast to populations from the individualistic culture, people from the collectivistic culture endorse a robust GBJW, which allows them to resiliently confront harsh realities. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
ISSN:0890-2070
1099-0984
1099-0984
DOI:10.1002/per.807