The financial downturn in major economies of the world between 2007 and 2008 caused
the bailout of several corporations and financial institutions that ostensibly served
the economic interests of the wealthy 1% more than it did for the poorer 99%. Although
there were pockets of resistance by the 99% (e.g., the occupy Wall Street movement),
working- and middle-class people were surprisingly less supportive of economic redistributive
policies and in favor of the prevailing economic order that squeezed the prospects
of the less affluent more than it did the wealthy (Kuziemko et al., 2014; Jost, 2017;
see also García-Sánchez et al., 2019). Elsewhere in the social psychological literature,
research has documented a similar orientation amongst society's disadvantaged: the
tendency to attribute more positive stereotypes/traits to privileged members of society,
and often at the expense of their own group (the so-called “outgroup favoritism effect”
Cichocka et al., 2015; Hoffarth and Jost, 2017; Samson, 2018).
Research that has tried to make sense of this paradoxical system-justifying outgroup
favoritism has suggested that such an effect may be more pronounced when status differences
between the disadvantaged and the advantaged are seen as legitimately achieved, and
when the system is perceived to be inescapable and durable/stable (Friesen et al.,
2019). Indeed, the outgroup favoritism phenomenon is described as “system-justifying”
because such tendencies have the potential to entrench social inequality, especially
when these attitudes are held by people who are disadvantaged in the prevailing order.
This evidence of system-justifying attitudes among disadvantaged appears puzzling
because these are people who incur several psychological costs (such as reduced collective
self-esteem and entitlement, and increased psychological maladjustment see Major,
1994; Jetten et al., 2017) by virtue of their poorer outcomes within existing societal
arrangements. That is, one would have expected (e.g., from a rational choice perspective,
Coleman, 1990) for the less privileged in society to be more supportive of systems
and policies than serve their interest, rather than those that ostensibly strip them
away (Riker and Ordeshook, 1968; Feddersen, 2004).
Different theoretical formulations have largely focused on when the puzzling occurrence
of system-justifying attitudes is most likely (Friesen et al., 2019), especially amongst
society's disadvantaged (Jost, 2017, 2019). However, the unfolding debate around the
phenomenon now centers on why the disadvantaged would hold such attitudes in the first
place. In this opinion paper, we consider the dominant perspective put forward by
the system justification theory (Jost and Banaji, 1994), and then contrast its explanation
with alternative propositions, including the newer triadic social stratificationtheory
(Caricati, 2018).
Explaining the System Justification Effect via the System Justification Theory
The system justification theory (SJT; Jost and Banaji, 1994) recognizes—as do other
perspectives like social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner, 1979)—that people are
motivated to support their self (ego) and group interests. However, SJT goes further
to propose the existence of an autonomous motivation that supports the existing social
arrangement, called the system justification motivation. According to SJT, people
are driven by a conscious or unconscious system-oriented need “to defend, bolster,
and justify existing social, economic, and political institutions and arrangements”
(Jost and Kay, 2010, p. 1,148) and this represents a further type of human motivation
because it functions to support the status quo alone (Jost and Banaji, 1994, p. 10).
According to the original formulation of SJT (Jost and Banaji, 1994) and its subsequent
refinements (e.g., Jost et al., 2004), this system-oriented motivation is ostensibly
rooted in epistemic needs (e.g., to avoid uncertainty), existential needs (e.g., to
reduce distress and threat), and relational needs (e.g., to embrace shared realities;
Jost et al., 2008), which manifests most strongly when people's yearnings for predictability
and/or certainty within a system that they depend on, is strong (Jost, 2017). Given
that the stability and predictability of existing systems guarantees the benefits
(or interests) of the privileged, it is cognitively straightforward for society's
advantaged to support societal systems that ensures their privileged position. However,
supporting unequal societal systems may not be as straightforward for society's disadvantaged
(i.e., the 99%) as it might be for their advantaged counterparts. According to SJT,
this is because, for the disadvantaged, satisfying their inner yearning for predictability
(and control) via support for existing arrangements may come at the expense of relinquishing
their struggle for equity/equality (i.e., group interests), and these competing demands
are likely to cause cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957)—a psychological dilemma
that people are often motivated to eliminate/avoid.
Hence, SJT contends that acquiescing to the status-quo may be a much easier strategy
for the disadvantaged to resolve their cognitive dilemma, than to adopt the potentially
uphill task of changing (legitimate and stable) realities that people have become
accustomed to Jost et al. (2012). According to SJT, this scenario creates the potential
for the disadvantaged to be even more likely than their privileged counterparts to
justify disadvantageous realities because, such rationalization can help to soothe
the pain associated with their discomforting internal struggle (Jost and Hunyday,
2002; Osborne and Sibley, 2013; c.f. Owuamalam et al., 2017). In short, according
to SJT, the disadvantaged support societal systems/tradition because a system justification
motive that operates in the opposite direction to people's interests causes them to
do so.
