Further Evidence for the Latent Structure and Relationship Between Belief in a Just World and Subjective Well-Being: A Commentary on the Latent Factor Approach by Hafer et al. (2020)

Abstract Just-world research frequently indicates a relatively strong and positive relation between belief in a just world (BJW) and subjective well-being (SWB). Researchers argue that BJW provides people with beneficial, adaptive functions allowing them to sustain mental health and well-being. Furthermore, BJW is often divided into two dimensions (personal and general BJW) which are usually positively related to each other but also differently to SBW. Hafer et al., Social Justice Research proposed a latent factor approach to investigate the extent to which a common latent factor ‘BJW’ relates stronger to well-being than personal or general BJW. Building upon the approach of Hafer et al., Social Justice Research we propose a second-order-factor approach including first-order factors measured at the latent level using structural equation modeling. We analyzed this approach with two culturally different samples consisting of N = 482 German participants and N = 569 Iranian participants. Our results indicated strong positive relations between the latent second-order factors BJW and SWB and conceptually replicated the results of Hafer et al., Social Justice Research by using an approach that accounts for the measurement errors in the first- and second-order factors. Our findings support the assumptions of Hafer et al., Social Justice Research and the measurement of first- and second-order factors at the latent level and provide possible implications for just-world research.