Injustice in harm and loss

The major topics of this overview article are as follow: (i) A distinction is made between justice and deservedness. Suffered harm and loss may be judged undeserved with respect to the victim's prior behavior, prior life, and personality without the implication that a victimizer is identified who acted unjustly. (ii) The perception of injustice is outlined as a subjective construction that has two major components: The subject selects and applies one of several rules or principles of justice applicable to the case and the subject is attributing responsibility to an agent or agency who is not the victim himself or herself. It is argued that in every case there are several options for the selection of a rule of justice and for the attribution of responsibility. (iii) Several so-called risk factors of critical life events as unforeseeability, uncontrollability of events, and nonnormativeness of events are reinterpreted as factors relevant in the subjective construction of injustice. (iv) Several coping strategies reported in the literature on critical life events such as palliative comparisons, self-blame, or search for meaning are interpreted as efforts to avoid feelings of injustice. (v) On the basis of empirical data a closer look is taken on self-blame which, psychologically, is a heterogeneous construct. The effects of self-blame depend on its function: When used strategically as a means to avoid feelings of uncontrollability of one's fate or to reduce feelings of hostility toward a victimizer, it may have adaptive functions. When imposed by the subjective view of the facts it may result in feelings of guilt, shame, or anger about an avoidable mistake, feelings that are not adaptive but rather add to the negative balance caused by the primary loss or harm. (vi) Concerning search for meaning, a distinction is proposed between (a) grasping the meaning in the sense of understanding motives, goals, and reasons of the victimizer and (b) discovering and construing some gains in the consequences of a victimization, gains which may be material, social, experiential, self- and personality-related, or developmental. While finding meaning of the second kind improves the loss-gain balance and tends to reduce the perceived injustice the first kind of grasping meaning may sometimes result in intensifying feelings of injustice, especially when motives, goals, and reasons of the victimizer are considered as selfish, malevolent, or uncaring. The article ends with a discussion of the ambivalence of a victim's status which establishes some entitlements for compensation and care but also bears the risk of secondary victimization by negative social reactions.