System Justification Theory: Why the Disadvantaged Defend the Systems That Harm Them

Women rate male job candidates more favorably than identical female candidates. Working-class voters oppose redistribution more strongly than the wealthy. Minority group members show implicit preferences for majority groups. System justification theory explains a pattern that confounds standard social psychology: people actively rationalize, defend, and legitimize the social arrangements that disadvantage them — because the alternative, believing the system is arbitrary or unjust, is psychologically more threatening.