Episode 29: Just-World Hypothesis – Nice Guys Finish First


Phil introduces some research into the Just-world Hypothesis, where we view the world as being fair and evenhanded; hard work is always rewarded and bad deeds don’t go unpunished.

This episode was edited by Ajp_productions.

References

  • Just World Hypothesis
    • “You got what was coming to you”
    • “What goes around comes around”
    • “Chickens come home to roost”
    • “Everything happens for a reason”
    • “You reap what you sow”.
  • Shock Experiment: Observers’ Reaction to the ‘Innocent Victim’: Compassion or Rejection? (Source)
  • Episode 10: Actor-Observer Bias: When people judge their own behavior, they are more likely to attribute their actions to the particular situation than to their personality. However, when an observer is explaining the behavior of another person, they are more likely to attribute this behavior to the actors’ personality rather than to situational factors.
  • Veridical Judgment (Veridical = coincide with reality)
    • Hypothesis: the judgments of victims are accurate; what moron allows themselves to be shocked?
    • Rebuttle: following studies showed they only derided those who suffered, not those who agreed to the shocking, so that doesn’t hold up.
  • Self-Regulation (Self Soothing): the ability to respond to the ongoing demands of experience with the range of emotions in a manner that is socially tolerable and sufficiently flexible to permit spontaneous reactions as well as the ability to delay spontaneous reactions as needed.
  • Gambler’s Fallacy: the incorrect belief that, if a particular event occurs more frequently than normal during the past, it is less likely to happen in the future (or vice versa), when it has otherwise been established that the probability of such events does not depend on what has happened in the past.
  • Guilt Reduction
    • Hypothesis: Observers derogate victims to reduce their own feelings of guilt.
    • Rebuttle: Not enough support; derogation happened even when the observer wasn’t implicated.
  • Monopoly Experiments (Actual Paper): 
    • “In studies 1 and 2, upper-class individuals were more likely to break the law while driving, relative to lower-class individuals. In follow-up laboratory studies, upper-class individuals were more likely to exhibit unethical decision-making tendencies (study 3), take valued goods from others (study 4), lie in a negotiation (study 5), cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize (study 6), and endorse unethical behavior at work (study 7) than were lower-class individuals.”
  • TED talk (Not TEDx) on the Empathy Gap
  • Ayn Rand
  • Protestant Work Ethic: Oversimplified: Work hard and God will reward you with wealth. Therefore, wealthy people are more loved by God!
  • Thomas Sowell
  • Middleman Minorities: a minority population whose main occupations link producers and consumers: traders, money-lenders, etc. A middleman minority, while possibly suffering discrimination, does not hold an “extreme subordinate” status in society. The “middleman minority” concept was developed by sociologists Hubert Blalock and Edna Bonacich starting in the 1960s but is also used by political scientists and economists. This idea was further developed by American economist Thomas Sowell.
  • The Secret (book) – Garbage book on magical realism, but tries to be nonfiction.
  • Idealism (philosophy) – metaphysical perspectives which assert that reality is indistinguishable and inseparable from human perception and understanding; that reality is a mental construct closely connected to ideas.
  • Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius – by Jorge Luis Borges
  • Just World Scale
  • Object Permanence – the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or otherwise sensed.
  • Universal Basic Income (UBI): a sociopolitical financial transfer concept in which all citizens of a given population regularly receive a legally stipulated and equal financial grant paid by the government without a means test.
  • Episode 11: Internalized Capitalism – Internalized Capitalism is the (often) self-imposed valuation of one’s self and life (waking or otherwise) in terms of production and monetary value. It’ source is from the worship of the economy and GDP as the almighty deity. 

Limiting Belief: Limiting beliefs are those which constrain us in some way. Just by believing them, we do not think, do or say the things that they inhibit. And in doing so we impoverish our lives.

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