The Hindu Business Line : Is the world just?

A friend had invested in the stock market for the first time in January. His investment has already shed 15 per cent. His wife rationalised the loss this way: The money was never meant to be theirs. Else, why else would they have invested in the market after all these years?

If you are religious, you will recognise that my friend's wife was attributing the loss to what Hindus call Karma. What you sow is what you reap is the philosophy. Perhaps, my friend had not "earned" the money. It had to go out of his bank account. And so it did.

For others who are not as religious, attributing the investment loss to Karma may be hard to digest. Behavioural psychologists, as always, come to our rescue. They call such behaviour as the Just-World Effect. What does that mean?

It refers to the tendency for people to believe that the world is just and that people get what they deserve. If my friend lost money, he deserved to. Mervin Lerner, a social psychologist, documented this effect way back in the 1960s.

In one of his experiments, the subjects were told that a fellow student had won a lottery. The subjects believed that the student who won the lottery worked harder than the one who did not.

If your friend fails to get an admission into an Indian Institute of Technology, you may be tempted to conclude that he did not work hard. Remember this if nothing else: The world may not be fair in every aspect of life. So, do not get caught on by the Just-World Effect, for you may become a victim too!

(The author is based in Ontario, Canada.)

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