System-Justifying Beliefs Moderate the Relationship Between Perceived Discrimination and Resting Blood Pressure

Abstract

Perceiving discrimination is a chronic stressor that may negatively impact health. We predicted that the relationship between chronic perceptions of discrimination and chronic stress, as indexed by resting blood pressure, would be moderated by individual differences in system-justifying beliefs (SJBs), specifically the extent to which people believe that success is determined by hard work. We reasoned that people who strongly endorse SJBs would find discrimination to be especially stressful because it both violates their expectations about the world and impedes their motivation to justify the system. In two studies, we measured White women's self-reported SJBs and perceptions of personal discrimination based on gender. We later measured their resting blood pressure. The relationship between perceived discrimination and blood pressure was positive and significant for women who strongly endorsed SJBs, but nonsignificant for women who did not endorse SJBs. Implications for Worldview Verification Theory and System Justification Theory are discussed.