Chinese Adolescents’ Belief in a Just World: Social Class and Age Disparities

Abstract

This cross-sectional study examined how Chinese adolescents’ belief in a just world (BJW) varied across social class and age. A sample of 2,748 adolescents aged 10 to 18 years (47.2% female; 99.1% Han ethnicity) from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds in China completed the Belief in a Just World Scale and the Socioeconomic Status Survey. Adolescents from higher social-class backgrounds were found to have higher general and personal BJW compared to their peers from lower social-class backgrounds, with the difference being more pronounced for personal BJW. Additionally, SES moderated age-related changes in BJW: for adolescents from middle- or higher-class backgrounds, BJW decreased with age, whereas for those from lower-class backgrounds, BJW remained relatively stable across adolescence. These findings suggest that BJW functions as a psychological defense mechanism, shaped by an individual’s perceived access to fairness and opportunity within their social environment.

Keywords

adolescent belief in a just world social class social inequality

Introduction

People are often faced with unfairness or injustice in the world. According to the Just World hypothesis (Lerner & Miller, 1978), people form the belief in a just world (BJW)—a belief that the world is fair and that people get what they deserve. By creating a sense of universal justice, people can cope with the chaos and instability of the world through establishing a more predictable environment and a sense of control (Dalbert, 2001). Researchers propose two types of BJW: personal and general. Personal BJW (my life is fair) can help people deal with personal difficulties and injustices by increasing their sense of control and meaning, and is therefore, related to positive psychological outcomes, such as life satisfaction, self-esteem, gratitude, and forgiveness (Chobthamkit et al., 2022; Jian et al., 2021; Yu et al., 2018). General BJW (the world is fair), on the other hand, may have some negative consequences. People who strongly believe in a just world may try to rationalize the suffering of others, or even avoid helping them, to preserve their belief that the world is fair (Kong et al., 2021; Wenzel et al., 2017).

Adolescence is a pivotal period for the development of belief in a just world (BJW). Cognitive maturity during this stage enables adolescents to form more abstract and complex beliefs about themselves and their environment (Weinberg et al., 2021). At the same time, this period is marked by significant transitions and challenges, such as academic pressures, evolving peer relationships, and exposure to social justice issues (Xiong et al., 2022). These challenges often expose adolescents to adversity and injustice—such as bullying, discrimination, poverty, or violence (Donat et al., 2018)—which can shape their perceptions of whether the world is just. Understanding how BJW evolves during adolescence, and the factors influencing it, is essential for promoting positive psychological outcomes and mitigating negative ones.

Previous research has tried to describe how BJW changes during adolescence, but the results have been inconsistent. Some research showed that both types of BJW decreased with age, with general BJW declining more than personal BJW (Dalbert, 2001; Oppenheimer, 2006). These findings were explained by the idea that with adolescent maturation, BJW, especially general BJW, becomes less important as they are replaced by more sophisticated forms of reasoning that enable adolescents to deal with a world that is not orderly or just. Because personal BJW serves as a coping mechanism, it does not decline as fast as general BJW (Dalbert, 2001; Oppenheimer, 2006). However, some other studies reported different patterns of change (Thomas & Mucherah, 2016; Thomas & Napolitano, 2017). For example, a study of adolescents in Western Kenya found no evidence of a downward trend in BJW during adolescence (Thomas & Mucherah, 2016). These discrepancies may reflect variations in the social contexts in which children and adolescents are raised, both within and across societies. Supporting this view, extensive research has demonstrated that BJW is shaped by societal factors such as social and economic inequality (Furnham, 1993; Malahy et al., 2009). Additionally, some studies suggest that perceived socio-economic status (SES) is associated with BJW (Hou et al., 2017; Yu et al., 2020), although these studies primarily focused on college students and adults, and the relationship between SES and BJW was not their main focus. To address this gap, the present study examines how social class—an influential factor within societies—relates to BJW and its age-related changes during adolescence.