How Strong Is the Evidential Basis for SJT's Dissonance-Inspired Explanation for the
System Justification Effect?
Consistent with SJT, pockets of nationally representative cross-sectional surveys
(e.g., Jost et al., 2003; Henry and Saul, 2006; Sengupta et al., 2015), and experimental
studies (e.g., van der Toorn et al., 2015) have shown that the disadvantaged may support
societal systems more strongly than their privileged counterparts do, especially when
they are dependent on such systems. However, an even greater number of similar nationally
representative surveys (Caricati and Lorenzi-Cioldi, 2012; Brandt, 2013; Caricati,
2017; Vargas-Salfate et al., 2018; see Yang et al., 2019 for a review) have reported
unsupportive evidence for the dissonance-inspired version of the system justification
thesis, showing that system justification increases as social advantage increases.
The unsurportive evidence for SJT's dissonance-inspired explanation is not limited
to cross-sectional studies. Experimental studies also report contradictory evidence
(e.g., Trump and White, 2018; Owuamalam and Spears, 2020), even when a sense of poverty
(vs. affluence) is experimentally induced: people tend to show a greater inclination
toward challenging unequal systems by, for example, a fair allocation of rewards to
the relevant parties (Bratanova et al., 2016). Other indirect evidence corroborate
the foregoing trends, showing that the disadvantage (e.g., African Americans) are
more likely to endorse the conspiratorial belief that the system is rigged against
African Americans (Crocker et al., 1999), when a standard reading of SJT would suggest
otherwise.
Criticisms and Other Explanations for the System Justification Effect
In the face of the foregoing empirical discrepancies (see also Li et al., 2020), Owuamalam
et al. (2018, 2019a,b) have queried the necessity of SJT's system motive explanation
and proposed instead that the system justification effect can be more parsimoniously
explained with the traditional interest-based perspectives via their social identity
model of system attitudes (SIMSA). Rooted in the social identity tradition, SIMSA
assumes that the system justification effect can be driven by the need for accuracy
and a positive social identity, and advances three explanations in these regards.
The first explanation is that, when positions within an existing order are legitimate
and stable, system-justifying attitudes can occur amongst the disadvantaged because
accuracy motives constraint their ability to objectively contest the superiority of
a clearly superior outgroup competitor. The second explanation is that, when the system
is unstable in the long run, system justifying attitudes can represent an expression
of hope that the system will one day provide the opportunity for the upward advancement
of one's disadvantaged ingroup. The third explanation is that, when an inclusive social
identity is salient, system justification effect can result from ingroup bias at this
superordinate level of self-categorization, such that system support is nothing more
than an expression of common-ingroup favoritism.
Although SIMSA as a theoretical framework for understanding the system justification
effect is in its nascent stages, available evidence corroborates some of its key assumptions.
For example, some studies have shown a positive correlation between system justification
and hope for both the future advancement of the ingroup (Owuamalam et al., 2016; Sollami
and Caricati, 2018; see also Vasilopoulos and Brouard, 2019) and individual mobility
(Li et al., 2019). Others have shown that members of a religious minority group who
emphasized their inclusive (common-ingroup) identity (e.g., their nation) reported
stronger system-justifying attitudes (Jaśko and Kossowska, 2013). In short, consistent
with SIMSA's explanations, there is evidence that the system justification effect
might be the disadvantaged's attempt to defend, protect and bolster their social identity.
The Triadic Social Stratification Explanation for the System Justification Effect
The triadic social stratification theory (TSST; Caricati, 2018) agrees with SIMSA
in proposing that the system justification effect can be rooted in social identity
needs. However, unlike SIMSA (or SJT for that matter), TSST focuses on processes of
intergroup comparison that can help to explain the system justification effect amongst
disadvantaged groups within a triadic (even multiple) hierarchical system. The key
assumption here is that, in several social hierarchies, groups are neither inherently
high in status (e.g., the 1%) or low in status (e.g., the 99%), and that disadvantage
(vs. advantage) often depend on the existence of one or more status outgroups to which
one's group compares on some material, psychological or social outcome. Because people
are motivated to achieve a positive social identity, there is often the tendency to
engage in intergroup comparisons that maximize people's chances of achieving this
goal. Members of intermediately positioned disadvantaged groups might compare their
outcomes to those who are worse-off than they are (i.e., downward comparison) rather
than better-off than they are (i.e., upward comparison), and this type of contrast
can enable a sense of positive identity (and satisfaction) needed to accept the way
things are (Dunham et al., 2014).
But, intermediately placed groups are still lower in status to group(s) that are higher-up
in the social stratification, and it is possible that both downward (favorable) and
upward (unfavorable) comparisons may be simultaneously active sometimes (e.g., Caricati,
2012), and how system justification is navigated under such circumstance becomes important.
