Another way people rationalize the status quo is through the use of stereotypes. When people perceive threats to the predominant system, they are more inclined to cling to and back the existing structure, and one way of doing so is by means of endorsing stereotypes that rationalize inequality. If one considers oneself a member of a higher social status group (economic standing, race, gender) he or she will hold favorable stereotypes about their group and less positive ones toward lower status outgroups. As perceived legitimacy of the system or threat to it increases, members of both disadvantaged and advantaged groups will be more motivated to utilize stereotypes as explanatory rationalizations (no matter how weak) for unequal status differences. Those that belong to disadvantaged groups will tend to associate positive characteristics (favorable stereotypes) to high status members and lead low status group members to minimize negative feelings about their low status. Thus, stereotype endorsement as system justification is consensual and holds a palliative function. This is true for both the ingroup and outgroup. Stereotypes also deflect blame of unfair status differences from the system and instead, attribute inequality to group traits or characteristics. Such rationalization for inequality via stereotyping is said to be what makes political conservatives happier than liberals. In a recent research study on the connection of system justification beliefs and ambivalent sexism, researchers found that benevolent sexism beliefs related to higher life satisfaction through system justification. That is, both men and women may be motivated to hold benevolent sexism beliefs because such beliefs may help to promote the notion that the status quo is fair, which in turn can maintain life satisfaction. In contrast to ingroup favoritism, which holds that people have a motivation to regard the social groups that they belong in more positively than other groups, outgroup favoritism is when people tend to regard groups to which they do not belong more positively than the groups to which they are members. System justification theorists argue that this is an example or manifestation of how some people have unconsciously absorbed, processed, and attempted to cope with existing inequalities—more specifically, one's own disadvantaged position in the social hierarchy. Because people have a tendency to justify the status quo (which usually consists of inequality among groups) and believe that it is fair and legitimate, certain people from low status groups will accept, internalize, and hence perpetuate that inequality. Criticisms of outgroup favoritism have suggested observations of this in disadvantaged group members are simply manifestations of more general demand characteristics or social norms that encourage low status groups to evaluate other groups more positively. In response to this, system justification theorists introduced both implicit and explicit measures of outgroup favoritism.