Abstract
Recent violent incidents in The Netherlands caused nationwide debates about their purported senselessness. Building on Lerner's Just World Theory (Lerner, 1980, The Belief in a Just World. A Fundamental Delusion, Plenum Press, New York), the present experiment sought to delineate the circumstances under which violence is perceived as senseless by outside observers. Participants were more likely to perceive an act of violence as senseless and to identify with the victim when there was no opportunity to blame the victim and when the victim was uninvolved with the perpetrator. These findings suggest that acts of violence are perceived as senseless when attributional strategies fail to uphold observers' belief in a just world.
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Lodewijkx, H.F.M., Wildschut, T., Nijstad, B.A. et al. In a Violent World a Just World Makes Sense: The Case of “Senseless Violence” in The Netherlands. Social Justice Research 14, 79–94 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1012527808620
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1012527808620