Just-World Hypothesis

Just-world hypothesis, also known as just-world fallacy, is the belief that people get what they deserve since life is fair. This is a cognitive bias since it suggests that people who are suffering deserve such unfortunate fate.

For instance, victims may be devalued or even further badly treated because they must have done something wrong to be in such a predicament in the first place. Social experiments revealed that when the participants could not help nor compensate victims of injustice, they may react defensively by rationalizing that the victims must have deserved it since everything happens for a reason.