title: Through the looking glass: focusing on long-term goals increases immanent justice reasoning.
abstract: Immanent justice reasoning involves causally attributing a negative event to someone's prior moral failings, even when such a causal connection is physically implausible. This study examined the degree to which immanent justice represents a form of motivated reasoning in the service of satisfying the need to believe in a just world. Drawing on a manipulation that has been shown to activate justice motivation, participants causally attributed a freak accident to a man's prior immoral (vs. moral) behaviour to a greater extent when they first focused on their long-term (vs. short-term) goals. These findings highlight the important function believing in a just world plays in self-regulatory processes by implicating the self in immanent justice reasoning about fluke events in the lives of others.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Essex, UK. mcallan@essex.ac.uk
authors.forename: Mitchell J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Callan
authors.forename: Annelie J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Harvey
authors.forename: Rael J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Dawtry
authors.forename: Robbie M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Sutton
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001290:Attitude; D005260:Female; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D008257:Machiavellianism; D008297:Male; D009014:Morals; D012935:Social Justice; D013850:Thinking