Complementary Justice: Effects of "Poor but Happy" and "Poor but Honest" Stereotype Exemplars on System Justification and Implicit Activation of the Justice Motive

Abstract

It was hypothesized that exposure to complementary representations of the poor as happier and more honest than the rich would lead to increased support for the status quo. In Study 1, exposure to "poor but happy" and "rich but miserable" stereotype exemplars led people to score higher on a general measure of system justification, compared with people who were exposed to noncomplementary exemplars. Study 2 replicated this effect with "poor but honest" and "rich but dishonest" complementary stereotypes. In Studies 3 and 4, exposure to noncomplementary stereotype exemplars implicitly activated justice concerns, as indicated by faster reaction times to justice-related than neutral words in a lexical decision task. Evidence also suggested that the Protestant work ethic may moderate the effects of stereotype exposure on explicit system justification (but not implicit activation).

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Complementary Justice: Effects of “Poor but Happy” and “Poor but
Honest” Stereotype Exemplars on System Justification and Implicit
Activation of the Justice Motive
Aaron C. Kay and John T. Jost
Stanford University
It was hypothesized that exposure to complementary representations of the poor as happier and more
honest than the rich would lead to increased support for the status quo. In Study 1, exposure to “poor but
happy” and “rich but miserable” stereotype exemplars led people to score higher on a general measure
of system justification, compared with people who were exposed to noncomplementary exemplars. Study
2 replicated this effect with “poor but honest” and “rich but dishonest” complementary stereotypes. In
Studies 3 and 4, exposure to noncomplementary stereotype exemplars implicitly activated justice
concerns, as indicated by faster reaction times to justice-related than neutral words in a lexical decision
task. Evidence also suggested that the Protestant work ethic may moderate the effects of stereotype
exposure on explicit system justification (but not implicit activation).
Lower income and status is more tolerable when one can believe that
the rich are not receiving a happiness income commensurate with their
money income. (Robert E. Lane, 1959, pp. 39–40)
It is virtually a cliche´ in our culture to consider the poverty-stricken,
or even the relatively deprived, as having their own compensating
rewards. They are actually happy in their own way—carefree, happy-
go-lucky, in touch with and able to enjoy the “simple pleasures of
life”. . . Some systems of religious belief see virtue in suffering, and
assume restitution in later life. (Melvin Lerner, 1980, pp. 20–21)
Cultural depictions of the rich and poor in numerous works of
literature, religion, and the mass media reflect a leveling tendency
to ascribe virtues such as happiness and morality to the underpriv-
ileged and, conversely, vices such as misery, loneliness, and dis-
honesty to those who are blessed with material abundance. Cele-
brated novels, plays, and films that reinforce such complementary,
offsetting stereotypes in which each group possesses its unique
benefits and burdens include Dickens’ Great Expectations, Mo-
liere’s The Miser, Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Orson Welles’s
Citizen Kane, Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha, and even Steve Mar-
tin’s The Jerk. The sentimental fiction movement that dominated
British literature of the 18th century churned out best sellers in
which peasants were portrayed as relentlessly joyful and virtuous
(e.g., Mackenzie, 1771/1967). An impoverished old man in
Sterne’s (1768) A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy,
for instance, declares that “a chearful [sic] and contented mind was
the best sort of thanks to heaven that an illiterate peasant could
pay” (p. 120). This literary form, which sometimes parodied its
readers for their romanticization of the poor, culminated with
Charles Dickens. In one of his best-known examples, Dickens
(1843/1971) contrasts the rich, miserable Ebenezer Scrooge with
the insolvent but cheery Cratchit family in A Christmas Carol:
They were not a handsome family; they were not well dressed; their
shoes were far from being water proof; their clothes were scanty and
Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside of a pawn-
broker’s. But they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another and
contented with the time. (p. 99)
It has been a familiar cultural theme for centuries, then, that
poverty has its rewards and affluence its drawbacks. These specific
characterizations may be conspicuously Western, but general pref-
erences to perceive balance and complementarity in the social
world are present also in Taoist notions, most especially the
dialectical relationship between elements of yin and yang and the
“reconciliation of opposites.”
Public opinion is another carrier of popular culture that often
assumes that there is “an inverse relationship between satisfaction
and standard of living” (Hunyady, 1998, p. 85). Theorists have
occasionally speculated about the social and psychological func-
tions of “poor but happy,” “rich but miserable,” “poor but honest,”
and “rich but dishonest” stereotypes (Jost, Burgess, & Mosso,
2001; Lane, 1959; Lerner, 1980). A provocative suggestion that
Aaron C. Kay, Department of Psychology, Stanford University; John T.
Jost, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University.
Portions of this research were presented at the following conferences:
International Society for Justice Research, Sko¨vde, Sweden, June 2002;
Person Memory Interest Group, Salt Fork, Ohio, October 2002; and the
Nags Head Conference on the Justice Motive, Highland Beach, Florida,
December 2002. This work was supported by the Graduate School of
Business at Stanford University and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced
Study at Harvard University. We acknowledge Susan Andersen, Mahzarin
Banaji, Monica Biernat, Ramona Bobocel, Ted Coons, Grainne Fitzsi-
mons, Peter Glick, Carolyn Hafer, E. Tory Higgins, Orsolya Hunyady, Ian
Kay, Rod Kramer, Arie Kruglanski, Mel Lerner, Hazel Markus, Lee Ross,
Hal Sigall, Jim Sherman, Claude Steele, and Tom Tyler for extremely
helpful suggestions concerning the ideas contained in this article.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to either
Aaron C. Kay, Department of Psychology, Jordan Hall, Building 420,
Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, or John T. Jost, who is
now at the Department of Psychology, New York University, 6 Washing-
ton Place, New York, New York 10003-6634. E-mail: aaronk@
psych.stanford.edu or john.jost@nyu.edu
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Copyright 2003 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.
2003, Vol. 85, No. 5, 823–837 0022-3514/03/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.85.5.823
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