The Relationship between Just World Beliefs and Life Satisfaction

An important and often unexplored factor shaping life satisfaction is one’s perception of the world as a “just” place. The “just world hypothesis” is predicated on the idea that the world works as a place where people get what they merit, an idea that often serves as a means for people to rationalize injustices. The research addressing just world beliefs has expanded into a four-factor model that categorizes just world beliefs for self and others into subcategories of distributive and procedural justice. Distributive justice involves evaluations of the fairness of outcomes, allocations, or distribution of resources, while procedural concerns evaluations of the fairness of decision processes, rules, or interpersonal treatment. This study explored the relationship between the four just world beliefs subscales and overall satisfaction with life and examined their associations with demographic variables including ethnicity, age, gender, religion, and social class. The relationships of demographic factors with justice beliefs and life satisfaction generally yielded very small effect sizes. However, respondents who identified themselves as middle and upper class reported higher levels of life satisfaction than those who identified themselves as lower class, with a medium effect size. Consistent with the results of earlier research, regressing life satisfaction on the four justice beliefs subscales indicated that the two self-subscales (distributive and procedural) were significantly predictive of life satisfaction, but the two other subscales (distributive and procedural) were not

The Interplay of Multiple Identities of Individuals Across Multiple Domains

The current study explores multiple identities of individuals, particularly youth, and the importance as well as interrelations of those identities in particular social domains in Sri Lankan society. Participants consisted of 96 Sri Lankans live in Sri Lanka. Participants completed seven self-statements (who am I), and closed ended questions, regarding five major identities: nationality, religion, ethnicity, caste, and occupation (university student). Explanations of the self-statements, analyzed by using a fourfold coding scheme, indicated that university student status is the most common social attribute among other social attributes in self-interpretations of individuals. Religion and nationality were second and third most common social attributes whereas caste was the least common. This is consistent with results of the importance of social identities. The importance of each social identity was different when it associated with different social domains, depending on how individuals value their social identities in particular social relations

The Interplay of Multiple Identities of Individuals Across Multiple Domains

The current study explores multiple identities of individuals, particularly youth, and the importance as well as interrelations of those identities in particular social domains in Sri Lankan society. Participants consisted of 96 Sri Lankans live in Sri Lanka. Participants completed seven self-statements (who am I), and closed ended questions, regarding five major identities: nationality, religion, ethnicity, caste, and occupation (university student). Explanations of the self-statements, analyzed by using a fourfold coding scheme, indicated that university student status is the most common social attribute among other social attributes in self-interpretations of individuals. Religion and nationality were second and third most common social attributes whereas caste was the least common. This is consistent with results of the importance of social identities. The importance of each social identity was different when it associated with different social domains, depending on how individuals value their social identities in particular social relations

A Comparative Investigation of the Self Image and Identity of Sri Lankans

The current study explores self image and identity of Sri Lankans in different social and cultural settings. It focuses on the role of major social identities in two ethnic groups: Sinhalese (the majority) and Tamils (the minority). Participants consisted of four groups: Sri Lankan Sinhalese, Sri Lankan Tamils, Sinhalese in USA, and Tamils in Canada. Seven self statement tests, ratings of the importance of major social identities, and eight common identity items under seven social identities were used to examine self identification. Findings suggest that religious identity plays a significant role in Sinhalese, whereas ethnic identity is the most significant in Tamils. All these identity measures suggest that the role of each social identity is different when it associates with different social settings, depending on how individuals value their social identities in particular social contexts