People rationalize oppressive arrangements that harm them rather than protect their own interests

Evidence

System-justification refers to the psychological process whereby an individual perceives, understands, and explains an existing situation or arrangement with the result that the situation or arrangement is maintained. Unlike ego-justification or groupjustification views that postulate a psychologically adaptive mechanism (protection of the ego or the extended collective ego), system-justification does not offer an equivalent function that operates in the service of protecting the interests of the self or the group. In fact, system-justification refers to the psychological process by which existing social arrangements are preserved in spite of the obvious psychological and material harm they entail for disadvantaged individuals and groups. It is this emphasis on the production of false consciousness that contrasts the system-justification view most sharply with previous views. We submit that an explanation of this scope may be required to explain, among other things, negative in-group stereotyping among disadvantaged groups and the societal or cross-societal consensuality of some stereotypes. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2911

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines system-justification as the process by which existing arrangements are preserved even against the self’s own interests.
• XREF: Ties directly to false consciousness problems engaged in Marxist theory and to Milgram’s obedience work; resonates with cognitive dissonance fixed-justification — connects to: Benevolence masks malice by approving people’s role as their own hangmen — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1112; Susceptibility to propaganda for terror is itself a product of prior oppression — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 381; People seek refuge in the very power that injures them — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2486 (+5 more)
• DEEPTHINKING: The core paradox — that a psychological process maintaining social arrangements offers no adaptive payoff to the self — is genuinely paradigm-shifting if true.