General belief in a just world and resilience: Evidence from a collectivistic culture |
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| Authors: | Michael Shengtao Wu Xiaodan Yan Chan Zhou Yiwen Chen Juan Li Zhuohong Zhu Xiangqin Shen Buxin Han |
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| Institution: | 1. Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China;2. Graduate School, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China;3. Cognitive Science Department, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, USA;4. Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, USA;5. Langone Medical Center, New York University, New York, USA;6. School of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China;7. High School Attached to Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China |
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| Abstract: | 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. |
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| Keywords: | belief in a just world life satisfaction resilience collectivistic harsh realities Chinese |
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