Social class is defined as a hierarchical position within society, influenced by factors such as income, education, occupation, and access to resources and opportunities (Piff & Robinson, 2017). Recent evidence suggests that social class rank shapes various social-cognitive tendencies, including how individuals interpret the causes of events, make moral judgments, and engage in social behaviors (Kraus et al., 2012; Kuang et al., 2021; Wang et al., 2024). Additionally, social class influences individuals’ worldview and beliefs about fairness and justice by shaping their lived experiences of privilege or deprivation (Greitemeyer & Sagioglou, 2017; Yu et al., 2020). Drawing on the Just-world theory (Lerner & Miller, 1978) and the Justice Capital Theory (Thomas, 2022), we propose hypotheses about how social class affects BJW and its age-related changes across adolescence.

The Just-World Hypothesis conceptualizes BJW as a psychological coping mechanism. According to this theory, adolescents from lower social-class backgrounds are expected to exhibit higher levels of BJW, particularly personal BJW, compared to their peers from higher social-class backgrounds. This is because adolescents from lower social-class backgrounds, who face greater challenges and unpredictability in their lives, may rely more on the belief in a just world as a psychological strategy to sustain their sense of control and cope with their hardships. In the similar vein, they are expected to experience a slower decline in BJW, particularly personal BJW—given its role as a core coping mechanism compared to the more abstract general BJW—as they grow older, relative to their higher social-class peers.

The Justice Capital Theory (Thomas, 2022) posits that Belief in a Just World (BJW) reflects individuals’ perceptions of their access to justice. Adolescents from lower social-class backgrounds are more likely to encounter frequent and severe experiences of injustice, inequality, and unpredictability compared to their peers from higher social-class backgrounds. As a result, they are theorized to exhibit lower BJW levels, particularly personal BJW, which is more closely tied to individual experiences compared to the broader focus of general BJW. Research suggests that by around age 10, children already recognize their social class position and understand related inequalities (Kuang et al., 2021). This early “class awareness,” combined with perceptions of limited access to justice, likely influences adolescents’ developing views of fairness and justice during early adolescence.

Taken together, this research seeks to explore social class disparities in adolescents’ BJW and its age-related changes, and testing the hypothesis outlined above. The findings will provide insight into how socio-economic factors influence the development of BJW.

Method

Participants and Procedure

Participants from eight schools completed the instruments anonymously during class time. The teachers distributed the questionnaires in classes and explained the principle of confidentiality and the instructions. A total of 2,840 questionnaires were collected, among which 94 participants (3%) missed 15% or above items of the questionnaire and we excluded their data from further analysis. The final sample includes 2,748 students (1,296 female, 2,723 ethnically Han, aged between 10 and 18; M = 13.71, SD = 2.06).

It is noteworthy that China has long implemented a dual urban-rural social system, which has resulted in rural residents having a lower social rank compared to urban residents (Kuang et al., 2021; Sun et al., 2022). To ensure the representativeness of our sample, we recruited children from public schools in both rural areas (e.g., Xi County, Henan Province; n = 1,714) and urban areas (Hangzhou and Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province; n = 1,020) in China. Consistent with the broader socioeconomic disparities observed between rural and urban residents, rural adolescents in our sample reported significantly lower SES on the Family Affluence Scale (see below) than their urban peers (Urban: M = 6.01, SD = 1.80, Range = 0–9, Skewness = −.40; Rural: M = 4.62, SD = 2.04, Range = 0–9, Skewness = −.17).

Measures

Belief in a Just World Scale

The Chinese version of the Belief in a Just World Scale developed by Dalbert (1999) was used to measure BJW. This Chinese version has been validated by previous research (Su et al., 2012). The scale includes two subscales: general and personal BJW. The general BJW subscale measures beliefs about justice in broader society and consists of six items (e.g., “I am confident that justice always prevails over injustice”), α = .79. The personal BJW subscale measures beliefs about justice for the individual respondent and consists of seven items (e.g., “I am usually treated fairly”), α = .86. Participants responded to each item on a 6-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 6 = strongly agree).

