January 26, 2026 – Thought-patterns that one’s suffering is unjust and irreparable, known as perceived injustice, can intensify and sustain symptoms of trauma over time, according to a significant new study conducted in the months following the October 7 Hamas attack and subsequent war by researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU).   

The researchers recruited almost 1,700 Israeli participants three months after the attack, with over 600 completing follow-up assessments six months later, as reported in the Journal of Affective Disorders. Participants reported their levels of exposure and proximity to the traumatic events, traumatic symptoms, perceptions of injustice, and emotional distress symptoms, namely depression, anxiety, and anger. The longitudinal study was led by Dr. Gadi Gilam, head of the HU translational Social, Cognitive, and Affective Neuroscience (tSCAN) lab at the Institute of Biomedical and Oral Research, Faculty of Dental Medicine, together with tSCAN lab graduate students Yuval Mor-Elzas and Sarit Kubichek. 

As individuals perceived and experienced their suffering as more unfair and irreparable, they reported higher levels of traumatic stress symptoms. Importantly, perceived injustice predicted future severity of traumatic symptoms even after accounting for levels of exposure and proximity to the traumatic events and for emotional distress symptoms, indicating that it represents a unique and powerful psychological factor in how people respond to and cope with chronic exposure to stress and trauma. 

“In the aftermath of trauma, we often focus on emotions like fear or sadness. Our findings demonstrate that a sense of unfairness can be just as damaging, if not more so,” says Dr. Gilam. “When people believe that what happened to them or to others was particularly unjust and cannot be amended, it can prolong suffering and make it harder to heal.” 

The study also revealed that anger levels increased significantly between January and July 2024, while the levels of traumatic symptoms, perceptions of injustice, depression, and anxiety all remained stable. According to Dr. Gilam, this stability underscores how perceived injustice may serve as a persistent cognitive prism, shaping how survivors interpret ongoing events and their emotional aftermath. Indeed, anger is the most common emotional response to injustice and might reflect an additional therapeutic target.  

The authors hope their findings will inspire clinicians to incorporate injustice-related appraisals into mental health care and lead to novel therapeutic interventions. 

The research paper titled “Perceived injustice of trauma: Longitudinal prediction of traumatic stress symptoms following the October 7th attack and subsequent war” is now available in the Journal of Affective Disorders and can be accessed here.

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