Reprints and permission:

Humans are a deeply social and interdependent species. Virtu-ally everyone is embedded within social systems—from com-panies, community organizations, and universities to broader societies such as one’s city or country. Although many of these systems may function quite well, it is unlikely any are perfect. Recent theory and research under the umbrella of system-justification theory (Jost & Banaji, 1994), however, suggest that people seek to maintain views of their social systems— and their attendant norms, rules, and social structures—as relatively legitimate, even when confronted with information suggesting the opposite. That is, people engage in various motivated psychological processes—ranging from the basic application and endorsement of stereotypes to more complex rationalizations of what “ought to be”—aimed at bolstering and otherwise defending their social systems (Kay et al.