The Role of Just World Belief in the Relationship between Empathy and Moral Courage

This study aimed to examine the relationship between empathy and moral courage and whether the belief in a just world has a moderating role in this relationship. For this purpose, the study was conducted with 270 participants aged between 18 and 37 (Mage = 21.61, SD = 2.43; 70.7% female). Demographic Information Form, Moral Courage Scale, Basic Empathy Scale, Personal Just World Belief, and General Just World Belief scales were used in the study. The data were analyzed using the SPSS Hayes Process Macro plug-in. The analysis showed that empathy was significantly positively related to moral courage. In addition, the moderating roles of personal and general just world beliefs in the relationship between empathy and moral courage were examined with two separate moderating variable analyses. According to the results of the analysis, it was found that personal just world beliefs played a moderating role in the relationship between empathy and moral courage. Accordingly, as the level of personal just world belief increases, the effect of empathy on moral courage decreases. In conclusion, the findings provide a new perspective to understanding the dynamics of moral courage, which is a costly and risky prosocial behavior. In addition, the results also reveal that individuals' just world belief levels should be taken into account to increase the effectiveness of empathy-based intervention programs.