System Justification

Definition

System justification refers to a social psychological propensity to defend and bolster the status quo, that is, to see it as good, fair, legitimate, and desirable. A consequence of this tendency is that existing social, economic, and political arrangements tend to be preferred, and alternatives to the status quo are disparaged. System justification refers, therefore, to an inherently conservative tendency to defend and justify the status quo simply because it exists, sometimes even at the expense of individual and collective self-interest.

System Justification Theory

To understand how and why people accept and maintain the social systems that affect them, social psychologists have developed system justification theory. According to system justification theory, people want to hold favorable attitudes about themselves (ego-justification) and their own groups (group-justification), and they want to hold favorable attitudes about the overarching social order (system-justification). Importantly, system justification theory holds that this motive is not unique to [Page 966]members of dominant groups, who benefit the most from the current regime; it also affects the thoughts and behaviors of members of groups who are harmed by it (e.g., poor people, oppressed minorities, gays, and lesbians). System justification theory therefore accounts for counter-intuitive evidence that members of disadvantaged groups often support the societal status quo (at least to some degree), even at considerable cost to themselves and to fellow group members.

Evidence for the System Justification Motive

Several lines of research have documented the means by which individuals engage in system justification. First, sociologists and psychologists have identified several distinct but related system-justifying ideoloGies adopted by members of both advantaged and disadvantaged groups in the service of rationalizing the status quo, including the belief in a just world, Protestant work ethic, meritocratic ideology, fair market ideology, power distance, opposition to equality, and political conservatism.

Second, evidence indicates that most people want to perceive existing authorities and institutions as largely benevolent and legitimate. The dominant tendency, at least in the Western world, is for people to trust and approve of their government, to restrict criticism of it, and to believe in the fairness of their own system. Similarly, most people disapprove of protest and radical social change. Paradoxically, these tendencies are (at least sometimes) most pronounced for members of disadvantaged groups, who would have the most to gain from the implementation of a new system.

Third, members of advantaged and disadvantaged groups tend to internalize intergroup preferences that reinforce and legitimate the existing social hierarchy. Hundreds of studies have shown that members of advantaged groups tend to exhibit ingroup favoritism (preferences for their own kind), whereas members of disadvantaged groups exhibit this tendency to a much lesser extent and in many cases show outgroup favoritism (preferences for others who are more advantaged), especially but not exclusively on implicit (nonconscious) measures of preference. Outgroup favoritism among the disadvantaged maintains the status quo by accepting rather than supplanting existing forms of inequality.

Fourth, studies have also shown that consensual stereotypes (as well as evaluations) are used to differentiate between advantaged and disadvantaged groups in such a way that the existing social order, with its attendant degree of inequality, is seen as legitimate and even natural. For example, members of low-status groups are routinely stereotyped by themselves and by others as less intelligent, competent, and hardWorking than members of high-status groups. At the same time, complementary, off-setting stereotypes also lead people to show increased support for the status quo, insofar as such stereotypes maintain the belief that every group in society benefits from the existing social system. For example, individuals who are exposed to “poor but happy,” “poor but honest,” “rich but miserable,” and “rich but dishonest” stereotype exemplars score higher on a measure of system justification than do individuals who are exposed to noncomplementary stereotype exemplars.

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