You Didn't Do Anything Wrong: Conquering a 'Just World' Fallacy

I sat in my van with tears. "What did I do wrong?" Logically, I knew the answer was nothing. There is not a thing that I did that caused my loved one to have cancer. Yet, guilt flowed through my veins. It just felt true.

I took a breath and a sip of tea. I recognized my strong wish for control in a situation where I felt powerless and refocused on what was realistically within my grasp.

Accountability: Too Much of a Good Thing

Looking inward after something unfortunate happens in normal. Sometimes, we can identify a mistake and learn from it. Indeed, taking accountability is a sign of an internal locus of control, a trait linked to resilience in areas as diverse as academic achievement (Arseni et al., 2023) and recovery after intimate partner violence (Hasselle et al., 2023).

Yet, when we are going through an ongoing stressor like a serious illness, loss of a loved one, or trauma associated with military services or occupation in health or social services, the winds of reflection can turn into something sinister. We can fall into an absurd belief that we are somehow accountable for all things and that if we had made the right choices, all suffering would be avoidable. Without a time machine, there is no way to know if this is true, but further, the line of thinking falls into a logical fallacy, that of the "just world."

Just World Fallacy

A just world fallacy is the implicit idea that the world is fair. The assumption is that good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people (Humbyrd, 2021). Hence, according to the fallacy, if something bad happens to us, we must have done something to have caused it.

Schools, workplaces, and society often encourage this with celebrations of achievement and messaging that if you work hard enough, you can be successful. Similarly, crimes are assigned penalties by our justice system.

All this is good and well until it's not.

Not everything falls within our reign. If we lived in a fair world, there would be no need for children's hospitals.

Rather than spurring growth, as with healthy accountability, a just world fallacy can drive unwarranted guilt and magnify our suffering during hard times.

An excessive sense of accountability usually underlies a core desire for control in a situation wherein we feel powerless. Being able to separate what is and is not within our jurisdiction is essential for healthy coping.

What Can You Do?

Strategies for coping with tough times can include acknowledging our emotions, showing ourselves kindness, and channeling our pain into something we find meaningful.

In cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), challenging faulty thinking, like that in the just world fallacy, is central. CBT-based trauma therapies, such as cognitive processing therapy, routinely introduce the concept of this fallacy as a means of uprooting it.

For those trapped by a persistent sense of guilt, psychotherapy can be quite freeing.

To find a therapist, please visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.