System justification and mental health: The roles of rumination and distraction

Previous research indicated that justifying the societal status quo influences mental health and serves as a coping mechanism which leads individuals to feel better in difficult times. However, the underlying process of the relationship between system justification and mental health indicators remains unclear. The goal of the present study was to examine the mediating role of emotion regulation in this association. In particular, the current study focused on the mediating roles of two certain emotion regulation strategies namely, distraction and rumination. By combining knowledge from the domains of system justification, emotion regulation, psychological well-being, anxiety, and perceived stress; it was argued that system justification would negatively predict rumination and positively predict distraction. Additionally, it was expected that rumination would be related to adverse mental health outcomes whereas distraction would be related to better mental health outcomes. Moreover, it was hypothesized that emotion regulation strategies together would mediate the relationship between system justification and mental health. The hypotheses were predicted in the context of the judicial system of Turkey. To test these, in one correlational study, data were collected from 432 university students. Results demonstrated that, as expected, system justification was negatively related to rumination, anxiety and perceived stress, and positively related to psychological well-being. Moreover, rumination mediated the relationship between system justification on one hand and anxiety and perceived stress on the other. The findings expand our understanding of the underlying link between system justification and mental health by elucidating the roles on emotion regulation strategies.