just-world hypothesis
the idea that the world is a fair and orderly place where what happens to people generally is what they deserve. In other words, bad things happen to bad people, and good things happen to good people. This view enables an individual to confront his or her physical and social environments as though they were stable and predictable but may, for example, result in the belief that the innocent victim of an accident or attack must somehow be responsible for or deserve it. Also called belief in a just world; just-world bias; just-world phenomenon. [postulated by Canadian psychologist Melvin J. Lerner (1929– )]