Gender and Age Invariance of the Global Belief in a Just World Scale

Abstract: Belief in a Just World (BJW) underscores the psychological inclination of individuals to view the world as just, where outcomes typically correspond with one’s actions and behaviors. Despite the widespread application of the Global Belief in a Just World Scale (GBJWS) in the social sciences as a measure for the BJW construct, there remains an insufficient exploration of its measurement invariance across age and gender, especially among Chinese working adults. This study aims to fill this gap by using multigroup confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA) for gender invariance and local structural equation modeling for age invariance assessment. Statistics analyses with 2,128 participants confirmed configural, metric, and scalar invariance for gender, with latent mean comparisons revealing no significant gender differences in BJW. However, age invariance did not reach scalar invariance, suggesting caution in utilizing the one-factor structure of the GBJWS for age-related research. This investigation offers a deeper understanding of the GBJWS’s validity and responds to the pressing call for research on the scale’s applicability across diverse demographic contexts.