Hi all,
In one of my feeds this week, a random reel came up with a scholar talking about Just-World Bias Theory. [Not sure what that says about me, that the algorithm would throw that into my feed besides that I am a nerd!]
Anyway, it sparked my curiosity enough to send me researching the idea. Here’s the basis of it – there is an assumption that the world is fair and somehow balanced and, so, morally, any outcomes in our lives are due to our own actions or intentions. In other words – good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people.
At the heart of this particular cultural narrative is the need to believe that the world is fair or predictable or even understandable.
This works in small ways in our lives. One example could be that a friend has their phone stolen while they are out to eat at a restaurant. Obviously, this is a bummer and not the friend’s fault. But…we may have a thought like, “Well, he does misplace his phone all the time, even in public. When he does that, he is kinda asking for it to be stolen. Maybe he will be better at taking care of his things from now on.”
Ridiculous? Yet, haven’t we all had thoughts like this, of course. I have. About other people sometimes, but also about myself. Well, if I hadn’t done x, then y would not have happened. If I hadn’t said y, then z would not have happened. When we turn it on ourselves, it becomes a way to self blame – which is a way to then feel a little in control. It’s not that the world is wacky, I am.
This kind of bias does not take into situational realities into account at all. There is no larger context. Not for other people, not for ourselves.
It is a cultural narrative that is often fed by so many layers of, well, culture. It is a way of taking a larger context off the table when viewing the world. A way of isolation.
Even people in the healing and wellness world subscribe to this in ways, that I feel, are so dangerous.
On a larger scale in other ways, this just-world bias is incredibly dangerous. In our last article, we explored the case of a many decade young girl sex trafficking operation. In the realm of justice around cases like this, the bias can be devastating, especially in cases of sexual violence.
For example, when a woman suffers sexual violence, there is always – ALWAYS – the question of her culpability, especially when she tries to get justice through the justice system or brings her story to the public.
Questions like – what was she wearing or why was she in the situation or why was she walking in the part of town or what did she do to provoke it or was she drinking.
This kind of bias stems from the desire to believe that the world is just, that bad things happen only when we make bad judgment calls or do something bad or have not clear or good intentions.
The real story underneath is how girls and all children are not protected. How the culture and many laws protect the perpetrators and the culture of power instead of the kids.
Which leads to a larger context. The real story underneath is how women’s rights, immigrant’s rights, people of color’s rights are being taken away [again] under narratives of “decency” and “wanting to protect our children”.
How libraries and schools are being stripped of books that tell stories about race, gender, historical fact and sexual identity because they are labeled “not age-appropriate” or because “they make people feel uncomfortable or guilty”.
How censorship is being spun under the narratives of “protection” and “creating safe places” and “taking care of children”.
How censorship erases people and erases history. Erases the larger context. During some book purges in recent years of books in schools that have any mention of sexual identity outside of heterosexuality, other books were also being thrown out – including history books, stories about people of color, stories about women. So many stories thrown away.
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So who is protecting children? Who is protecting kids who are being trafficked? Who is protecting kids who are being sexually attacked by family members, people in authority? Girls who are impregnated through sexual assault and have to carry babies to term?
Who is being protected in the swirl of narratives? And what is being protected?
It applies to people who are perpetrators, as well. Not just of sexual violence but other kinds of assault against other people.
I recently saw a clip from an opinion show where the host said of a man who might be indicated in the Epstein files, “I mean, c’mon. Do we really believe _____ could ever do such a thing?” Of course, the man in question is someone who has been accused for decades of sexual assault and has said terrible things about women on public record. The host of the show was trying to invoke the just-world bias.
This happens when a person who has done terrible things is a person of authority – maybe a doctor or a business person or an attorney. Maybe they went to great schools, came from a great family. And on and on.
We can slip into this in a larger context, too. Like, having a just-world bias around a culture or a part of culture where we want the part of culture to be just. For example, there is often a just-world bias around organizations of authority – like the police or the military – where actions done by individuals are assumed to be just. Even when the actions are clearly and terribly unjust.
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When we buy into this kind of bias, we are buying into it, again, on a personal level.
For a person who has experienced sexual assault, he/she/they may internalize the questions – why did I wear that or why did I go to that neighborhood or what was I thinking or why did I have anything to drink or or or.
It can happen even in small ways.The guy who lost his phone may internalize that it was his fault because he knows he can be absent-minded with his phones. He may say, “Serves me right.”
But it doesn’t.
The fault is on the person who violated his space by stealing the phone. The fault of sexual violence or any violence is on the one who perpetuates the violence. No matter what the victim did or did not do. A Black many does not deserve to be shot in the back by a police officer when he is pulled over for some minor infraction just because he is black. A woman does not deserve to be shot and killed in her bed at night by police officers because she is black and her ex-boyfriend was in trouble. A regular guy does not deserve for his phone to be stolen. No girl deserves to be harmed.
This just-world bias narrative really wants us to ignore the reality that it is the system around us, the acceptance of things getting stolen, the idea that girls are going to get hurt, the idea that we “should know better” that is the problem. Not the overwhelmed guy who might have too much on his plate that he forgets where his phone is. Not the man driving home from work. Not the girl just wanting to be a girl.
Our dreams want to help us dig out these kinds of bias that we have been taught, told. Because the world is not just always. Because good things happen to terrible people and bad things happen to wonderful people.
Here is an example from my own work where my dreams have helped me. My own experience with childhood sexual abuse happened when I was a small girl but I carried, for a long time, that what happened was my fault. That I had provoked it, that I had put myself into the situation. I even had the story of “I must have been being sexual, or something, with my abuser.”
Somewhere, during the especially intensive healing time around this particular trauma, I had this dream:
I see my daughter alone, looking scared. The dream is like a movie – I am watching this and I can’t get to her and I feel so devastated to see how small and alone she is.
At the time, my kiddo was little, around the same age I was when I experienced my trauma. Part of the lesson of the dream for me was to see, by seeing my own child, just how small I has been when the abuse happened. I mean, I was under the age of 6. How vulnerable and alone, how small and vulnerable a small girl really is.
It helped break my own just-theory bias around myself. I was a little girl – vulnerable and lonely. What happened to me was not my fault.
Without the place of making it my fault, I just had to be with the grief of it. A terrible thing happened to the sweet and small girl that I had been.
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To shake off this bias is to be left with the grief and the reality that what happened did not make sense. That what happens does not make sense. That the world does not make sense always. Yes.
And, to shake off the bias opens also the door for clarity and for healing. Opens doors to seeing the self and the world from a place of reality. Which can be hard, yes. But it also, I believe, opens doors to deeper possibilities, to being open to wonder and curiosity in new ways.
To shake off biases like this helps us to be free.