Just-World Hypothesis
Just-World Fallacy
The cognitive bias that a person's actions are inherently inclined to bring morally fair and fitting consequences to that person, to the end of all noble actions being eventually rewarded and all evil actions eventually punished. In other words, the tendency to attribute consequences to a universal force that restores moral balance.
Origin
Canadian psychologist Melvin J. Lerner (born 1929) first identified and named the hypothesis in a 1965 article in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Lerner's inquiry, extending Stanley Milgram's obedience work, sought to understand how regimes maintain popular support despite causing suffering. During clinical training, he repeatedly witnessed kindhearted practitioners blaming mentally ill patients for their suffering. In a 1965 study, Lerner found subjects told a student won a cash prize tended to believe the student worked harder than a student who lost.