Live Poster Session: zoom link
Abstract: Does taking the red pill for social injustice kill joy in daily life? Are people who justify for their status quo happier? System justification theory proposes that justifying for prevailing social, economic, and political arrangements may help mitigate dissonance, anxiety, guilt etc. for both advantaged and disadvantaged groups. (Bahamondes et al. 2019). But empirical studies disagree on if system justification’s palliative effect is greater for more disadvantaged groups impacted by intersecting demographic factors like social status (Hadarics et al. 2021 & Bahamondes-Correa et al. 2016). This research, which specifically investigated system justification beliefs for racism, used survey data from GSS 2021 and 2018 and found that system justification belief is significantly and positively related to happiness level only for black people in the low and working class, which is the most disadvantaged group. This result may be important in understanding why marginalized groups might accept their current position and helping with social work.
poster