Socioeconomic Status

We used the Family Affluence Scale (FASⅡ; Schnohr et al., 2008) to measure the participants’ objective SES. FASⅡ is a four-item measure of family wealth for school-aged children, asking adolescents about things they are likely to know about their family (car, bedrooms, vacations, and computers), α = .54. This scale has been widely used and validated as an indicator of SES among children and adolescents in China (Liu et al., 2012).

Analysis Strategy

We conducted all analyses using R (version 4.2.2). First, we ran a full Linear Mixed Model (LMM) on BJW ratings with SES (standardized), age (continuous), gender, BJW type (personal vs. general), and their interactions as fixed effects. Participant ID was included as a random intercept to account for repeated measures of BJW types. We compared the full model to a null model (random effect only) and created a minimal model by sequentially removing terms to test their contribution to model fit. Second, we used linear models (LMs) when BJW type was not a predictor. Third, we applied pick-a-point and Johnson–Neyman (J-N) techniques to examine independent variable effects with binary (e.g., BJW type) and continuous (e.g., age) moderators, respectively.

Results

Preliminary Analyses

Table 1 shows descriptive statistics and correlations for the assessed variables. Age was significantly negatively correlated with general BJW (p < .001) but not with personal BJW (p > .05), indicating that older adolescents tend to show lower levels of general BJW, but personal BJW does not seem to differ across age. SES was significantly positively correlated with both types of BJW (ps < .001), indicating that adolescents from a higher social-class backgrounds thought the world was more just than those from a lower social-class backgrounds.

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics and Correlations for Assessed Variables.

Variable	M (SD)	Range	R
Variable	M (SD)	Range	Age	SES	GBJW	PBJW
Gender	0.53 (0.50)		.02	.00	−.05	−.03
Age	13.71 (2.06)	[10y, 18y]	—	−.10***	−.16***	−.03
SES	5.14 (2.07)	[0, 9]	—	—	.13***	.18***
GBJW	25.88 (5.55)	[6, 36]	—	—	—	.72***
PBJW	29.61 (6.58)	[7, 42]	—	—	—	—

Note. gender: 0 = female, 1 = male; SES = socioeconomic status; GBJW = General belief in a just world; PBJW = Personal belief in a just world.

***

p < .001.

Main Analyses

The results show that our full model fits our data better than the null model including only participant identity as random intercepts (LRT, χ2(1) = 1549.1, p < .001). We found significant main effects of age (LRT, χ2(1) = 46.78, p < .001) and SES (LRT, χ2(1) = 9.10, p = .01), but not gender (LRT, χ2(1) = 2.57, p < 0.1). We also observed significant two-way interactions between age and types of BJW (LRT, χ2(1) = 1414.40, p < .001), SES and types of BJW (LRT, χ2(1) = 30.98, p < .001), SES and age (LRT, χ2(1) = 4.44, p = .03). No other significant interactions were found (see Table 2).

Table 2.

Estimates (Standard Errors) of Fixed Effects in Predicting Adolescents’ BJW.

Variables	Null model	Full model	Reduced model
Intercept	0.01 (0.02)	0.77(0.18)***	0.48 (0.11)***
Gender (ref = male)		−0.39 (0.25)
Age		−0.07 (0.01)***	−0.06(0.01)***
SES		0.36 (0.18)*	0.34(0.11)**
Belief.type (ref = PBJW)		−0.19 (0.13)
Age × SES		−0.02 (0.01)	−0.02(0.01)*
Gender × SES		0.13 (0.25)
Gender × age		0.02 (0.02)
SES × belief.type		0.29 (0.13)*	0.08(0.01)***
Age × belief.type		0.05 (0.01)***	0.04(0.00)***
SES × age × belief.type		−0.01 (0.01)
Gender × SES × age		0.01 (0.02)
SES × gender × belief.type		−0.24 (0.19)
Age × gender × belief.type		−0.00 (0.13)
SES × age × gender × belief.type		0.02 (0.01)
AIC	14039.7	12520.63	12516.5
BIC	14059.5	12639.0	12569.1
Log likelihood	−7016.9	−6242.3	−6250.2
Number of observations	5,304	5,304	5,304
Number of participants	2,652	2,652	2,652

Note. gender: 0 = female, 1 = male; SES = socioeconomic status; GBJW = general belief in a just world; PBJW = personal belief in a just world.

