The Effect Of System Justification And Implicit Activation Of The Justice Motive

This research tested the effects of complementary stereotype exemplars on System Justification and the conditions implicitly in two experiments. The experiments used 2×2 and 2×2×2 mixed designs. The short stories were experiment materials, the reaction time was the main index, and modified Stroop task was used in both experiments. The result of experiment 1 indicated that exposure to noncomplementary stereotype exemplars implicitly activated justice concerns, as indicated by slower reaction times to justice-related than neutral words in a modified Stroop task. The result of experiment 1 and experiment 2 indicated that the effects depended on the perception of a causal link between trait and outcome. If traits were causally related to outcomes, exposure to complementary stereotype exemplars threatened System Justification, so implicitly activated justice concerns; if traits were causally unrelated to outcomes, exposure to noncomplementary stereotype exemplars threatened System Justification and implicitly activated justice concerns.