The empowering function of the belief in a just world for the self in mental health: A comparison of prisoners and non-prisoners

Highlights

• Study focused on BJW-self, empowerment, and adaptive function

• Variables were compared between prisoners and non-prisoners.

• BJW-self was associated with empowerment and adaptive psychological functioning.

• Associations were the same for prisoners and non-prisoners.

• Prisoners, however, reported higher levels of psychological distress and resilience.

Abstract

The intersection of societal and psychological justice—people's reaction to corrective justice within the criminal justice system—provides a unique opportunity to understand more about how one's perception of justice relates to adaptive psychological functioning. In this study we explore the associations between the belief in a just world for the self (BJW-self), power, wellbeing, optimism, resilience, and psychological distress to establish whether the empowering effect of BJW-self functions to promote mental health similarly for prisoners and non-prisoners alike. Data was collected from a sample of female prisoners (n = 72) and a gender-, age-, and ethnicity-matched sample from the general population (n = 80). Path analysis indicated similar associations between BJW-self, power, and mental health for both prisoners and non-prisoners. Prisoners reported higher levels of psychological distress, but also higher levels of resilience compared to non-prisoners. The implications of our findings for the application of justice motive theory to those in incarceration and insight into the measurement of mental health in prisons is discussed.

Introduction

Being incarcerated is one of the most severe measures of societal justice. The individual likely experiences disempowerment as limits are placed on their autonomy and freedom. Regardless of whether compounding experiences of disempowerment led them into the criminal justice system, or whether the system itself disempowers, prisoners tend to suffer disproportionately from a range of mental health issues and higher rates of psychotic disorders relative to non-prison populations (Fazel & Seewald, 2012). Thus, prisoners are in need of internal psychological resources that promote positive mental health and adaptive functioning. To this end, we test the extent to which a global beliefs system pertaining to justice—specifically, the belief in a just world (BJW)—may function to buffer the negative effects of incarceration. As we discuss shortly, believing in a just world for the self is empowering, which in turn encourages improved psychological functioning—even, we hypothesize, amongst individuals who are objectively lacking in power.

Incarceration is a stressful and isolating life event with sometimes extreme ramifications for the individual's mental health. Those with a history of incarceration are at greater risk of developing severe depression, reporting greater life dissatisfaction, and developing mood disorders compared to the general population (see Yi et al., 2017 for a review); one in seven prisoners suffers from major depression or psychosis (Fazel & Seewald, 2012). Additionally, there are high rates of comorbidity between mental health issues and substance abuse, which in turn increases the likelihood of repeat offending and premature mortality post-release (Fazel & Seewald, 2012; Yi et al., 2017). Prison-level characteristics, such as overcrowding and punitiveness, as well as prisoner-level characteristics, such as length of time in prison and number of prison sentences served, are associated with depressive symptomology and hostility (Edgemon & Clay-Warner, 2019; Porter & DeMarco, 2019). These mental health issues are generally worse for female prisoners than male prisoners (see Fazel et al., 2016 for a review), with women displaying higher tendencies to self-harm and suicide (Bartlett & Hollins, 2018).

Research also suggests that increased psychological resources assist prisoners to cope with incarceration. Prisoners reporting increased levels of optimism also report less physical health concerns during their incarceration (Heigel et al., 2010) and increased levels of resilience negatively predicts symptoms of depression and anxiety (Sygit-Kowalkowska et al., 2017). Evidence from a recent intervention suggests that psychological skills training results in improved outcomes for prisoners during their incarceration (Lo et al., 2020).

Although personal and vicarious experience shows that life is full of random events, justice motive theory suggests that people, for the sake of their own sanity, cannot accept the notion that events in their lives are random (Lerner & Simmons, 1966). Individuals therefore project order onto their lives and preconsciously believe a link exists between effort and outcome. This belief is commonly referred to as the belief in a just world (BJW) and is highly adaptive as it enables people to confront the world as if it were a stable and orderly place (Lerner & Miller, 1978). Because of the utility of this belief, people are highly motivated to defend against any suggestion—whether it be in their own experience or in witnessing the experience of others—that the world is arbitrary or random. The tenets of justice motive theory stem from the idea of the ‘personal contract’. In this contract, one makes a deal with the self to forgo immediate gratification of desires in order to secure greater long-term rewards. Lerner et al. (1976) suggest that the contract develops early in life as children search for ways to achieve their goals and begin to codify the contingencies between effort and outcome. Over time, experience reinforces the personal contract insofar as, most of the time, concerted effort towards achieving one's goal is met with a fair and equitable reward.

