Just-world fallacy
Etymology
From "just" (Latin "justus," righteous) and "world," with "fallacy" (Latin "fallere," to deceive) marking it as a flaw in reasoning. The idea was developed experimentally by the psychologist Melvin Lerner in the 1960s, who showed how readily people derogate innocent victims to preserve their faith in fairness.
noun phrase · /just-WURLD FAL-uh-see/
The mistaken belief that people generally get what they deserve, so misfortune must be earned.
What it names
The reasoning error behind victim-blaming — the comforting assumption that the world is fair, which distorts how we judge those who suffer.
Example
The just-world fallacy whispered that the laid-off workers must have slacked off, sparing everyone the fear that it could happen to them.
Related idea
Framed as the just-world fallacy, it is a reasoning error; framed as the just-world hypothesis, it is the underlying belief that people study as a cognitive bias — the same idea named either as a mistake to avoid or a tendency to observe.