The Association Between Discrepancies in Belief in a Just World, the Dark Triad, and Prosocial Behavior Among Chinese Adolescents: A Response Surface Analysis

BACKGROUND: Belief in a just world reflects individuals' fundamental assumptions about fairness and has been widely linked to adolescents' prosocial behavior. However, personal and general belief in a just world do not always align, and little is known about how their discrepancy relates to prosocial behavior, particularly in collectivistic cultural contexts. Moreover, selfish motivational tendencies represented by the Dark Triad may interact with just-world beliefs in shaping adolescents' prosocial behavior, yet this joint effect remains insufficiently understood. METHOD: = 15.99, SD = 0.85) collected over a 6-month interval, this study applied polynomial regression and response surface analysis to examine how the discrepancy between personal and general belief in a just world relates to subsequent prosocial behavior and how this association varies across levels of Dark Triad traits. RESULTS: The results showed that greater discrepancy between the two beliefs was associated with lower prosocial behavior. Importantly, this pattern emerged only among adolescents with low levels of Dark Triad traits. For adolescents with high Dark Triad traits, prosocial behavior was unrelated to the discrepancy between personal and general belief in a just world, suggesting that their prosocial actions are driven primarily by instrumental or self-interested motives. CONCLUSION: These findings highlight the importance of considering belief in a just world discrepancy in understanding adolescents' prosocial behavior within a collectivistic context and underscore the interactive role of justice-related beliefs and dispositional motivational orientations in prosocial development.