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system
You struggle to change your mind when you feel threatened.
System justification theory suggests you defend the status quo even when it works against your own interests.
Humans have a psychological need to believe their world is stable and fair. When you feel threatened by change, you justify existing structures to minimize anxiety. You prioritize the safety of the current system over the potential benefits of a new one.
You prefer a known hardship to an unknown solution.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Jost and Banaji, 1994
- What the check found
- While no exact sentence appears in the snippet, this is the core definition of the theory proposed by Jost and Banaji in 1994, widely recognized in social psychology as the theory's central tenet.
- Confidence
- Solid, with limits
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.