{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/101357"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/101357","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"The psychological impact of perceiving the gender status quo as legitimate","abstract":"Can people benefit psychologically from thinking that the status quo is legitimate? Across three samples, we examined whether and why viewing current relations among men and women as legitimate provides people with a psychological boost. In all samples, we found that believing that current relations among men and women are fair and just (e.g., thinking that society is set up that men and women usually get what they deserve) was associated with greater life satisfaction and self-esteem. We found that perceiving oneself as less likely to be discriminated against in overt ways (e.g., being denied a job for unfair reasons) and subtle ways (e.g., being avoided in interactions) partially explained these relationships. Importantly, we found that these associations did not differ between men and women. Overall, these findings suggest that belief systems supporting the status quo can provide a palliative psychological effect through impacting people’s beliefs about whether they are targets of discrimination, and that this can occur for members of both advantaged and disadvantaged groups. These findings further contribute to understanding why people might support the status quo and denounce diversity in different settings even if it disadvantages them.","abstract_html":"Can people benefit psychologically from thinking that the status quo is legitimate? Across three samples, we examined whether and why viewing current relations among men and women as legitimate provides people with a psychological boost. In all samples, we found that believing that current relations among men and women are fair and just (e.g., thinking that society is set up that men and women usually get what they deserve) was associated with greater life satisfaction and self-esteem. We found that perceiving oneself as less likely to be discriminated against in overt ways (e.g., being denied a job for unfair reasons) and subtle ways (e.g., being avoided in interactions) partially explained these relationships. Importantly, we found that these associations did not differ between men and women. Overall, these findings suggest that belief systems supporting the status quo can provide a palliative psychological effect through impacting people’s beliefs about whether they are targets of discrimination, and that this can occur for members of both advantaged and disadvantaged groups. These findings further contribute to understanding why people might support the status quo and denounce diversity in different settings even if it disadvantages them.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Spielmann, Julia"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"M.S.","degree_level":"Thesis","degree_discipline":"Psychology","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Stern, Chadly","Cheng, Joey"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2018,"date_issued":"2018-09-04T20:47:27Z","date_published":"2018-09-04T20:47:27Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:38Z","subjects":["gender system justification","discrimination","life satisfaction","self-esteem"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright 2018 Julia Spielmann"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/101357","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Stern, Chadly","Cheng, Joey"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Spielmann, Julia"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2018-09-04T20:47:27Z","2020-09-05T09:15:32Z","2018-04-24","2018-05"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Psychology"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["M.S."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["gender system justification","discrimination","life satisfaction","self-esteem"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2018 Julia Spielmann"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/101357"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Can people benefit psychologically from thinking that the status quo is legitimate? Across three samples, we examined whether and why viewing current relations among men and women as legitimate provides people with a psychological boost. In all samples, we found that believing that current relations among men and women are fair and just (e.g., thinking that society is set up that men and women usually get what they deserve) was associated with greater life satisfaction and self-esteem. We found that perceiving oneself as less likely to be discriminated against in overt ways (e.g., being denied a job for unfair reasons) and subtle ways (e.g., being avoided in interactions) partially explained these relationships. Importantly, we found that these associations did not differ between men and women. Overall, these findings suggest that belief systems supporting the status quo can provide a palliative psychological effect through impacting people’s beliefs about whether they are targets of discrimination, and that this can occur for members of both advantaged and disadvantaged groups. These findings further contribute to understanding why people might support the status quo and denounce diversity in different settings even if it disadvantages them.","Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2020-05-01","The student, Julia Spielmann, accepted the attached license on 2018-04-23 at 20:17.","The student, Julia Spielmann, submitted this Thesis for approval on 2018-04-23 at 20:19.","This Thesis was approved for publication on 2018-04-24 at 08:26.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #12381 on 2018-08-31 at 17:30:08","Made available in DSpace on 2018-09-04T20:47:27Z (GMT). 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Across three samples, we examined whether and why viewing current relations among men and women as legitimate provides people with a psychological boost. In all samples, we found that believing that current relations among men and women are fair and just (e.g., thinking that society is set up that men and women usually get what they deserve) was associated with greater life satisfaction and self-esteem. We found that perceiving oneself as less likely to be discriminated against in overt ways (e.g., being denied a job for unfair reasons) and subtle ways (e.g., being avoided in interactions) partially explained these relationships. Importantly, we found that these associations did not differ between men and women. Overall, these findings suggest that belief systems supporting the status quo can provide a palliative psychological effect through impacting people’s beliefs about whether they are targets of discrimination, and that this can occur for members of both advantaged and disadvantaged groups. These findings further contribute to understanding why people might support the status quo and denounce diversity in different settings even if it disadvantages them.","Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'Closed Access', the embargo will last until 2020-05-01","The student, Julia Spielmann, accepted the attached license on 2018-04-23 at 20:17.","The student, Julia Spielmann, submitted this Thesis for approval on 2018-04-23 at 20:19.","This Thesis was approved for publication on 2018-04-24 at 08:26.","DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #12381 on 2018-08-31 at 17:30:08","Made available in DSpace on 2018-09-04T20:47:27Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 SPIELMANN-THESIS-2018.pdf: 1167055 bytes, checksum: 8f4da5dcb5ae6195885d388e236a9e03 (MD5) LICENSE.txt: 4212 bytes, checksum: 0c6755555ca22149a4a2f6e0d341177e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-04-24","Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 107442 Lift date: 2020-09-04T20:47:38Z Reason: Author requested closed access (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD system","Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 107442 Lift date: 2020-09-04T20:50:11Z Reason: Author requested closed access (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD system","Limited Restriction Lifted for Item 107442 on 2020-09-05T09:15:32Z."],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/101357"],"dc:language":["en"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 2018 Julia Spielmann"],"dc:subject":["gender system justification","discrimination","life satisfaction","self-esteem"],"dc:title":["The psychological impact of perceiving the gender status quo as legitimate"],"dc:type":["text"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Psychology"],"thesis:degree_level":["Thesis"],"thesis:degree_name":["M.S."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:38Z"}