In our 25 years studying mindsets, the system-is-rigged mindset is among the strongest and most pervasive we’ve seen in American culture. Americans are drawing on this mindset to make sense of almost every aspect of society—from the economy, to the political system, to how people are treated based on their gender or race. This can lead to productive critiques of power and increased demand for changes that create a fairer society. But it can also prompt xenophobic and racist scapegoating, or lead to fatalism—the conclusion that the problem is just too big to solve.

In this brief, you’ll find new insights from surveys, focus groups, and interviews conducted throughout 2024 about the dominance of this mindset and the different conclusions it can lead to. You can also find two findings from an experimental study of the effects of different ways of framing rigged systems. A full report with recommendations for talking about rigged systems will be released in early 2025.