THE ROLE OF STEREOTYPING IN SYSTEM-JUSTIFICATION AND THE PRODUCTION OF FALSE CONSCIOUSNESS

Although the concept of justification has played a significant role in many social psychological theories, its presence in recent examinatio ns of stereotyping has been minimal. We describe and evaluate previous notions of stereotyping as ego-justification and group-justification and propose an additional account, that of system-justification, which refers to psychological processes contributing to the preservation of existing social arrangements even at the expense of personal and grou p interest. It is argued that the notion of system-justification is ne cessary to account for previously unexplained phenomena, most notably the participation by disadvantaged individuals and groups in negative stereotypes of themselves, and the consensual nature of stereotypic be liefs despite differences in social relations within and between socia l groups. We offer a selective review of existing research that demons trates the role of stereotypes in the production of false consciousnes s and develop the implications of a system-justification approach.