***

p < .001, **p < .01, *p < .05

Age Differences in Belief in a Just World

Simple slope analyses for the interaction between age and types of BJW revealed that age had a significant negative effect on general BJW, F (1, 2650) = 73.26, b = −.07, SE = 0.01, p < .001, but only a marginal negative effect on personal BJW, F (1, 2650) = 3.17, b = −.01, SE = .01, p = .075. The findings suggest that older adolescents have lower general BJW than younger ones, while personal BJW does not differ much with age (see Figure 1a).

Social Class Disparities in Belief in a Just World

Simple slope analyses for the interaction between SES and types of BJW revealed a significant positive effect on both general BJW, F (1, 2650) = 50.09, b = 0.12, SE = .02, p < .001, and personal BJW, F (1, 2650) = 89.89, b = 0.18, SE = .02, p < .001. This suggests that adolescents from higher social-class backgrounds have higher general and personal belief in a just world (BJW) than those from lower social-class backgrounds, with the difference being more pronounced for personal BJW (see Figure 1b).

Because no significant three-way interaction between SES, age, and types of BJW was found, but a significant two-way interaction between SES and age was observed (LRT, χ² (1) = 4.44, p = .03), we conducted simple slope analyses for this two-way interaction using combined BJW scores. The results indicated that when SES was below −0.95 units, age had no significant effect on BJW; however, when SES was above −0.95 units, age had a significant negative effect on BJW (see Figure 2). This finding suggests that SES moderates changes in adolescents’ BJW during adolescence. Specifically, for adolescents from middle- or higher-class backgrounds, BJW decreased with age, whereas for adolescents from lower-class backgrounds, BJW remained relatively stable regardless of age.

Disscussion

The results showed that personal BJW was consistently higher than general BJW across all age groups (10–18 years). Both types of BJW decreased with age, with general BJW being significantly lower than personal BJW in older adolescents. These findings are consistent with previous research on age-related differences in BJW among adolescents in countries like Germany, Australia, and the Netherlands (Dalbert, 2001; Oppenheimer, 2006; Scholz & Strelan, 2021), suggesting that age-related differences in BJW are fairly consistent across different societies.

More importantly, our findings showed that adolescents from higher social-class backgrounds had higher BJW, both general and personal, than their peers from lower social-class backgrounds. Moreover, personal (vs. general) BJW was more strongly associated with SES. The Justice Capital theory (Thomas, 2022) explains our findings. It suggests that the perceptions of justice reflect individual access to the real world. Adolescents from higher social-class backgrounds experience a more just world than their peers from lower social-class backgrounds, and thus have higher BJW, especially personal BJW. Previous studies (Hou et al., 2017; Yu et al., 2020) showing positive correlations between subjective SES and BJW support our findings. However, these findings disagree with the Just World theory (Lerner & Miller, 1978), which implies that adolescents from lower social-class backgrounds would have higher BJW, especially personal BJW, as a coping mechanism for their more chaotic and unstable world.

Furthermore, we found that the change in adolescents’ BJW across adolescence was moderated by SES. For adolescents from middle- or higher-class backgrounds (above the threshold of .95 units), BJW decreased with age, whereas for those from lower-class backgrounds, BJW remained relatively stable across adolescence. This pattern may reflect cognitive maturation and increasing awareness of societal injustices as adolescents grow older, which could lead those from middle- or higher-class backgrounds to perceive the world as less just. Conversely, adolescents from lower-class backgrounds may maintain a stable BJW to preserve a sense of control and meaning in their lives, despite their growing awareness of societal injustices. These findings align with the Just World Theory (Lerner & Miller, 1978), which suggests that individuals sustain BJW to cope with personal and societal adversity.

