Case file
Just-World Hypothesis
- Filed under
- Not Enough Meaning
- Also recorded as
- just-world fallacy, belief in a just world
The charge
Just-world hypothesis is the tendency to assume people generally get what they deserve and deserve what they get.
How it operates
That belief makes the world feel orderly and controllable, but it distorts judgments about luck, timing, and structural forces.
Logged incidents
- Incident 01
A leader assumes laid-off employees simply failed to add enough value.
- Incident 02
A team blames defrauded users for being careless.
- Incident 03
Investors treat startup failure as proof the founders were weak rather than unlucky.
What to watch for
Ask: Am I turning an outcome into a character judgment too quickly?
Recommended action
Explicitly list luck, timing, and structural factors before assigning blame or credit.
Known associates
- Group Attribution ErrorGroup attribution error is assuming what is true of one member is true of the whole group, or that…
- Ultimate Attribution ErrorUltimate attribution error is interpreting your own group's bad behavior as situational but another group's…
- StereotypingStereotyping is assigning traits or likely behavior to an individual based mainly on group membership.
- EssentialismEssentialism is believing categories of people or things have a deep fixed essence that explains how they…
- Functional FixednessFunctional fixedness is seeing an object, team, or process only in its usual role and missing other workable…
- Moral Credential EffectMoral credential effect is using a past moral act as psychological permission to behave less ethically later.
Source of record