Psychology7 papers
Measuring the unmeasurable: Psychometric tools for Existential Concerns
Key psychometric instruments for measuring existential concerns: meaning in life, existential isolation, and existential anxiety.
ES
Evgeny Smirnov
All Reviews
PsychologyMust Read
intermediate
Existential Concerns Arising From a Threat to the Belief in a Just World: A Mixed-Methods Study
Evgeny Smirnov & Maria Makarova (2025)
- Published
- Mar 18, 2025
- Journal
- Journal of Humanistic Psychology
- DOI
- 10.1177/00221678251322250
At a GlanceAI
Threats to belief in a just world are linked to higher existential anxiety, shown via interviews and survey comparisons in Russians.
SummaryAI
This study connects threats to belief in a just world with heightened existential concerns, framing injustice experiences as triggers of existential anxiety. Using in-depth interviews with people who perceived events as unjust, the authors identify themes of existential problems becoming salient after such experiences. A follow-up quantitative comparison across groups with different coping strategies for critical events finds higher existential anxiety among those facing threats to their just-world belief, with medium-to-large group differences. The work positions just-world threat as a psychologically meaningful pathway to existential distress, relevant for research and practice on coping with injustice.
Method SnapshotAI
Mixed-methods design combining qualitative in-depth interviews with a quantitative survey using standardized scales.
BackgroundAI
Basic knowledge of belief in a just world, existential anxiety/concerns, and mixed-methods research in psychology.
In Collections
Psychology41 papers
The Belief in a Just World
In this collection I gather (mostly) psychological studies devoted to people’s fundamental belief that the world is just. This construct, it seems to me, quite strongly affects our perception of the world and, importantly, our reaction to ongoing events — especially when we start blaming others, guided implicitly by precisely this motive. The collection includes both curated works, which at some point I read carefully and can say something sensible about, and new works being published on the topic.
ES
Evgeny Smirnov
Many people believe that the existential concerns are givens of the existence. However, it could be the case that they are triggered by other fundamental beliefs, such as a belief in a just world.
— ES