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. 2017 Apr;85(2):232-243.
doi: 10.1111/jopy.12236. Epub 2016 Jan 29.

Just World Beliefs Are Associated With Lower Levels of Metabolic Risk and Inflammation and Better Sleep After an Unfair Event

Cynthia S Levine  1 , Devika Basu  1 , Edith Chen  1
Affiliations

Just World Beliefs Are Associated With Lower Levels of Metabolic Risk and Inflammation and Better Sleep After an Unfair Event

Cynthia S Levine et al. J Pers. 2017 Apr.

Abstract

This study's goal was to conduct a preliminary test of the theory that just world beliefs can buffer against negative physiological outcomes after people experience certain types of negative life events by testing associations between just world beliefs and physiological outcomes among people with different life event histories. In a sample of 247 adults (Mage = 46.01; 24.31% men; 60.78% White), this research investigated the relationship between just world beliefs and metabolic symptoms, inflammation, and sleep among people who had recently experienced an unfair event, another type of negative event, or no negative event. Stronger just world beliefs correlated with lower metabolic risk, lower inflammation, and better sleep among people who had recently experienced an unfair event, but not among those in the other two event groups. These findings suggest that people's beliefs about the world may interact with their life experiences in ways that have implications for health-relevant outcomes.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

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

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Just world beliefs predict lower metabolic risk (Panel A), lower inflammation (Panel B), and better sleep (Panel C) among those who have experienced an unfair event but not another type of negative event. Analyses control for age, gender, and ethnicity. *p < .05, +p < .
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