The Misconception: People who are losing at the game of life must have done something to deserve it.
The Truth: The beneficiaries of good fortune often do nothing to earn it, and bad people often get away with their actions without consequences.
A woman goes out to a club wearing stilettos and a miniskirt with no underwear.
She gets pretty drunk and stumbles home in the wrong direction.
She ends up lost in a bad neighborhood. She gets raped.
Is she to blame in some way? Was this her fault? Was she asking for it?
People often say yes to all three in studies asking similar questions after presenting similar scenarios.
It is common in fiction for the bad guys to lose and the good guys to win.
It’s how you would like to see the world- just and fair.
In psychology, the tendency to believe this is how the real world actually works is called the Just-World Fallacy.
More specifically, this is the tendency to react to horrible misfortune, like homelessness or drug addiction, by believing the people stuck in horrible situations must have done something to deserve it.
The key word there is deserve. This is not an observation bad choices lead to bad outcomes.
In a 1966 study by Melvin Lerner and Carolyn Simmons, 72 women watched a woman solve problems and get electric shocks when she messed up.
The woman was actually pretending, but the people watching didn’t know this.
Lerner based these studies on the things he had seen working with the mentally ill. He noticed how he and other doctors, nurses and orderlies would sometimes insult people who were suffering or come up with assumptions about what kind of people they were, or joke about their illness.
Lerner thought this behavior might be an attempt to protect the psyche of people facing an abysmal, unrelenting amount of misery and despair.
In his study, when asked to describe the woman getting shocked, many of the observers devalued her. They berated her character and her appearance. They said she deserved it.
Lerner also taught a class on society and medicine, and he noticed many students thought poor people were just lazy people who wanted a handout.
So, he conducted another study where he had two men solve puzzles. At the end, one of them was randomly awarded a large sum of money. The observers were told the reward was completely random.
Still, when asked later to evaluate the two men, people said the one who got the award was smarter, more talented, better at solving puzzles and more productive.
A giant amount of research has been done since his studies, and most psychologists have come to the same conclusion: You want the world to be fair, so you pretend it is.
“Zick Rubin of Harvard University and Letitia Anne Peplau of UCLA have conducted surveys to examine the characteristics of people with strong beliefs in a just world. They found that people who have a strong tendency to believe in a just world also tend to be more religious, more authoritarian, more conservative, more likely to admire political leaders and existing social institutions, and more likely to have negative attitudes toward underprivileged groups. To a lesser but still significant degree, the believers in a just world tend to ‘feel less of a need to engage in activities to change society or to alleviate plight of social victims.’”
- Claire Andre and Manuel Velasquez from an essay at The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics
You’ve heard “what goes around comes around” before, or maybe you’ve seen a person get what was coming to them and thought, “that’s karma for you.”
These are shades of the Just World Fallacy.
It sucks to think the world isn’t fair. It feels better to believe in karma and justice, in fairness and reward. A world with the righteous on one side of the scale, and evil on the other – that seems to make sense.
You want to believe those who work hard and sacrifice get ahead, and those who are lazy and cheat do not.
This, of course, is not always true. Success is often greatly influenced by when you were born, where you grew up, the socioeconomic status of your family and random chance. All the hard work in the world can’t change those initial factors, which is not to say you should just give up if you were born poor.
The Just-World Fallacy can also lead to a false sense of security.
You want to feel in control, so you assume as long as you avoid bad behavior, you won’t be harmed. You feel safer when you believe those who engage in bad behavior end up on the street, or pregnant, or addicted, or raped.
It is infuriating when lazy cheats and con artists get ahead in the world while firemen and policemen put in long hours for little pay.
Deep down, you want to believe hard work and virtue will lead to success, and laziness, evil and manipulation will lead to ruin, so you go ahead and edit the world to match those expectations.
Yet, in reality, evil often prospers and never pays the price.
There are anecdotal accounts of people seeing the prisoners of concentration camps for the first time and assuming they must have been terrible criminals. The first place the mind goes is the place where the world is just.
Why do you do this?
Psychologists are unsure. Some say it is a need to be able to predict the outcome of your own behavior, or to feel secure in your past decisions. More research is needed.
To be sure, you would like to live in a world where people in white hats bring people in black hats to justice, but you don’t.
You Are Not So Smart – The Book
If you buy one book this year…well, I suppose you should get something you’ve had your eye on for a while. But, if you buy two or more books this year, might I recommend one of them be a celebration of self delusion? Give the gift of humility (to yourself or someone else you love). Watch the trailer.
