Jojanneke van der Toorn

Why Men (and Women) Do and Don’t Rebel: Effects of System Justification on Willingness to Protest

Three studies examined the hypothesis that system justification is negatively associated with collective protest against ingroup disadvantage. Effects of uncertainty salience, ingroup identification, and disruptive versus nondisruptive protest were also investigated. In Study 1, college students who were exposed to an uncertainty salience manipulation and who scored higher on system justification were less likely to protest against the governmental bailout of Wall Street. In Study 2, May Day protesters in Greece who were primed with a system-justifying stereotype exhibited less group-based anger and willingness to protest. In Study 3, members of a British teachers union who were primed with a “system-rejecting” mind-set exhibited decreased system justification and increased willingness to protest. The effect of system justification on nondisruptive protest was mediated by group-based anger. Across very different contexts, measures, and methods, the results reveal that, even among political activists, system justification plays a significant role in undermining willingness to protest.

Twenty years of system justification theory: Introduction to the special issue on “Ideology and system justification processes”

Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich is not the first person (nor, we suspect, the last) to wonder why people, including members of disadvantaged groups, frequently accept existing social, economic, and political arrangements, even when those arrangements are characterized by inequality and other pervasive shortcomings. Philosophers and social theorists have often attributed the lack of rebellion to a purely passive yielding to the power or ideology of political elites, but they have rarely considered the possibility that individuals from all segments of society are, at least to some extent, motivated—for psychological reasons—to legitimize the social systems on which they depend. Perhaps Antonio Gramsci came close when he wrote that:

In Defense of Tradition: Religiosity, Conservatism, and Opposition to Same-Sex Marriage in North America:

Arguments opposing same-sex marriage are often made on religious grounds. In five studies conducted in the United States and Canada (combined N = 1,673), we observed that religious opposition to same-sex marriage was explained, at least in part, by conservative ideology and linked to sexual prejudice. In Studies 1 and 2, we discovered that the relationship between religiosity and opposition to same-sex marriage was mediated by explicit sexual prejudice. In Study 3, we saw that the mediating effect of sexual prejudice was linked to political conservatism. Finally, in Studies 4a and 4b we examined the ideological underpinnings of religious opposition to same-sex marriage in more detail by taking into account two distinct aspects of conservative ideology. Results revealed that resistance to change was more important than opposition to equality in explaining religious opposition to same-sex marriage.

A “scientific diversity” intervention to reduce gender bias in a sample of life scientists

A workshop increased awareness of diversity issues, reduced gender bias, and increased readiness to take action on diversity issues from pretest (2 weeks before the intervention) to posttest (2 weeks after the intervention) among a sample of life science instructors.

System Justification: A Motivational Process with Implications for Social Conflict

According to system justification theory, people are motivated to defend and legitimize the social systems that affect them. In this chapter, we review 15 years of theory and empirical research demonstrating the motivational underpinnings of system justification processes. We begin by explaining why people are motivated to system justify (i.e., it serves social and psychological needs). We then describe five lines of evidence that corroborate the motivational postulate of system justification theory: (1) Individual differences in self-deception and ideological motivation are linked to system justification; (2) System threat elicits defensive responses on behalf of the system; (3) People engage in biased information-processing in favor of system-serving conclusions; (4) System justification processes exhibit properties of goal pursuit; and (5) The desire to legitimize the system inspires greater behavioral effort. We consider the implications of this motivational approach for understanding situations—including situations involving social conflict—that facilitate resistance to vs. support for social change.

The Palliative Effects of System Justification on the Health and Happiness of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Individuals

Across three studies, we examine the correlates of subjective well-being and mental and physical health among members of a historically disadvantaged group, namely, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals. Results show those who minimize (vs. acknowledge) the extent to which their group is the target of discrimination report better well-being across myriad indicators (Studies 1-3). We also demonstrate that this effect is mediated by perceived system fairness (Study 1); holds above and beyond internalized homonegativity (Studies 1 and 3) and ingroup identification (Studies 2-3); and is true regardless of whether individuals reside in hostile or accepting environments (Study 2), and regardless of whether individuals had personally experienced discrimination (Study 3). For some indicators (namely, body mass index [BMI], social well-being, self-esteem, depression, and mental illness diagnosis), the relationship between minimization of discrimination and well-being was stronger among those who had frequent (vs. rare) discriminatory experiences.

Conservative Ideological Shift Among Adolescents in Response to System Threat

We examined conservative ideological shift among adolescents by assessing the effect of different types of threat on the self-reported political orientation of 183 New York City high school students and investigated the mediating role of system justification. Participants read one of three newspaper passages: (1) a system-related passage that described flaws in the American social, economic, and political system; (2) a self-related passage that described the deleterious health effects of cell phone use; or (3) a control passage that described house plant cultivation. Participants then completed measures of system justification and political orientation. As hypothesized, a threat to the system (but not the self) increased self-reported conservatism indirectly through its effect on system justification. This suggests that when the overarching social system is threatened, adolescents may be drawn to conservative ideology and that this is attributable, at least in part, to a heightened desire to defend and bolster the societal status quo.