The Relationship between Just World Beliefs and Life Satisfaction

Belief in a just world and fair behavior among clinical nurses: a moderated mediation model of empathy and observer justice sensitivity

BACKGROUND

Exploration of the relationship between nursing staffs' justice in belief world and fair behavior is important to promote equity and access to health services in health organizations, as well as to enhance the quality of care. In order to further dissect the influencing factors of fair behavior among clinical nurses, the current study aims to investigate how belief in a just world influences the fair behavior among nurses. Based on the belief in a just world theory, the empathy-altruism theory and the protective-protective model, the current study aimed to provide a deeper understanding of the effect of belief in a just world on fair behavior by investigating the mediating role of empathy and the moderating role of observer justice sensitivity.

METHOD

This was a cross-sectional study. 571 registered clinical nurses were included from five hospitals in Fuzhou through a convenience sampling method. Measurements included Chinese translations of belief in a just world scale, empathy scale, observer justice sensitivity scale, fair behavior scale. SPSS 22.0 was used to describe descriptive statistics and the variables' Pearson correlation coefficient. SPSS PROCESS macro Model 4 and model 14 were used to examine the mediation and the moderation between the relationship of belief in a just world and fairness behavior.

RESULT

The results shower that fairness behavior was positively correlated with one's belief in a just world (r = 0.26, p < 0.01); (2)empathy mediated the relationship between belief in a just world and fair behavior. The mediation model explains 20.83%; (3) Observer justice sensitivity moderated the relationship between empathy and fair behavior.

CONCLUSIONS

Belief in a just world, empathy, and observer justice sensitivity were motivations for nurses' fair behavior. Nursing administrators should focus on cultivating nurses' belief in a just world, their empathy abilities, and positive qualities of justice sensitivity to enhance fair behavior in a healthcare setting.

How Healthcare Providers Reconcile Bad Things Happening to Good Patients: The Role of Just World Beliefs in Attitudes toward Trauma-Informed Care

Despite prevalent trauma exposure among patients seeking health care, as well as widespread frameworks for enacting trauma-informed care, the uptake of trauma-informed practices such as trauma screening and referral among health-care providers remains relatively low. The current study sought to assess the roles of health-care providers' personal histories of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and personal beliefs in the just-world hypothesis in understanding their attitudes toward trauma-informed care. Advanced practice graduate nursing students (N = 180; M age = 34.6 years) completed a self-reported survey assessing their personal history of ACEs, global belief in a just world, and attitudes related to trauma-informed care. Results indicated the relation between providers' ACEs and attitudes toward trauma-informed care was fully mediated by their beliefs in a just world, such that providers reporting higher ACEs scores also report greater endorsement of attitudes consistent with trauma-informed care due to less belief in a just world. Implications for both health-care providers' themselves and cultural shifts necessary for provision of trauma-informed health care are discussed.

The Influence of Subjective Socioeconomic Status on Life Satisfaction: The Chain Mediating Role of Social Equity and Social Trust

Life satisfaction is significantly influenced by social capital, a key sociological term that links people to their social surroundings. Through a survey of 17,217 Chinese residents, this study investigated the probable processes of how subjective socioeconomic status affects life satisfaction within the framework of social capital. The results indicate that there is a positive correlation between subjective socioeconomic status and life satisfaction. Subjective socioeconomic status influences citizens' life satisfaction not only through the independent mediating effects of perceived social equity and social trust, but also through the chain mediation of perceived social equity and social trust. This research advances our knowledge of the mechanisms behind the association between subjective socioeconomic status and life satisfaction. In improving citizens' life satisfaction, we should not only provide sufficient subjective socioeconomic status to improve it, but also focus on the improvement of their social equity perceptions and social trust.

Personal Traits of the People Who Help: The Case of Bystanders to Violence against Women

Within the context of emergency situations, the terms witness or bystander are used to refer to individuals involved in oppressive incidents who are neither the victim nor the perpetrator. Among the different types of emergency situations, our study focuses on violence against women (VAW). In keeping with current efforts in the scientific literature on bystander intervention and the evidence currently available, the main focus of this study is to analyze some personal factors that reflect the characteristics or experiences of bystanders and that could have a bearing on their predisposition to help victims of VAW (i.e., empathy, a just world belief system, and expectations of self-efficacy) and later analyze the possible relationship between these personal characteristics and gender or previous experience as a VAW bystander. An opportunity sample of 546 Spanish participants (73.4% women and 26.6% men) between 18 and 56 years of age took part in this study and fill out a sociodemographic data sheet, a questionnaire to evaluate the experience as violence witness designed ad hoc, and the Characteristics of People who Help Questionnaire scale (CPHQ). The results obtained indicate that CPHQ could constitute an adequate measure for the three dimensions analyzed. Female participants are significantly more empathetic than males, but in the case of a just world belief and expectations of self-efficacy the results showed no gender-related differences. Additionally, only a just world belief was clearly influenced by having been a bystander to some form of VAW. In conclusion, this study contributes a proposal for an evaluating instrument featuring three relevant personal characteristics in the development of helping behaviors, presenting some results of interest regarding empathy, a just world belief, and expectations of self-efficacy and their relationship with gender or previous experiences as VAW bystanders. These results obtained suggest an initial path toward future research in the development of interventions with bystander participation in our environment.

The Deleterious Effect of Victimization on Just World Beliefs

Being a victim of a violent crime is a traumatic experience. Sexual victimization, in particular, may be powerful enough to change presumably stable worldviews like just world beliefs. Across two large samples, we examined the influence of sexual victimization on just world beliefs. Results of Study 1 (N = 727) indicated that victims of sexual aggression had significantly lower levels of just world beliefs compared to nonvictims. Other researchers have claimed that sexual aggression is a uniquely intense traumatic event. Therefore, in a second study, we examined (a) whether just world belief endorsement was associated with the frequency of victimization, and (b) whether sexual aggression was unique in its effect on just world belief endorsement compared to other crimes such as physical assault. Results of Study 2 (N = 2,011) indicated that multiple incidents of victimization did not meaningfully impact just world beliefs compared to a single instance and just world belief endorsement was not significantly different across victims of sexual aggression, robbery, physical assault, or arson. An exploratory analysis, however, indicated there was a significant difference in victims' behavior such that victims of sexual aggression were the least likely to have reported the crime. We end with a discussion of how the present research can advance our understanding of just world belief ideology and discuss the practical implications for professionals working with and studying victims of violent crimes.

Empirical Analysis of Population Urbanization and Residents’ Life Satisfaction—Based on 2017 CGSS

As the greatest potential of domestic demand, new urbanization shoulders the important mission of improving the living standards of residents. Based on the theory of exploitation, this paper systematically established the theoretical relationships among population urbanization rate, human capital, family capital, and life satisfaction. Through the 2017 China Comprehensive Social Survey of 1940 micro-individuals for empirical analysis, the results show that: (1) the urbanization rate of the core explanatory variable has a significant and robust positive effect on individual life satisfaction and on human capital and family capital; (2) the urbanization rate of the core explanatory variable has a significant positive effect on human capital and family capital; (3) human capital and family capital have significant positive effects on life satisfaction; (4) in the heterogeneity discussion, the male capital accumulation is higher than the female, but life satisfaction is the opposite. With the increase in age, the individuals accumulated the highest human capital and family capital in 26–34 years old and reached the peak in life satisfaction after retirement in 60–83 years old. As far as regional differences are concerned, individual human capital, family capital, and life satisfaction are decreasing from the east to the west. The results of the study will help to establish a healthy and perfect regional urbanization and to enhance the mental health of residents by promoting talent development and advocating family-friendly construction.