Order now: Amazon - Barnes and Noble - iTunes - Books A Million
Links:
Ten Movies Where the Bad Guy Wins
Markkula center essay on Just-World Fallacy
Cognitive Biases in Blaming the Victim
Just-World Phenomenon at the Rape Crisis Encyclopedia
Responses to victimization and belief in a just world
Just-World Fallacy in Poker Players
Predicting perceptions of victimization
Just World post at Omniverse Blog (scroll down)
I really liked the article. Although, he does not support the claim “evil prevails over good”, with any sort of evidence.
This article is sort of a half baked idea, but with a a lot of potential.
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Yes I believe “Success is often the result of when you were born, where you grew up, the socioeconomic status of your family and random chance. All the hard work in the world can’t change those initial factors.”
This is a wonderful blog
This post might have well been called the “Rand-world fallacy”. Have you ever read “Atlas Shrugged”?
She makes her premise (that the rich are “self-made”, that their wealth is the product of their own hard work and ingenuity, and that they are deserving of their wealth,) by portraying her wealthy protagonists as moral and intellectual supermen.
There’s just one problem: Not one of her protagonists is actually self-made. They’re all heirs and heiresses. Apparently even in a fictional context, Ayn Rand couldn’t conceive a truly self-made man.
“Atlas Shrugged” is an example of the just-world fallacy taken to the point of delusion.
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If bad people can get away from doing bad, then I hope I can get away from doing good.
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This contradicts The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy…
and now that I believe that this contradicts Texas Sharpshooter, which I agreed with before I read the article. I am more likely to believe that Texas Sharpshooter is accurate and that this is a load of crap.
Backfire Effect is a bitch
I don’t see why this contradicts the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy.
The TSF focuses on how bad we are to interpret random events. This is exactly the case here, we misinterpret random events such as poorness to be caused by laziness.
This fallacy is only a good exemple of the TSF.
why do i get the feeling that this was an “inside” joke?
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Being a crook is like building a pyramid with poker cards. It can be a beautiful pyramid but all I have to do is pull one card out and there goes your pyramid. In movies (I know not the best example), you see these gangsters and crooks make it big, buy the nice mansions, life is great, they are getting ahead but rarely is it a happy ending for them.
This is the game of chance. Chances are if you are a crook 3 times, the reward may not be as great but the risk of you getting caught is low. If you are a cook 10 times, the rewards increase just like the risks (high risk high reward). Problem is, you can be successful 9 times out of 10 but that 1 time you don’t get away is the one time that bites you and taints your legacy, it puts the asterisk on your success (which fades).
We see it in sports, programs recruit players illegally and the dirty way, at the end they get theirs. Chance is unbiased, the more you play with it the more rewards you can potentially get yet the higher risk still stares at you.
Your hardworking guy will probably not live in a mansion, your hardworking guy will probably not be in a pool surrounded by models, your hard working guy will probably not drive 10 different exotic cars, but the one thing your hardworking guy will have the basic necessities to live life and the chance to enjoy it without having to worry about revenge from those who he has wronged. Sure it sounds like a story which inflates a man’s ego and makes him want to be that guy but in many ways those crooks are deprived of a lot of things other than material happiness (which if they don’t keep their guard up goes away).
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What is evil? You can’t really use evil until you define it. You use it as more of an idea than a solid notion.
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I find this whole article one sided and patronising. Maybe there should be an upto date article on current view and attitudes from the wider world and not just based on a small number of american who took part in these small. To begin generalising human nature from such small, narrow studies done such a long time ago is rediculous and outdated. Amazing how information can be used to present information about fallacy that ironicly is itself its own fallacy.
I don’t think “sample set as large as reader wants” constitutes a logical fallacy.
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“Bad neighborhood” – what’s that? Why is it that she “ends up in” instead of “goes to”?
It’s like that time I took a wrong exit and ended up in Anacostia, DC. I followed the first cop I saw until he left. That’s how. Except on foot.
bernie madoff comes to mind
Bernie Madoff is a perfect example of how “good” and “evil” are a result of societal constructs. He was ohhhh so good so long as he kept up the eppearance of wealth and power, donated to charity with stolen money, and gave his investors big returns. The minute people realized that that nice guy facade was a smokescreen that he hid behind to do his dirty work, people began treating him like the viper that he is. In our society today (just as it has been always,) if you have lots of money and power, you are “good” even if you are pretty mediocre in the grand scheme of things. And of course, everyone aspires to be the same, since it is satisfying, so there’s what I like to call the flies on c**p effect, followed by maggots (if you’ll excuse my french)
In other societies, what is held in esteem is the ideal of the “golden rule,” “turn the other cheek,” and the kindness to lepers and Samaritans ideas (the Samaritans were actually as despised as untouchables, just FYI) These of course, are antiquated practices from the middle ages, which have fallen out of favor.
