engleski

Just-World Beliefs and Construction of Academic and Career Prospects in Croatian Students

Based on the assumption that the Belief in a Just World (BJW) reflects a schema of an ordered and meaningful world that contributes to one’ s sense of security, invulnerability and confidence in that one’ s efforts will be rewarded in the future, the study that will be reported in this paper was aimed to explore the relationship between the BJW and an optimistic outlook regarding one’ s academic and career prospects. A questionnaire package containing measures of the general and personal BJW, belief in an unjust world (BUW) and a set of questions concerning academic and employment outcomes for self and others was administered in the group of students at the University of Zadar. The results showed that the participants tend to perceive their own academic and career prospects in a more positive light than those of their peers, and that the perception of one’ s own prospects was related to the BJW. Specifically, the more the students endorsed the personal BJW and the less they endorsed the BUW, the more confident they were that they would complete the current academic year and their degree successfully, and that they would find an adequate job in a relatively short time after graduation. The overall pattern of the results is in line with the assumed adaptive functioning of the BJW in endowing the individuals with the confidence that they will get what they deserve and thus be able to attain their personal goals.

Just-World Beliefs; Academic Prospects; Employment

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