Cheryl Wakslak
Email: cjf236@nyu.edu
Office: Meyer 755D
 
 

Personal Information
Hometown: Brooklyn, NY
Undergraduate Major: B.A. Psychology
Undergraduate Institution: Brooklyn College, City University of New York, 2001

Research Interests
Why do so many people support the social system to which they belong, even when they are disadvantaged by that system? My research centers on this issue, trying to understand what it is that draws people to embrace system-justifying ideologies.

Current Projects
Currently, we are focusing on the idea that system justification serves a palliative function, better enabling people in social systems to tolerate inequality within them. In an initial set of studies (Wakslak, Jost, Tyler, & Chen, in press) we find that system justification is associated with increased positive affect and reduced negative affect, and that these affective consequences are associated with whether individuals support programs aimed at helping the disadvantaged.

In addition to these links with affect, in a related line of work we are examining the relationships between system justification and feelings of well being, self worth, agency, and meaningfulness within a low income, ethnically diverse sample.

Finally, in a third line of work we are examining interrelations between the multiple social systems that individuals belong to. If justification of the system is in part a search for order and meaning within the context in which we find ourselves, then having the legitimacy and stability of one social system threatened should influence support not only for that particular system, but also for other systems we belong to that similarly provide this order and meaning. Indeed, results indicate that threats directed at both large- scale social systems (e.g. the American political system) and small- scale social systems (e.g. the nuclear family, the popularity hierarchy in school) influence support for the specific system they are directed at, as well as support for other systems of which the individuals are members.

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