Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/289867 
Year of Publication: 
2023
Citation: 
[Journal:] Social Psychology Quarterly [ISSN:] 1939-8999 [Volume:] 86 [Issue:] 2 [Publisher:] Sage [Place:] Thousand Oaks, CA [Year:] 2023 [Pages:] 170-194
Publisher: 
Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA
Abstract: 
Previous research suggests that beliefs about inequality are often biased in ways that serve people’s own interests. By contrast, people might uphold system-justifying beliefs, such as meritocratic beliefs. We test these assumptions against real-life experience of highly selective university admission. Using panel data on German medical school applicants allows us to measure belief changes through experiences of success or failure in admission. We find support that self-serving bias in beliefs outweighs the motivation for system justification: success strengthens the belief that admission depends on effort, while failure reinforces the belief that admission depends on luck. These patterns partly manifest themselves in beliefs about societal inequality. Additionally, we argue that previous experiences (long-term experiences of social upbringing and short-term experiences in university admissions) provide a frame for new experiences, examine respective effect heterogeneity, and discuss implications of our findings of diverging paths in inequality beliefs of winners and losers for the persistence of inequality.
Subjects: 
cumulative inequality
meritocratic beliefs
self-serving beliefs theory
social origin
system justification theory
university admission
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Published Version

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