Social distancing from innocent victims by spatial distality.

Drawing on just-world theory and theories of psychological distance, we tested the idea that people respond to injustice by symbolically distancing themselves from innocent victims. Across 12 studies using varied victimization contexts and spatial arrangement methods, we examined whether perceived injustice motivates people to place victims further from the self in visual space based on perceived value or personality similarity. Participants distanced themselves from victims receiving unjust (vs