People accept responsibility for their status only when they believe effort shapes outcomes

Evidence

The problem of accounting for status is personally important for these men only if they think that their decisions, effort, and energy make a difference in their position in life. Most of my subjects accepted the view that America opens up opportunity to all people; if not in equal proportions, then at least enough so that a person must assume responsibility for his own status. … This is the constant theme: “all men can better themselves,” the circumstances of American life do not imprison men in their class or station—if there is such a prison, the iron bars are within each man. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2155

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distills the core American ideology of meritocratic self-blaming — a compact statement of the ‘if there is such a prison, the iron bars are within each man’ belief.
• XREF: Connects to system justification theory (Jost’s own work) and to Weber’s Protestant ethic — the interiorization of class constraint as personal moral failing. — connects to: Envied high-status groups are blamed for their position via perceived control over success. — Susan T. Fiske et al., A Model of (Often Mixed) Stereotype…, 258