References 563status quo is justified or deserved, self-serving biases, or
prejudices.
At the individual level, the construction of justice can also
be observed in victims of injustice, in observers, and in per-
petrators. The coping strategies of victims who try to avoid or
to reduce burning outrage and hatred against their victimizers
or who search for answers to the question Why me?are well
described. Observers who are not able or not willing to bear
the costs of correcting undeserved victimizations of others
reconstruct a case in order to preserve their belief in a just
world (Lerner, 1980), which is to be considered a personal
resource (Dalbert, 2001). And the perpetrators try to justify
their deeds as Sykes and Matza (1957) and others have de-
scribed; these are examples of the motivated malleability of
justice views.
On the other side, we have many examples that justice
views can impose themselves compellingly and uncontrol-
lably to individuals, leading to intensive emotions of resent-
ment of a perpetrator or of guilt when the victim him- or
herself has failed. Such justice views function psychologi-
cally as categorical (unconditional) imperatives. This is not
proof of their indisputable exclusive validity, but it is proof of
the moral character of justice norms, and it supports the the-
sis that the justice motive is a primordial motive that is not
instrumental and cannot be reduced to some other motive like
self-interest.
In psychological research on this topic, it is crucial to
make sure that concern for justice is the object of investiga-
tion and not some other concern. Entitlements and corre-
sponding obligations shall be the focus and participants’
concern can be seen by looking at the emotional reactions to
violations of justice norms like guilt and resentments.
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