System justification

Cognitive bias

System justification theory is a theory within social psychology that system justifying beliefs serve a psychologically palliative function. It proposes that people have several underlying needs, which vary from individual to individual, that can be satisfied by the defense and justification of the status quo, even when the system may be disadvantageous to certain people. People have epistemic, existential, and relational needs that are met by and manifest as ideological support for the prevailing structure of social, economic, and political norms. Need for order and stability, and thus resistance to change or alternatives, for example, can be a motivator for individuals to see the status quo as good, legitimate, and even desirable. According to system justification theory, people desire not only to hold favorable attitudes about themselves (ego justification) and the groups to which they belong (group justification), but also to hold positive attitudes about the overarching social structure in which they are entwined and find themselves obligated to (system justification). This system justifying motive sometimes produces the phenomenon known as out group favoritism, an acceptance of inferiority among low status groups and a positive image of relatively higher status groups. Thus, the notion that individuals are simultaneously supporters and victims of the system instilled norms is a central idea in system justification theory. Additionally, the passive ease of supporting the current structure, when compared to the potential price (material, social, psychological) of acting out against the status quo, leads to a shared environment in which the existing social, economic, and political arrangements tend to be preferred. Alternatives to the status quo tend to be disparaged, and inequality tends to perpetuate.

Previous social psychological theories that aimed to explain intergroup behavior typically focused on the tendencies for people to have positive attitudes about themselves (ego justification) and their self relevant groups (group justification). System Justification theory addressed the additional, prevalent phenomenon known as out group favoritism, in which people defend the social systems (status quo) even when it does not benefit, and in the long run may even cause more harm, to the individual or the group to which he or she belongs. Out group favoritism can manifest as a dis identification on the part of members of lower social status with their own categorical grouping (social, ethnic, economic, political) and instead further support for the existing structure. Prior social psychology theories lacked explanation for and attention given to popular instances of out group favoritism; thus, system justification theory was developed to further explain and understand why some people tend to legitimize the prevailing social systems, despite their being against one's interests, in a way that previous social psychological theories did not. System justification theory builds off the cognitive dissonance framework, in that it posits people will justify a social system in order to retain a positive image of that social system, due to the fact that they inherently play a role (whether passive or active) in perpetuating it.

This theory has widely been compared to system justification theory since they are both system justifying theories. Social dominance theory focuses on people's motive to maintain a positive group image by generally supporting hierarchical inequality at the group level. Individuals with a high social dominance orientation (SDO) will hold myths that tend to be hierarchy enhancing, which justify an in group's place and their relation to it. Thus, in both social dominance theory and system justification theory, there are common threads of group based opposition to equality and justification for maintaining intergroup inequalities through systemic norms.

According to the just world hypothesis, people are inclined to believe the world is generally fair, and that the outcomes of people's behavior are subsequently deserved. Ideologies that relate to belief in a just world have to do with maintaining a sense of personal control and a desire to understand the world as non random. Such ideologies include the Protestant work ethic and belief in meritocracy. Essentially, belief in a just world feeds an epistemic need for predictability, order, and stability in one's environment. System justification theory, while keeping the perspective that people are inclined to believe the world is just, extracts the underlying epistemic needs of the just world ideology and uses them as support for why people are motivated to uphold the system. In other words, preference for stability, predictability, and the perception of personal control, over random chance, motivates one to see the status quo as fair and legitimate.

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. Thus, it is expected that when motivation to justify the system or status quo increases and it is perceived to be more legitimate, high status group members will also display increased ingroup favoritism, while low status group members will display increased outgroup favoritism. This depressed entitlement was first thought as the manifestation of women internalizing the low status of their gender compared to men. Subsequent research has found depressed entitlement occur across contexts in which gender was not a variable. System justification theorists have suggested that depressed entitlement is another general example of how individuals of low status groups absorb their inferiority in order to justify the status quo.

As previously stated, people are motivated by the desire for ego justification and group justification to view themselves and their group positively (which can manifest through feelings of self esteem and value). As system justification motives increase for low status group members, ingroup ambivalence will increase and occur at stronger levels compared to high status groups, levels of self esteem will decrease, and depression and neuroticism levels will increase. Moreover, researchers suggest that when ego and group justification motives are particularly decreased, system justification motives will increase. Stereotypes like these that incorporate a positive aspect to counterbalance the negative aspect would lead people to increase their justification of the status quo. Other findings suggested that these compensatory stereotypes are preferred by those with more left leaning political ideologies, while those with more right leaning political ideologies preferred non complementary stereotypes that simply rationalized inequality rather than compensated for it. But that overall, conservatives were more likely to have increased system justification tendencies than liberals.

Consequences of people's motivation to legitimize the status quo are wide ranging. In needing to believe that the current or prevailing systems are fair and just, results in people justifying the existing inequalities within it. Research suggests that system justification motives reduce emotional distress in people that would otherwise result in demands for amendments to perceived injustices or inequalities. Specifically, moral outrage, guilt, and frustration are reduced when system justification motives increase. This has shown to result in less support for social policies that redistribute resources in the aim for equality. In developing countries, in which group inequalities are most evident, researchers were interested in testing the claim of system justification theory that when inequalities are more visible, this will result in greater justification of the status quo. Researchers visited the most impoverished areas of Bolivia, and found that children (aged 10–15) who were members of low status groups legitimized the Bolivian government as sufficiently meeting the needs of the people more so than children from high status groups. Observing system justification motives in low status groups located in one of the most impoverished countries implies there will be less support for social change in a country that arguably needs it the most. These perceptions indirectly brought a threat to the legitimacy of the U. S. government (i. e. the system). As a result of this system threat, researchers found that people tended to restore legitimacy to the system through utilizing stereotypes and victim blaming. In 2019, a series of position and reply articles were published by proponents of both system justification theory (Jost, 2019; Jost et al., 2019) and SIMSA (Owuamalam et al., 2019a, 2019b) in the debate section of the British Journal of Social Psychology. In 2023, this debate continued in the European Review of Social Psychology, with (a) a target article by Rubin et al. (2023) that expanded on SIMSA, (b) a rejoinder by Jost et al. (2023) that criticized this target article, and (c) a second article by Rubin et al. (2023) that responded to Jost et al. 's criticisms.

Another critique is that system justification theory is too similar and indistinguishable to status quo bias. Given that both deal directly with upholding and legitimizing the status quo, this critique is not unfounded. But system justification theory differs from the status quo bias in that it is predominately motivational rather than cognitive. Generally, the status quo bias refers to a tendency to prefer the default or established option when making choices. In contrast, system justification posits that people need and want to see prevailing social systems as fair and just. The motivational component of system justification means that its effects are exacerbated when people are under psychological threat or when they feel their outcomes are especially dependent on the system that is being justified.

Congruent with a broader trend toward neuroscience, current research on system justification has tested to see how this manifests in the brain. Findings by researchers have shown that people with more conservative ideologies differed in certain brain structures, which was associated with sensitivity to threat and response conflict. Specifically, those who were more conservative were "associated with greater neural sensitivity to threat and larger amygdala volume, as well as less sensitivity to response conflict and smaller anterior cingulate volume," compared to those who were more liberal. This research is currently exploratory and has not yet determined the direction of the relations to ideology and brain structures. Through utilizing the developmental psychological theory and data, children as early as age 5 were found to have basic understandings of their ingroup and the status of their ingroup. System justification motives were also observed in that children from low status groups were found display implicit outgroup favoritism.