Two limitations should be noted. First, the cross-sectional design limits our ability to infer causal relationships or track developmental changes in BJW. Future research should use a longitudinal design to follow participants across adolescence. Second, while our hypotheses were based on the Just-World Theory (Lerner & Miller, 1978) and the Justice Capital Theory (Thomas, 2022), we did not directly examine underlying processes, such as whether children, particularly from lower social-class backgrounds, use personal BJW as a coping strategy. Future studies should investigate these mechanisms, including how reliance on BJW varies by social class and impacts psychological well-being.

The findings offer insights into supporting the well-being of adolescents from different social-class backgrounds. BJW can serve as a coping strategy, helping adolescents find control and meaning when facing challenges and injustices. However, social inequality and discrimination can weaken this belief, particularly for those from low social-class backgrounds, leading to feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, and anger. These emotions can harm their academic performance, mental health, and social relationships (Dalbert & Stoeber, 2005; Weinberg et al., 2021). Addressing this requires providing these adolescents with more opportunities and resources to improve their life chances, as well as to foster their resilience and empowerment.

Conclusion

Adolescents from higher social-class backgrounds showed higher levels of both general and personal BJW, with personal BJW being particularly elevated, compared to those from lower social-class backgrounds. Social class also moderated age-related changes in BJW: while BJW declined with age for middle- and higher-class adolescents, it remained stable for lower-class adolescents. These findings highlight BJW as both a coping mechanism and a reflection of access to justice, offering insights into how social contexts influence its development during adolescence.

Footnotes

Author Contribution Statements

Sa-Sa Lyu and Zuo-Jun Wang developed the study concept. All authors contributed to the study design. Sa-Sa Lyu, Qing-Hai Wang, and Duo-Duo Ding performed data collection and analysis. Sa-Sa Lyu and Ya-Meng Wang drafted the paper, and Zuo-Jun Wang, Deming Wang and Chang-Jiang Liu provided critical revisions. All authors approved the final version of the paper for submission.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the finding of this study are openly available at

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The Postgraduate Research and Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province (KYCX23_1580), the Major Project of Philosophy and Social Science Research in Colleges and Universities in Jiangsu Province (2023SJZD091), the Ministry of education of Humanities and Social Science project (23YJA190008) supported this paper. This paper also benefited from discussions with Xue-Yan Cheng and Ying Wei.

Ethics Approval Statement

The research reported in this manuscript was approved by the ethics board of Hohai University. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants and their parents included in the study.

Permission to Reproduce Material from Other Sources

Permission to reproduce material from other sources is not applicable to this article.

ORCID iD

Sa-Sa Lyu

Author Biographies

Sa-Sa Lyu is a PhD candidate at Nanjing Normal University, specializing in children’s and adolescents’ mental health, as well as social and emotional learning. Her research has been featured in publications such as Acta Psychologica Sinica and Chinese Journal of Clinical Psychology, among others.

Ya-Meng Wang is a master’s student at Hohai University. Her research focuses on moral decision-making and prosocial behavior in children and adolescents. Her work has been published in Emotion, Journal of Affective Disorders.

Chang-Jiang Liu is a professor at Nanjing Normal University. His primary research interests include social cognition and cooperation, addiction, and self-regulation. His work has been published in Acta Psychologica Sinica, Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, and Journal of Drug Issues.

Qing-Hai Wang holds a master’s degree from Ningbo University and is currently a high school teacher. His primary research interest lies in adolescent mental health.

Duo-Duo Ding is an undergraduate student at Hohai University. Her research interests focus on social psychology and adolescent health.

Zuo-Jun Wang, PhD, is a professor at Anhui Normal University. His primary research focuses on group emotions and behaviors, human judgment, and decision-making. His work has been featured in Emotion, British Journal of Social Psychology, Social Psychological and Personality Science.

Deming Wang is a research fellow at Zhejiang University. His primary research interests include social cognition, person perception, and self-regulation. His work has been published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, and Perspectives on Psychological Science.

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