System Justification

System justification is a term taken from social psychology that describes the motivational tendency to defend, bolster, or rationalize an existing social, economic, and/or political system.

This cognitive bias is widely used to justify abuses and prejudices throughout time and place. A glaring example of this was the issue of slavery during the American Civil War. At that time slavery was such an integral part of southern economic system that thousands of soldiers, even those who didn't own slaves, gave their lives to defend a system that completely endorsed slavery and justified it with the belief that black people weren't smart enough to take care of themselves.