Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 9, 2025

Holistic Facial Composite Creation and Subsequent Video Line-up Eyewitness Identification Paradigm
Published on: December 24, 2015
Belief in a Just World Decreases Blame for Celebrity Infidelity
Ching-Yi Huang1, Takashi Arai1, Tsuneyuki Abe1
1Department of Psychology, Graduate School of Arts and Letters, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8576, Japan.
Abstract:
Justice motivation has been considered one cause of celebrity infidelity scandals becoming flaming incidents. Nevertheless, few studies have examined how the belief in a just world (BJW), one motivation for justice, affects people's attitudes toward these incidents. This study was conducted to identify the relations among BJW, negative emotions toward infidelity (NE), and celebrity infidelity blaming (CIB). Data were collected from 1186 Japanese adults (mean age = 44.9 years, SD = 13.8; 49.4% male). The results of structural equation modeling revealed that NE positively relates to CIB and plays a mediating role between BJW and CIB. However, BJW neither facilitates NE nor positively predicts CIB; on the contrary, it suppresses both NE and CIB. The findings indicate that BJW decreases people's blame on celebrity infidelity and suggest future directions for mitigating the issues posed by casting blame on celebrities' cheating scandals.
Related Concept Videos
Fundamental Attribution Error
Beck's Cognitive Therapy
Arbitrary Inference
Arbitrary inference involves making conclusions without sufficient...
Self-Presentation: Self-Monitoring and Self-Handicapping
Attribution Theory
Self-Evaluation: Self-Enhancement and Self-Verification
Bonanno's Theory of Grieving
Resilience

