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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–  )]

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Psychology term of the day

October 6th 2024

hypothetico-deductive method

hypothetico-deductive method

a method of scientific inquiry in which the credibility or explanatory power of a falsifiable hypothesis is tested by making predictions on the basis of this hypothesis and determining whether these predictions are consistent with empirical observations. It is one of the most widely used scientific methods for disproving hypotheses and building corroboration for those that remain. Also called mathematico-deductive method.