Abstract

We need to believe that we live in a just world, to live unfair events threat that belief and generates negative emotions identified as relative deprivation (Lerner, 1980, Lerner, 2003). These emotions motívate us to defend our belief in just world and nine strategies have been identified for that. This project aims to measure six of them and analyze their palliative function in front of relative deprivation. 337 University students participated. They read a vignette telling about a student demonstration after being rejected from University, then answered a measure of negative emotions generated for the vignette. The instrument of belief in a just world shows five dimensions consistent with the six strategies. The correlations between times participants were rejected from university and negative emotions generated by the vignette are positive but low in the total sample. Dividing the sample into high and low on strategies, correlations are greater in the group of low scores and there are not significant correlations in the group with high scores, confirming its palliative function in front of relative deprivation. Utility of model strategies are discussed with respect to the unidimensional and the implications of its palliative function relationships between groups of different status.