Do humans possess an autonomous system justification motivation? A Pupillometric test of the strong system justification thesis

To investigate the existence of an autonomous system justification motive that guides human behavior, we tested the dissonance-inspired strong system-justification thesis: that the cognitive effort expended to justify societal systems on which people depend, is greater amongst the disadvantaged than amongst the advantaged when their group identities are weak in salience/strength. Using a novel pupil dilation paradigm to tap cognitive effort, we...