Do you believe in karma?

[WORLD] Many people hold a strong belief in karma—the notion that good deeds are rewarded and bad actions are punished. A recent Canadian study, published in the journal Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, delves into this belief system, uncovering how interpretations of karmic consequences differ depending on whether individuals are reflecting on their own experiences or those of others.

Led by Associate Professor Cindel White from York University's Department of Psychology, the research team set out to explore the psychological and cultural nuances behind people's belief in karma.

To understand these findings within a broader context, it's important to consider karma’s origins. Rooted in ancient Indian religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, karma traditionally refers to the cumulative effect of a person's actions across lifetimes, shaping their future. In Western popular culture, however, the concept often appears in a more distilled form: good deeds bring good outcomes, while bad deeds lead to misfortune.

The study posits that people’s sense of justice plays a critical role in shaping these beliefs. Individuals are more inclined to see their own successes as deserved outcomes of their virtuous behavior, while attributing others’ hardships to moral failings. This dual perspective bolsters self-esteem while reinforcing a worldview in which moral order prevails.

To test this theory, researchers conducted a series of experiments involving over 2,000 participants. The first experiment asked 478 American participants who believe in karma to describe a karmic event—either personal or experienced by someone else. An overwhelming 86% chose to recount a personal event, with 59% describing a positive outcome they linked to a good deed. By contrast, among those who discussed someone else’s experience, 92% described a negative event.

A second, larger experiment included more than 1,200 participants from the United States, India, and Singapore. They too were asked to share a personal karmic event or one experienced by another person. The cultural dimension revealed intriguing differences: while 69% of self-related accounts depicted positive outcomes, only 18% of stories about others did the same. Participants also used more positive language when discussing their own experiences.

These patterns were less pronounced in India and Singapore, suggesting a reduced self-positivity bias in more collectivist cultures. In contrast to the individualistic emphasis on personal achievement seen in Western societies, collectivist cultures prioritize group harmony, which appears to temper the self-serving interpretation of karmic events.

“The positive bias in karmic self-perceptions is a bit weaker in the Indian and Singaporean samples compared with U.S. samples, but across all countries, participants were much more likely to say that other people face karmic punishments while they receive karmic rewards,” White noted in a press statement.

Beyond experimental findings, the study also explored the psychological mechanisms at play. Drawing on cognitive dissonance theory, researchers examined how people maintain a consistent and flattering self-image. When good things happen, they’re more likely to credit their own virtues; when bad things happen to others, they often see it as just retribution—maintaining a sense of justice in an unpredictable world.

White argues that karma functions not just as a belief, but as a psychological strategy. “Thinking about karma allows people to take personal credit and feel pride in good things that happen to them even when it isn’t clear exactly what they did to create the good outcome,” she said. “But it also allows people to see other people’s suffering as justified retribution.”

This dual function serves multiple psychological motives: it reaffirms one’s sense of virtue and deservingness, while validating a belief in cosmic justice. As White explains, “Supernatural beliefs like karma might be especially good at satisfying these motives when other, more secular explanations fail.”

Yet while karma can be comforting, it may also reflect and reinforce personal biases. By interpreting their own happiness as earned and others’ suffering as deserved, people may foster a reassuring but oversimplified view of a world that is often governed by randomness.

In the end, the belief in karma may reveal more about human psychology than about the universe itself—illustrating our deep-seated desire for fairness, control, and moral order in a world where outcomes are not always just.