Most people set out in life wanting to believe the world is fair. They expect people to wait their turn in queues, to be treated equally in their job, and to be rewarded for hard work. These expectations influence how they understand the world around them, and shape their responses to it.
But what happens when life repeatedly challenges those assumptions? Psychologists have long been interested in this question. Our new research, published in the British Journal of Psychology, suggests adverse experiences shape both how fair people believe the world is, and how they view their place in society.
Over the course of a lifetime, personal setbacks – from illness and bereavement to being a victim of crime – may have a cumulative effect, leading to a growing sense that the world is unfair. We think this is important in the context of today’s increasingly polarised societies, in which trust in institutions has declined severely in the UK and many other countries.
Adversity and unfairness
Our research set out to answer two key questions: do experiences of adversity influence whether people see the world as fundamentally unfair – and if so, what are the societal consequences? We conducted three surveys involving more than 1,200 British participants with an equal gender split and average age of 39.
In one study, we found that people who reported experiencing more lifetime adversity – including illness, bereavement, financial hardship and violence – were more likely to believe the world was unfair.
In another, we compared people who had experienced violent victimisation with those who had not. After accounting for demographic factors, people who had experienced violent crime reported stronger perceptions of injustice.
Our final study found that greater lifetime adversity was associated with lower trust in institutions through perceptions of injustice. This is important because trust underpins many aspects of society, from confidence in public institutions to democratic participation.
Together, these findings suggest that people don’t simply interpret information based on the facts available to them. They also interpret it through the lens of their previous experiences.
Two people can read the same news story, watch the same political debate or hear the same public health advice, yet come away with very different conclusions that may not simply reflect differences in knowledge or politics. It may also reflect differences in how they have come to see the world as a result of the hardships they have faced.
Furthermore, if someone increasingly believes that the world is unfair, they may be more likely to notice fresh examples of perceived injustice, corruption or hidden motives – and interpret new events through that lens.
Belief in conspiracy theories
Previous research has shown that people who feel uncertain, powerless or threatened are often more likely to endorse conspiracy theories. Most of this work, however, has focused on their identities, traits and beliefs.
In our investigation of the impact of adverse life experiences on people, we found a remarkably consistent pattern. When these hardships are associated with stronger perceptions of injustice in the world, the same people more strongly endorse conspiracy beliefs.
Conspiracy theories rarely describe events as random. Instead, they tend to suggest that powerful individuals or organisations are secretly responsible for what happens. They offer explanations that identify intentional causes behind events that might otherwise seem confusing or unjust.
Research suggests that across societies, the level of belief in conspiracy theories is relatively stable over time. But once these beliefs become part of how someone understands the world, they can be difficult to shift.
This makes it all the more important to understand the experiences and psychological processes that may contribute to these worldviews developing in the first place. Our findings suggest that perceptions of injustice are one such pathway.
For someone who increasingly feels the world is unfair, conspiracy theories may become more psychologically appealing – providing a way of making sense of experiences that otherwise feel difficult to understand.
Our research does not suggest that adversity inevitably leads to conspiracy beliefs; nor that conspiracy theories are an inevitable consequence of trauma. Rather, it highlights a long-term psychological process that may help explain why some people become more receptive to these ideas.
In an increasingly polarised world, the media and political focus is often concentrated on what information people consume. But our research suggests we should pay more attention to the experiences that shape the lens through which people interpret information. This could help explain why people can look at the same events and reach very different conclusions.
Ultimately, people’s experiences don’t just affect them in the moment. They shape their worldview – which can influence how they interpret and respond to events and other people’s behaviour far into the future.
So, we believe any effort to reach greater consensus in society may require a deeper understanding of the hardships people have lived through over the course of their lives – and how these can affect their sense of injustice.
