People are motivated to see the systems they belong to as fair, stable, and legitimate. When a manager is accused of abuse, acknowledging the harm threatens the perceived integrity of the organization’s hierarchy. To protect the belief that “our system works,” leaders may minimize, reinterpret, or deny the victim’s experience, preserving the status quo rather than confronting its flaws (Jost & Banaji, 1994; Jost et al., 2004).
References
Jost, J. T., & Banaji, M. R. (1994). The Role of Stereotyping in System-Justification and the Production of False Consciousness. British Journal of Social Psychology, 33, 1-27.
Jost, J.T., Banaji, M.R. and Nosek, B.A. (2004), A Decade of System Justification Theory: Accumulated Evidence of Conscious and Unconscious Bolstering of the Status Quo. Political Psychology, 25, 881-919. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9221.2004.00402.x
Comments