© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2012 DOI: 10.1163/15736121-12341246 Archive for the Psychology of Religion 34 (2012) 397-409 brill.com/arp Belief in a Just World, Religiosity and Victim Blaming Hasan Kaplan Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Faculty of heology, Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Canakkale, Turkey E-mail: htkaplan@gmail.com Received: 24 March 2012; revised: 3 May 2012; accepted: 8 August 2012 Summary his study investigates the relations between “Belief in a Just World” (BJW), religiosity and vic- tim-blaming attitudes. In particular, the inluence of BJW and religiosity on social attitudes is probed. Recent theoretical and psychometric developments in the BJW construct are considered. hus, 176 Turkish subjects completed measures for BJW-Self (BJW-S)/BJW-Other (BJW-O), “Belief in Immanent/Ultimate Justice,” attitudes towards the poor, and religiosity. Results show that Belief in Ultimate Justice and BJW-S are uniquely related to religiosity. As hypothesized, BJW-O and Belief in Immanent Justice are strongly related to harsh attitudes towards the poor. However, contrary to our expectation, results do not indicate a positive link between religiosity and negative attitudes towards the poor. Study indings also provide strong cross-cultural support for the conceptual and psychometric revisions of the Just-World construct (BJW-S/BJW-O and Immanent/Ultimate Justice). Keywords just world beliefs, religiosity, victim blaming Introduction Victim blaming is a denigrating act that occurs when the victim(s) of a misfor- tune, crime or accident is held responsible for the injurious consequences that he/she experiences. Blame can be voiced either as a negative social response from legal, medical, and mental health professionals or by reactions from the media, immediate family members and other acquaintances. Victims are often scrutinized closely: who were they with, what were they wearing, or what did they do to provoke the violent act. Such inger-pointing usually leads to secondary victimization (Brickman, Rabinowitz, Kazura, Coatis, Cohn,