Then there is the idea of “karma” which actually is inherited from a previous life. You cannot change your karma, in the true meaning of the hindu word. Karma is just a life cycle, in the same way that ice turns into water, then steam, and then back into water and ice again, depending upon conditions, your karma determines your path in life. In this sense, if you are meant to be rich, you will be rich. If it is your destiny to be poor, then so be it. I think an idea that is somewhat related to this might be the idea of Mendelian genetics and evolutionary force. Conditions always select for fitness, no matter what. When the conditions change, those that survive also change, and are selected by universal law to either survive (in this sense “survival” has nothing to do with “survival economics” but with reproduction–in other words, the genes that survive for future generations) In other words, you could be the most filthy rich ba***** on earth, but if you don’t have any kids, you are not a “survivor” in the grand sense of things. Your genes will expire with your lifeless flesh.
correction: when I said Mendelian, I actually meant to say “Darwinian.” sorry about that
I’m simueltaneously disgusted, weary and completed unsurprised by the amount of rape apologism and victim-blaming going on here. What did I expect, all of you being priveliged upper cklass white dudes? Because obviously, the ONLY women who are EVER EVER raped are “sluts” who DARE to go out and have a good time without accompaniment( i.e. a big strong dude to protect her) and wear skimpy clothing and drink. She’s a stupid whore who deserved it obviously. Statistics say women are most likely to be raped by someone they know and trust? They usually aren’t dressed “like a slut?” Pffffttt, whatever, that’s obviously propaganda by a buncha feminazis.
Wow. This crap just never ends does it? Even after the Slut Walks(that have been very prominently featured in every media ever) and DECADES of feminism, and you guys STILL DON’T GET IT.
Ughh, kill me now.
Hmmm…a little hard on the poor guys there, Ms. Christy.
I am not totally sure about this, but I believe jury studies show that women judge rape victims more harshly than men do. If a woman is raped she wants men on the jury because they feel more sympathetic while it is the women who are thinking, ‘Skanky ho out with no panties? What did she think would happen to her? She was asking for it.’
And when it comes to “sluts,” I find that men like them while women want to tear their eyes out because they see them as sexual competition. Most pretty women with nice shapes I have known find it hard to keep female friends because of the “my BF/husband might start to like her” issue while less attractive gals have no problem finding buddies.
After decades of feminism, it seems like many of my gender STILL DON’T GET IT.
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hm…the first post i disagree with (backfire effect?! haha). evil often prospers and doesn’t pay the price? the world wouldn’t freaking work if that was true!! well ok, the world is in some chaos, but at the end of the day, we know what is true. the only thing we can believe in is that life continues and will continue…and we must do as such to ensure that.. and life couldn’t continue if evil things were rewarded..right? but this sort of thinking creates fear, and we need fear to move forward. sorry, getting philosophical here, but ok ok, good post! you scared me.
another thought: evil does not prosper in a material sense, in a sense you can touch or see…ALL the time. crime and punishment anyone?!
not to mention first world economies and developing world economies right now?! camon!
Evil is more powerful than good. How long does it take to create a teacher? Love, birth, childhood, education. How long does it take to destroy a teacher? One bullet that costs a penny. Simply put, entropy means it’s easier to destroy than to create, easier to kill than to birth, easier to take than to give (especially when everybody else has everything).
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There are a couple of things not considered here by those promoting the idea that hard work and karma and scales balanceing evens things out.
One, you’re forgetting that our society, among others, often selects for negative qualities; promoting the incompetent, sociopathic, family-connected boss to prominence beyond his abilities. Bush, anyone?
So, sure, evil is rewarded.
Two, the acquisition of money itself– greed–is held up as the highest measure of success.
Very. Bad. Idea.
Three, when millions of people are suddenly made unemployed or homeless or dead because of economic warfare, NAFTA or exploitation, what in the world does that have to do with hard work or merit? They didn’t all wake up in October 2008 and simultaneously decide to go on the dole.
Anecdote: In America, we blame people’s medical problems on smoking, obesity and drinking; they deserve to die rather than take my money for medical care.
Japan and Europe have consistently better patient outcomes and longevity, even though they drink and smoke more than Americans. Why? Because they have access to better medical care.
We are not islands.
Still does not justify me paying for someone else’s terrible habits and bad health. Good for Europe and Japan though.
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Firemen work long hours? Cooking chili, lifting weights, and sleeping doesn’t count.
LOL
This article is so stupid.
Yeah, life is unfair good job stating the obvious. Unfairness is something everyone at some point has to overcome.
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