Carolyn Hafer

Carolyn Hafer is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at Brock University, where she conducts foundational research in social psychology of justice. She earned her Ph.D. from Western University and maintains an active research program focused on how individuals perceive and respond to fairness in social contexts.

Her educational background includes:

• Ph.D. from Western University

Professor Hafer's research centers on the belief in a just world (BJW)—the psychological need to perceive the world as fair where people receive deserved outcomes. She investigates BJW's implications for reactions to innocent victims, responses to personal misfortune, and the functional role of this belief in daily life. Her work demonstrates that it is specifically the injustice of undeserved suffering (not negative outcomes generally) that triggers defensive responses. She has pioneered research on scope of justice (the boundary within which justice principles apply), revealing a curvilinear relationship between target similarity and justice importance, and has expanded analysis to alternative coping strategies beyond victim blame.

Her publication record from 2003-2011 shows consistent theoretical and empirical contributions to justice psychology. Hafer's work, appearing in top journals like Psychological Bulletin and Social Justice Research, examines how BJW operates across contexts—from everyday undeserved outcomes to extreme harm—using experimental methods to uncover predictors of defensive responses. Key trends include the role of repressive coping styles, the interplay between distributive/procedural justice, and the psychological mechanisms underlying moral exclusion.