Natural Order or Social Engineering? The Psychology of Systemic Inequality

Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

Let’s examine systemic bias—if we don’t, we can’t understand what’s happening around us today, especially in the nonprofit world. For example, rejecting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs requires rejecting the very idea of systemic bias. That rejection isn’t just political posturing—it’s psychological denial. The kind of denial that lets people sleep at night while inequality persists by design.

Systemic Bias Denial is Endorsing "Natural Order"

Systemic bias is unconscious. But don’t confuse "unconscious" with "momentarily unaware." In social psychology lingo, "unconscious" means you’ll never see the bias on your own. This is what makes it so easy to deny. It operates completely outside your awareness, baked into institutions, norms, and everyday decisions. And unless you've studied how people consistently favor some groups and disadvantage others—as social psychologists do—you're likely to chalk up people’s bad outcomes to individual failings.

So, let’s ask the central question:

Does systemic bias exist?

If your answer is no, then you must believe something causes disparities in income, opportunity, and representation. What, then, explains persistent wage gaps by gender and race?

Almost no one agrees with this: "What you get in life depends on the natural order of society."

But once you reject systemic bias and say, "It’s all about personal choice,” you’ve implicitly endorsed that very natural order.

Does Personal Choice Drive Outcomes

Non-believers in systemic bias often believe something like “There are so many reasons that women and people of color earn less. Things like career choice, leaves of absence for childbirth or caregiving, how they negotiate, and whether they want to work full-time or not. There is fairness right now. It’s all about choice” (source: MediaMatters)

Let’s break down what the "personal choice" camp believes:

·       Systemic bias doesn’t exist.

·       Differences in outcomes, like earnings, are caused by choices.

·       Those choices are unrelated to things like gender or skin color.

·       Social norms play no role in shaping those choices.

This is a comforting story. It says the world is fair, and everyone gets what they deserve. But it’s also a psychological defense mechanism—called the "just world theory."

Just World Theory

We want to believe in a just world because the alternative is scary. If injustice is built into the system, then we might be complicit; we don’t want to believe that of ourselves.

And, if the system itself is unfair, maybe someday we will be the one to get the short end of the stick. It is more comforting to believe, "Those with less made choices to get less; that would never happen to me."

The Choices We Have

Let’s look at the so-called "choices" and how social psychology explains them:

Occupational Sorting

"People go into different fields with different pay levels by choice." However, social norms, stereotypes, and implicit associations shape those choices from childhood. Doctors are still assumed to be male. Nurses, female. Principals? Male. Teachers? Female. These mental shortcuts—what psychologists call schemas and role congruity bias—subtly steer people and gatekeepers alike toward reinforcing the status quo.

Career Interruptions

"Women take time off for caregiving, which impacts earnings." But who made caregiving their job? Social role theory explains that societal expectations funnel women into nurturing roles, and structural constraints make those roles hard to avoid. COVID laid this bare: when the crisis hit, women’s earnings dropped while men’s largely held steady. Why? Because women "chose" to stay home when schools closed. Only, it wasn’t a free choice—but a choice shaped by norms, guilt, and economic vulnerability.

Negotiation Norms

"Some people don’t negotiate hard enough." But research shows that women and people of color face backlash when they do negotiate. This is called expectancy violation theory —when someone steps outside their expected social role, they are punished. A man who negotiates is assertive. But a woman is aggressive. A Black woman? Often labeled threatening. The result: fewer raises, fewer promotions.

Flexible Work Preferences

"Women want part-time work, which pays less." Maybe. But why do they want it? Because society has assigned them dual roles: worker and caregiver. Their need for flexibility is a response to systemic demands. What looks like a "choice" is often a constrained optimization (more psychologist’s lingo). In a nutshell, it means making the best of bad options.

Motivated Reasoning

Here’s the punchline: people who reject systemic bias often use its very effects to argue it doesn’t exist. That’s not logic—it’s motivated reasoning. Even people who are jerks don’t want to think of themselves as being bigots. So, we twist reality to avoid feeling like we support inequity.

Why go to such lengths? Because systemic bias threatens the legitimacy of the current hierarchy. And when people at the top feel that threat, they respond with fear.

Fear

Fear of change. Fear of loss. Fear of no longer being the default. The fear of becoming "the other."

The clearest example is the political fear of a “minority majority.” That means that minorities, when grouped together, are a larger group than the majority. Loss is what drives this fear. Loss of culture, loss of power, loss of being the norm and not the exception.

This is the psychological underpinning of what political scientists call dominant group status threat. When the majority fears becoming a numerical or cultural minority, they fight to preserve the existing order. They don’t call it systemic bias. They call it "tradition."

So yes, the fear is real. And yes, if the roles were reversed, history suggests the oppressed may replicate the behavior of their former oppressors. That’s how power works, unless we disrupt the cycle.

Fairness Doesn't Emerge Naturally

That’s why we have rules. It’s why we need rules. Because fairness doesn’t emerge naturally. Affirmative action laws aren’t about giving handouts. Affirmative action laws are about counterbalancing systemic inertia. Rules keep our unconscious biases from running the show.

Science itself is governed by rules—the scientific method is our best tool to check our flawed intuitions. Organizational strategies and DEI commitments are similar guardrails.

So, when a government dismantles fairness rules, it’s not just changing policy. It’s making a statement: we believe in the "natural order" where power stays where it has always been.

Nonprofits were among the first targets for destruction of the Trump administration for a reason. We threaten that order. We name the bias. We reject the lie of "natural outcomes." We say things like “people experiencing homelessness” rather than “homeless person” because it describes their situation, not who they are.

Do We Believe We Are All Created Equal?

Let’s say it plainly: Do we believe that all people are created equal? If we do, we must believe systemic bias exists—because without it, disparities make no sense.

Our nation must decide if we in America, like those in Afghanistan, believe in a “natural order of society.” Do we believe that certain groups, like white Christian men, should make our social decisions? Do we believe everyone should vote? Do we believe that each of us should control our own bodies, choose our own religions, dress as we wish, pursue careers as we wish, speak as we wish, love who we wish? Or should our societal rules channel us into pre-determined roles and levels of power over ourselves?

If we really believe in equality, we’ve got to back it up with rules that close the gap between what we say and what we actually do.

Yes, people make choices. But systems rig their options.

So, it’s up to us to decide which system we serve. Will it be the “natural” order or an ordered society with rules to support equality?

And, also, the next season of The Handmaids Tale is out, which is pretty much this blog with a plot.