IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/soinre/v113y2013i1p401-418.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Palliative Function of System Justification: Concurrent Benefits Versus Longer-Term Costs to Wellbeing

Author

Listed:
  • Jessica Harding
  • Chris Sibley

Abstract

We examined the extent to which system justification buffered the negative effect of retrospective experiences of active harm from general sources in society on life satisfaction during the same assessment period, and prospectively 1 year later. Results from a nationally representative sample indicated that the retrospective assessment of active harm and quality of life were uncorrelated for people who endorsed system justifying ideology (N = 6,518). Study 2 replicated the concurrent buffering effect of system justification on subjective wellbeing and demonstrated that the effect reversed over time. For people high in system justification beliefs, societal-level harm prospectively predicted lower life satisfaction 1 year later (N = 136 undergraduates). Perceiving the system as fair and legitimate in the face of harm from others in society has opposing short and longer-term effects on wellbeing. We argue that these opposing effects occur because although system justification trumps experiences of harm and buffers life satisfaction in the short-term; the resulting experience-belief conflict engenders a state of ideological dissonance that predicts negative psychological outcomes down the track. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2013

Suggested Citation

  • Jessica Harding & Chris Sibley, 2013. "The Palliative Function of System Justification: Concurrent Benefits Versus Longer-Term Costs to Wellbeing," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 113(1), pages 401-418, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:113:y:2013:i:1:p:401-418
    DOI: 10.1007/s11205-012-0101-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11205-012-0101-1
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11205-012-0101-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Williams, D.R. & Neighbors, H.W. & Jackson, J.S., 2003. "Racial/ethnic discrimination and health: Findings from community studies," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 93(2), pages 200-208.
    2. Jost, John T. & Hunyady, Orsolya, 2002. "The Psychology of System Justification and the Palliative Function of Ideology," Research Papers 1754, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    3. Kay, Aaron C. & Jost, John T., 2003. "Complementary Justice: Effects of "Poor But Happy" and "Poor But Honest" Stereotype Exemplars on System Justification and Implicit Activation of the Justice Motive," Research Papers 1753r, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    4. Ed Diener & Jeff Horwitz & Robert Emmons, 1985. "Happiness of the very wealthy," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 263-274, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nikhil K. Sengupta & Chris G. Sibley, 2019. "The Political Attitudes and Subjective Wellbeing of the One Percent," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 20(7), pages 2125-2140, October.
    2. Proudfoot, Devon & Kay, Aaron C. & Mann, Heather, 2015. "Motivated employee blindness: The impact of labor market instability on judgment of organizational inefficiencies," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 108-122.
    3. Filippo Rutto & Silvia Russo & Cristina Mosso, 2014. "Development and Validation of a Democratic System Justification Scale," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 118(2), pages 645-655, September.
    4. Jost, John T. & Blount, Sally & Pfeffer, Jeffrey & Hunyady, Gyorgy, 2003. "Fair Market Ideology: Its Cognitive-Motivational Underpinnings," Research Papers 1816, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    5. Teresa María García Muñoz & Juliette Milgram Baleix & Omar Odeh Odeh, 2022. "System Justification Beliefs and Life Satisfaction. The role of inequality aversion and support for redistribution," ThE Papers 22/15, Department of Economic Theory and Economic History of the University of Granada..
    6. Martin, Ashley E., 2023. "The divergent effects of diversity ideologies for race and gender relations," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    7. Liat Ayalon, 2018. "Perceived Age Discrimination: A Precipitator or a Consequence of Depressive Symptoms?," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 73(5), pages 860-869.
    8. Johnston, David W. & Lordan, Grace, 2012. "Discrimination makes me sick! An examination of the discrimination–health relationship," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 99-111.
    9. Song, Jieun & Mailick, Marsha R. & Greenberg, Jan S., 2018. "Health of parents of individuals with developmental disorders or mental health problems: Impacts of stigma," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 217(C), pages 152-158.
    10. Giuseppina Guagnano & Elisabetta Santarelli & Isabella Santini, 2016. "Can Social Capital Affect Subjective Poverty in Europe? An Empirical Analysis Based on a Generalized Ordered Logit Model," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 128(2), pages 881-907, September.
    11. Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2006. "Belief in a Just World and Redistributive Politics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(2), pages 699-746.
    12. McNeill, Lorna Haughton & Kreuter, Matthew W. & Subramanian, S.V., 2006. "Social Environment and Physical activity: A review of concepts and evidence," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(4), pages 1011-1022, August.
    13. Vainio, Annukka & Paloniemi, Riikka, 2014. "The complex role of attitudes toward science in pro-environmental consumption in the Nordic countries," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 18-27.
    14. Dušan Drbohlav & Dagmar Dzúrová, 2017. "Social Hazards as Manifested Workplace Discrimination and Health (Vietnamese and Ukrainian Female and Male Migrants in Czechia)," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-16, October.
    15. Shervin Assari, 2018. "Parental Education Better Helps White than Black Families Escape Poverty: National Survey of Children’s Health," Economies, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-14, May.
    16. David Mhlanga & Rufaro Garidzirai, 2020. "The Influence of Racial Differences in the Demand for Healthcare in South Africa: A Case of Public Healthcare," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(14), pages 1-10, July.
    17. Dajana Barbić & Irena Palić, 2023. "Rich student, happy student: The case study of Croatia," EFZG Working Papers Series 2305, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb.
    18. Pamplin, John R. & Bates, Lisa M., 2021. "Evaluating hypothesized explanations for the Black-white depression paradox: A critical review of the extant evidence," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 281(C).
    19. Konow, James & Earley, Joseph, 2008. "The Hedonistic Paradox: Is homo economicus happier," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1-2), pages 1-33, February.
    20. Fujishiro, Kaori & Xu, Jun & Gong, Fang, 2010. "What does "occupation" represent as an indicator of socioeconomic status?: Exploring occupational prestige and health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(12), pages 2100-2107, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:113:y:2013:i:1:p:401-418. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.