system justification
There are two major goals of system justification theory,
The first goal is to understand how and why people provide cognitive and ideological support for the status quo, even when their support appears to conflict with personal and group interests.
The second is to analyze the social and psychological consequences of supporting the status quo, especially for members of disadvantaged groups.
One assumption in system justification theory, however, is that the need to justify builds over time as individuals develop an investment in the system they have implicitly helped to perpetuate.
System justification theory addresses the holding of attitudes that are often contrary to one's own self-interest and therefore contrary to what one would expect on the basis of theories of self-enhancement or rational self-interest.
Focus currently is on counter-intuitive outcomes:
a) the internalization of unfavorable stereotypes about one's own group,
nonconscious biases that perpetuate inequality,
b) attitudinal ambivalence directed at fellow ingroup members who challenge the system,
c) opposition to equality among members of disadvantaged groups,
d) rationalization of anticipated social and political outcomes,
e) and tendencies among members of powerless groups to subjectively enhance the legitimacy of their powerlessness and, in some cases, to show greater support for the system than do members of powerful groups.
This includes the study of complementary stereotypes in which members of high and low status groups are seen as possessing distinct sets of advantages and disadvantages.
Gender stereotypes, which stress that women are communal but not agentic, whereas men are agentic but not communal may serve to preserve support for the status quo.
Other examples that we have explored include "poor but happy," "rich but miserable," "poor but honest," and "rich but dishonest" stereotypes.
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