Grounded Ideologies the Feeling of Pwer and System-justification

Timothy Nest

Date of Award

2011

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Callahan, Charlene

Keywords

Stystem-justification, Ideology, Embodied Cognition

Area of Concentration

Psychology

Abstract

Contrary to traditional approaches in the psychological study of group behavior, System-justification theory has argued that social actors are not only motivated to sustain their local social affiliations, relevant group identifications, and �ingroup� �relevant belief systems, but also possess a basic motivation to preserve and maintain dominant social structures through system-affirming ideologies. Since the rise in popularity of the Implicit association test (IAT), System justification theory has shown that socially marginalized group members or those in positions of limited social power, tend to exhibit high levels of in-group derogation and out-group favoritism compared to members of dominant, or high-status social groups. Research conducted on social power has demonstrated dynamic effects of power-relevant affect on various aspects of social cognition, categorization and stereotyping, as well as major positive physiological effects, such as stress-reduction. In light of the social psychological literature on feelings of power and their effect on social cognition, categorization, and stress-reduction, it is hypothesized that subjective feelings of power could function to ameliorate, or eliminate system justification tendencies among socially marginalized individuals. The current study aims to explore the connection between subjective power and system justifying processes related to gender role stereotyping in men and women. Implicit and explicit measures of attitudes related to gender and authority were used to assess whether participants across three �power� conditions differed significantly in their system justifying tendencies. While results supported a significant effect of system justification in men and women, subjective power had only a marginally significant effect on implicit system justification in women, and held for only one of the two pools of data collected. Despite statistical weakness, explicit power priming did reverse system justification effects for women on average; supporting the hypothesis that transient power-related affect can under certain conditions mitigate ideological sway.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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