Researchers treat BJW as a function of situations, often manipulating threats to BJW (see Hafer & Bègue, 2005 for a review), and as a belief system that varies between individuals (for a review see Hafer & Sutton, 2016). Notably, when BJW is measured at the trait level there are markedly different outcomes associated with the application of justice principles to oneself (BJW-self) compared with the application of those principles to others (BJW-other). While BJW-other is associated with harsh social attitudes and punitive measures for wrongdoing (Hafer & Sutton, 2016), BJW-self is generally associated with increased levels of wellbeing, prosocial behaviour, and the ability to cope with difficult life circumstances (see Bartholomaeus & Strelan, 2019 for a review). As mental health related outcomes are by definition self-focused the current study centred on the role of BJW-self.

Recent research suggests that BJW-self acts to maintain positive mental health through the function of empowerment (Bartholomaeus & Strelan, 2019). As the endorsement of BJW-self provides a framework to understand the cause-and-effect of random events it naturally leads to a feeling that one understands the antecedents of life events, and therefore, an inflated sense of control over those events. This mechanism contributes to a sense of feeling empowered in everyday life. The experience of power is linked with the functioning of the behavioural activation system (BAS; Keltner et al., 2003). BAS functioning is marked by an increased positive responsiveness to rewards, an increased drive to pursue goals, and reward-seeking behaviour (Carver & White, 1994). Through the empowerment function, BJW-self causes increased positive and decreased negative affect (Bartholomaeus et al., under review), and is associated with a range of indices of adaptive functioning including increased wellbeing, optimism, and resilience, and decrease depression, anxiety, and stress (Bartholomaeus et al., unpublished manuscript).

Several studies have demonstrated the adaptive nature of BJW-self in prison populations. For a sample of young male German prisoners BJW-self was associated with less anger, more confidence in achieving their future goals, rating their legal proceedings as more just, and feeling increased guilt over their actions (Otto & Dalbert, 2005). Adult male prisoners with a higher endorsement of BJW-self experienced decreased anger arousal and expression, were more likely to evaluate their legal proceedings as just, and rated correctional officer's behaviour towards them and prison decisions as more just (Dalbert & Filke, 2007). Further, prisoners with a strong BJW-self are more altruistic (Gummerum & Hanoch, 2012) and are less likely to feel hopeless and attempt non-suicidal self-harm in the wake of negative life events (Gu et al., 2020).

Taken together, these findings suggest that BJW-self is adaptive for prisoners. It appears that the endorsement of BJW-self, and therefore, the tendency to view one's own life through the lens of justice, enables prisoners to see their incarceration as a correct and natural consequence of their actions. While the experience of being incarcerated may be subjectively bad, they can accept that objectively their world is functioning as it should, in accordance with the laws of justice. This view of their circumstances may allow prisoners to cope with the stressors of incarceration, therefore leading to improved outcomes.

While the studies outlined above provide insight into the benefits of BJW-self amongst prisoners, none of them focus on important mental health outcomes, which previous research suggests are typically poor amongst prisoners. Specifically, measures of wellbeing and psychological distress provide a comprehensive indication of the individual's mental health (Keyes, 2005). Additionally, optimism and resilience lead to improved outcomes for prisoners. Therefore, these four outcomes were employed as indicators of adaptive psychological functioning. As BJW-self has been shown to benefit prisoners and given that it is associated with an increased sense of power and adaptive psychological functioning in the general population, we hypothesize that it will be associated with a sense of power and indices of adaptive functioning in prisoners, despite their objectively disempowering situation. In this study, we investigate the differences between prisoners and non-prisoners in their endorsement of BJW-self, levels of power, wellbeing, optimism, resilience, and psychological distress. Further, we conduct a path analysis to establish whether the empowering function of BJW-self leads to adaptive functioning for prisoners and non-prisoners alike.