Abstract: Abstract Belief in a just world (BJW), proposed by Lerner and Simon, refers to the idea that people are motivated to believe that they live in a just world where everyone gets what they deserve and deserves what they get. Belief in a just world provides people with alternative strategies for coping with challenges and critical life events and it had been widely used to explain individuals’ emotional adjustment and mental health. Ample research has been done and showed strong correlations between BJW and constructs, such as, depression, life satisfaction, forgiveness, and optimism. Research also revealed that belief in a just world promotes just actions. The function of BJW is based on the “personal contract” between individuals and their social environment, by which people believe that they get deserved repayment from others for their just behaviors. On the one hand, the perception of being treated justly by others may enhance levels of gratitude attributing benefits to other people. And gratitude, as the literature suggests, may further be associated with lower levels of depression. On the other hand, the consistency between individuals’ just actions and the social contract may bring more positive evaluations towards themselves. In addition, many studies have showed that high self-esteem protects people from depressive disorders. The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotion also suggests that positive emotions can broaden people’s momentary thought and build their personal resources. It implies that gratitude, as a positive moral affect, may positively predict self-esteem which can been seen as a personal psychological resource. Thus, the present research hypothesized that BJW would be correlated with depression, and both gratitude and self-esteem, would play important mediating roles in the relationship between BJW and depression. To investigate the relationship between belief in a just world and depression, as well as its underlying mechanism, a sample of 1049 high school students were recruited for the study. They were required to complete a battery of questionnaires, including Belief in a Just World Questionnaire, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, the Gratitude Questionnaire as well as the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale. Date were collected and analyzed with SPSS 22.0, and the bias-corrected percentile Bootstrap method was used to analyze the serial mediating roles of gratitude and self-esteem between BJW and depression. The results indicated: (1) the correlations between each pair of BJW, gratitude and self-esteem were significantly positive, but BJW, gratitude and self-esteem were negatively correlated with depression. BJW had no direct effect on depression, but BJW significantly predicted gratitude and self-esteem; gratitude significantly predicted self-esteem; both gratitude and self-esteem significantly predicted depression. (2) The effect of BJW on adolescents’ depression was explained by three indirect paths: the simple mediating role of gratitude, self-esteem, respectively, and the serial mediating role of both gratitude and self-esteem. In sum, these findings highlight the complexed mechanism underlying the relationship between BJW and depression. Belief in a just world predicts adolescent depression through mediating roles of gratitude and self-esteem. Individuals who have a strong dispositional belief in a just world would maintain higher gratitude and self-esteem, but finally have lower level of depression.

Key words: belief in a just world, gratitude, self-esteem, depression, mediating role

摘要： 摘 要 为探讨青少年公正世界信念与抑郁的关系，以及感恩和自尊在二者关系中的作用机制，采用公正世界信念问卷(BJW)、感恩问卷(GQ-6)、自尊量表(SES)和流调中心用抑郁量表(CES-D)对1049名高中学生进行调查。结果发现：(1)青少年公正世界信念、感恩和自尊两两之间呈显著正相关，且三者均与抑郁呈显著负相关。(2)青少年公正世界信念通过感恩和自尊的中介作用对抑郁产生影响，且该中介效应包含了三条中介路径——感恩的简单中介效应，自尊的简单中介效应，以及感恩→自尊的链式中介作用。研究结果揭示了青少年公正世界信念对抑郁产生影响的内部心理机制，为引导青少年更好地利用公正世界信念提升感恩和自尊的水平以及更好地促进心理健康发展提供了有益建议。

关键词: 公正世界信念, 感恩, 自尊, 抑郁, 中介作用