Question

While visiting the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp shortly after World War II, one German civilian is said to have remarked, "What terrible criminals these prisoners must have been to receive such treatment." This reaction is best explained in terms of:_____________

Answer 1

Answer:

The just-world phenomenon.

Explanation:

In psychology, the just-world phenomenon refers to a fallacy where someone assumes that something that happened to somebody else (whether good or bad) happened because they deserved it. In other words, this view stems from a misconception that the world is fair or just, and that everybody is just getting what's coming to them. This just-world theory is often used to rationalize any kind of heinous acts, such as torture, murder, genocide, etc., essentially blaming the victim. In this case, the horrors of the Holocaust were rationalized by the German civilian as something that its victims deserved. In that person's mind, a punishment of such magnitude had to be proportional to  the magnitude of the victims' crimes. This is an example of the just-world phenomenon.