The Mental Roots of System Justification: System Threat, Need for Structure, and Stereotyping

Abstract

In a series of correlational and experimental studies, it is shown that system justifi cation motives result in stereotyping and that an important force behind this effect is an increased need for structure. People who perceive the system they are part of (e.g., their company) as unfair report a higher need for structure and are more likely to engage in stereotyping. Second, experimentally induced system threat increased structure needs which covaried with amplifi ed negative and positive stereotyping effects, indicating that these effects served epistemic rather than self-enhancement needs. Third, the impact of system threat on stereotyping disappears when the desire to justify the system is satisfi ed through an alternative route. Implications for system justifi cation theory are discussed and the importance of studying the impact of system justifi cation motives on stereotype processes as well as stereotype contents is stressed.

Working for the System: Motivated Defense of Meritocratic Beliefs

“…Participants were led to believe that the computer would present a series of unrelated studies in random order, including an information processing study and several short pilot studies to help the researchers design materials for later in the semester. In fact, the fi rst task always manipulated system justifi cation motivation using a procedure developed by Jost and colleagues (Jost, Kivetz, Rubini, Guermandi, & Mosso, 2005, Study 3; see also Kay et al, 2005;Lau, Kay, & Spencer, 2008;Stapel & Noordewier, 2011). Research has shown that although this manipulation has a highly signifi cant effect on participants' perceptions of the social system, it has no effect on measures of individual or collective self-esteem (Kay et al, 2005(Kay et al, , 2009Wakslak, Jost, & Bauer, 2011).…”

Spreading Rationalization: Increased Support for Large-Scale and Small-Scale Social Systems Following System Threat

“…Family System Justification that have been examined with respect to the rationalization of societal institutions are also at work in families, friendship networks, and other small-scale social systems such as work teams and organizations (see also Stapel & Noordewier, 2011). Second, the evidence of spreading rationalization that we have obtained points to previously unexplored psychological associations among social systems as diverse as the nation, the high school popularity hierarchy, and the nuclear family.…”

“…However, it is possible that threats directed at the social systems to which one belongs are experienced as direct threats to the self-concept. Indeed, we assume that various social systems and institutions are represented by the individual as part of the status quo, and they confer a sense of order and stability for the individual; this is why questioning their legitimacy and stability is psychologically threatening (see also Stapel & Noordewier, 2011). At the same time, it should be pointed out that in Experiment 2 system threat did not affect self-esteem, as other theoretical perspectives might have assumed (e.g., Pyszczynski, Greenberg, Solomon, Arndt, & Schimel, 2004).…”

“…The idea is that people have epistemic needs to reduce uncertainty, existential needs to manage threat, and relational needs to affi liate with others, and that belonging to and upholding the legitimacy of a social system satisfi es these needs (Jost & Hunyady, 2005;Jost, Ledgerwood, & Hardin, 2008). In other words, social systems provide order and structure while at the same time creating shared experiences and cultural meaning; because of this, system justifi cation fulfi lls the quests for coherence and meaning that are driven by underlying epistemic and existential concerns (see also Greenberg, Koole, & Pyszczynski, 2004;Stapel & Noordewier, 2011).…”

“…For instance, studies conducted in Israel (Jost, Kivetz, Rubini, Guermandi, & Mosso, 2005) and the United States (Kay, Jost, & Young, 2005) demonstrate that system threat leads people to increasingly endorse complementary, system-justifying stereo types of high and low status groups (see also Laurin, Kay, & Shepherd, 2011;Stapel & Noordewier, 2011). In addition, Ledgerwood, Jost, Mandisodza, and Pohl (2011) found that system threat exacerbates system-justifying biases in cognition, so that people are even more prone than usual to favor information that supports rather than challenges the verisimilitude of the American Dream.…”