The Palliative Function of System Justification: Concurrent Benefits Versus Longer-Term Costs to Wellbeing

We examined the extent to which system justification buffered the negative effect of retrospective experiences of active harm
from general sources in society on life satisfaction during the same assessment period, and prospectively 1 year later. Results
from a nationally representative sample indicated that the retrospective assessment of active harm and quality of life were
uncorrelated for people who endorsed system justifying ideology (N = 6,518). Study 2 replicated the concurrent buffering effect of system justification on subjective wellbeing and demonstrated
that the effect reversed over time. For people high in system justification beliefs, societal-level harm prospectively predicted
lower life satisfaction 1 year later (N = 136 undergraduates). Perceiving the system as fair and legitimate in the face of harm from others in society has opposing
short and longer-term effects on wellbeing. We argue that these opposing effects occur because although system justification
trumps experiences of harm and buffers life satisfaction in the short-term; the resulting experience-belief conflict engenders
a state of ideological dissonance that predicts negative psychological outcomes down the track.