Of course the system justification effect is unlikely to emerge when upward (unfavorable)
comparison trumps downward (favorable) comparison, and this provision helps to explain
a range of radical and non-radical demonstrations of discontent that are seen amongst
the disadvantaged (Wright, 2009; Teixeira et al., 2019). Our point, however, is that
so long as downward (favorable) comparisons overwhelm the potential for unfavorable
comparisons, system justification should be a likely outcome amongst the disadvantaged.
In short, the flexibility in the choice of intergroup comparison amongst intermediately
placed disadvantaged groups, can provide the incentive for supporting the status quo
because, at some level, the existing reality isn't as bad for them as it is for other
groups that are lower down the “food chain” (Becker, 2012). That is, if disadvantaged
groups can achieve a positive identity via downward comparison(s), they may be motivated
to support a system in order to protect the interests that are already satisfied by
an arrangement that affords them more opportunities than others. Supportive evidence
for this argument comes from Caricati and Sollami (2018), showing that nurses were
more likely to justify the hierarchically sorted healthcare professional system when
they could compare their outcomes to those of their lower status counterparts (i.e.,
healthcare assistants) relative to when this favorable downward comparison was not
possible.
Comparisons Across Time
The foregoing comparison-based explanation relates to a single time point (i.e., the
justification of an existing social arrangement). It is also possible to conceive
of situations in which comparisons can be made across different time points, such
as when people compare their present with their past (e.g., Zagefka and Brown, 2005;
Guimond and de la Sablonnière, 2015), their future (Owuamalam et al., 2018) or their
temporal intergroup outcomes (de la Sablonnière et al., 2009; Bougie et al., 2011).
TSST assumes that as long as these temporal comparisons are favorable (in the present
or future), system justification should be a likely outcome amongst members of intermediately
placed disadvantaged groups because, they are distinctly enabled by their uniquely
malleable position to exploit fluctuations within the system. That is, intermediately
placed disadvantaged groups might believe that the existing system is fair (and justified)
because it has permitted an improvement to their group's position relative to its
situation in the past, or because it will permit further improvements to their outcomes
in the future (akin to Owuamalam et al., 2018 hope for future ingroup status explanation).
Although evidence for this latter proposition is absent in the published literature,
other publicly archived data from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) provide
an initial confirmation of these assumptions. As Figure 1 indicates, women in countries
where the gender inequality index (GII) has reduced considerably in 2010 from what
it was in the past (down to 1995), tend to be more supportive of the gender status-quo—dismissing
the notion that gender is a relevant factor for upward social mobility.
Figure 1
Degree of reduction in gender inequality between 1995 and 2010 predicts tacit support
for the gender status-quo in 2009 amongst 27,970 women in 39 nations, r = 0.33 (N
= 39, p = 0.04) (ISSP Research Group, 2017) (source: ISSP Research Group, 2017). Gender
inequality index (GII; United Nations Development Programme, 2019) measures the inequality
in achievement between women and men in three dimensions: reproductive health, empowerment
and the labor market. Support for gender status-quo was measured with the item “Getting
ahead: How important is being born a man or a woman?” (1 = essential, 5 =Not important
at all); because accepting that gender does not matter in getting ahead represents
satisfaction with the gender status-quo. This item is also conceptually similar to
other items on the gender system justification measure [e.g., “everyone (male or female)
has a fair shot and wealth and happiness”—Jost and Kay, 2005]. Gender is conceived
here, not as a binary category, but as a multi- layered social stratification that
includes men, women, and then transgendered people.
Concluding Remarks
To be clear, we are neither proposing a general theory of intergroup relations, nor
is the goal here to explain all instances of system justification amongst the disadvantaged.
Rather, our aim was to use insights from the TSST to offer a new identity-based explanation
for the system justification effect among society's disadvantaged. Indeed, the dominant
explanation for the system justification effect has been the assumption of a system
motive that runs counter to self/group interests. However, both proponents and opponents
of this “special system motive” explanation do not neatly account for the effect of
intergroup comparisons on system justification. We close this gap by proposing that
instances of system justification among the disadvantaged can also be traced back
to the favorable comparisons that are possible when disadvantaged groups occupy an
intermediate position within a multiple stratified status system. Furthermore, the
current analysis extends these insights to temporal comparisons, and suggests that
system justification is likely to manifest amongst intermediately placed disadvantaged
groups when these (temporal) contrasts are favorable.
Finally, it is tempting to argue, based on SJT, that intergroup comparisons may be
part-and-parcel of the dissonance process that causes system-justifying tendencies
amongst the disadvantaged because, it potentially involves the suppression of an upward
comparison that ordinarily enables group-based motives, while at the same time permitting
a downward comparison that should allow the system motive to thrive. The problem with
this argumentation, however, is that it becomes difficult to separate the effects
that are tied to the system motive from an interest-based explanation because, in
this situation, intermediately positioned disadvantaged group members may be supporting
the status quo because they are at least better-off than others. Research is needed
to unpack these complexities.
Author Contributions
All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to
the work, and approved it for publication.
Conflict of Interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial
or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.