scholarly journals System justification among the disadvantaged: A triadic social stratification perspective

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luca Caricati ◽  
Chuma Kevin Owuamalam

For the past 25 years, the field of social and political psychology has embraced the idea that humans possess a special system justification motivation which causes even members of disadvantaged groups to support societal systems that ostensibly operate against their personal and group interests. Recently, this system justification motive explanation has been challenged, based on mounting empirical evidence to the contrary. However, the potential demise of this dominant perspective invites explanations for the system justification phenomenon, especially amongst the disadvantaged. Existing interest-based accounts, such as the social identity model of system attitudes have tried to fill this gap, but have generally focused on system rationalisation processes within dyadic systems that pitch disadvantaged groups against their privileged counterparts alone. The current contribution extends the existing interest-based accounts by explaining system justification effects in multi-stratified social systems. Based on the triadic social stratification theory, we propose that system justification among the disadvantaged may result from favourable inter-status comparisons within a multi-stratified social system.

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 124-154
Author(s):  
Dimitris Papazachariou ◽  
Anna Fterniati ◽  
Argiris Archakis ◽  
Vasia Tsami

Abstract Over the past decades, contemporary sociolinguistics has challenged the existence of fixed and rigid linguistic boundaries, thus focusing on how the speakers themselves define language varieties and how specific linguistic choices end up being perceived as language varieties. In this light, the present paper explores the influence of metapragmatic stereotypes on elementary school pupils’ attitudes towards geographical varieties. Specifically, we investigate children’s beliefs as to the acceptability of geographical varieties and their perception of the overt and covert prestige of geographical varieties and dialectal speakers. Furthermore, we explore the relationship between the children’s specific beliefs and factors such as gender, the social stratification of the school location and the pupils’ performance in language subjects. The data of the study was collected via questionnaires with closed questions. The research findings indicate that the children of our sample associate geographical varieties with rural settings and informal communicative contexts. Moreover, children recognize a lack of overt prestige in geographical variation; at the same time, they evaluate positively the social attractiveness and the personal reliability of the geographical varieties and their speakers. Our research showed that pupils’ beliefs are in line with the dominant metapragmatic stereotypes which promote language homogeneity.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chuma Kevin Owuamalam ◽  
Mark Rubin ◽  
Russell Spears

Do the disadvantaged have an autonomous system justification motivation that operates against their personal and group interests? System justification theory (SJT; Jost & Banaji, 1994) proposes that they do, and that this motivation helps to (a) reduce cognitive dissonance and associated uncertainties and (b) soothe the pain that is associated with knowing that one’s group is subject to social inequality. However, 25 years of research on this system justification motivation has given rise to several theoretical and empirical inconsistencies. The present article argues that these inconsistencies can be resolved by a social identity model of system attitudes (SIMSA; Owuamalam, Rubin, & Spears, 2018). SIMSA assumes that instances of system justification are often in alignment with (rather than opposed to) the interests of the disadvantaged. According to SIMSA, the disadvantaged may support social systems (a) in order to acknowledge social reality, (b) when they perceive the wider social system to constitute a superordinate ingroup, and (c) because they hope to improve their ingroup’s status through existing channels in the long run. These propositions are corroborated by existing and emerging evidence. We conclude that SIMSA offers a more coherent and parsimonious explanation for system justification than does SJT.


TOTOBUANG ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-140
Author(s):  
Nurul Arpa Lestaluhu ◽  
Falantino Eryk Latupapua

This paper was the result of a qualitative research used sociology of literature approach.  by descriptive method describing the social stratification in Bumi Manusia by Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s. The Data  had descriptively analyzed by literature sociological theory, particularly through Social Stratification Theory. The Social Stratification points to the element of social level  which consists of ascribed status and achieved status. Thus, the result describes the social stratification that occurs in the novel Bumi Manusia as ascribed status and achieved status. Finally, there are several determinants which constructing social stratification. Those factors are: power, marriage, attitude, resistance, struggle, effort or hardwork. Artikel ini merupakan hasil penelitian kualitatif yang menggunakan pendekatan sosiologi sastra melalui penerapan metode deskriptif yang bertujuan untuk mendeskripsikan stratifikasi sosial yang tampak dalam novel Bumi Manusia karya Pramoedya Ananta Toer. Analisis data dilakukan secara deskriptif dengan menggunakan perspektif teori sosiologi sastra, khususnya teori stratifikasi sosial. Stratifikasi sosial menyasar pada unsur kedudukan yang terdiri atas ascribed status (status alamiah) dan achieved status (status yang diusahakan). Sebagai temuan, artikel ini mendeskripsikan stratifikasi sosial yang terjadi dalam novel Bumi Manusia yaitu berupa unsur kedudukan ascribed status (status alamiah) dan achieved status (status yang diusahakan) dan terdapat beberapa determina dalam membentuk stratifikasi sosial  yaitu kekuasaan, pernikahan, sikap, perlawanan, perjuangan, usaha, dan kerja keras.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danielle P. Ochoa ◽  
Eric Julian Manalastas ◽  
Makiko Deguchi ◽  
Winnifred R. Louis

Men have an important role as allies in reducing discrimination against women. Following the Social Identity Model of Collective Action (SIMCA), we examined whether men's identification with women would predict their allied collective action, alongside moral convictions, efficacy, and anger. We also examined whether identification with their own ingroup would decrease their willingness to improve women's situation. We tested the SIMCA, extended to consider ingroup identification among men, in Japan (N = 103) and the Philippines (N = 131). Consistent with the SIMCA, moral convictions and group efficacy predicted men's willingness to engage in collective action to fight discrimination against women. However, anger was not significant, and identification with the advantaged and disadvantaged groups played different roles in the two countries. We discuss the possible role of norms and legitimacy in society in explaining the pattern of results.


2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 114-137 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kwan-Lamar Blount-Hill

AbstractThe connection between social identity and attitudes toward the criminal justice system (CJS) is an area of interest among criminologists and legitimacy scholars. Previous work has proposed a social identity theory of legitimation, positing that individuals categorize CJS officials as either in-group (i.e. legitimate authority) or out-group (i.e. illegitimate enforcer). Subsequently, how individuals perceive their CJS – including the sincerity of its commitment to the rule of law – is tied to this relationship. Those viewing the government as an out-group oppressor are less likely to accept its legitimacy. This article explores this thesis. From the perspective of system justification theory, how the CJS is categorized should depend on how strongly an individual identifies as belonging to a group disadvantaged by the CJS. System justification theorists hypothesize that system justification (including acceptance of system legitimacy) is more likely when members of disadvantaged groups believe that group interests are less important. Alternative models that explain attitudes toward the system by using social identity theory suggest the opposite: Those who identify more strongly with disadvantaged groups and hold their interests to be more important nonetheless justify oppositional systems and view them legitimately. The present study uses a sample of Black Americans (a disadvantaged group in the American CJS) to determine whether group identification predicts system justification.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chuma Kevin Owuamalam ◽  
Mark Rubin

The debate between the proponents of SIMSA and SJT does not pivot on whether system justification occurs – we all agree that system justification does occur. The issue is why it occurs? System justification theory (SJT; Jost & Banaji, 1994) assumes that system justification is motivated by a special system justification motive. In contrast, the social identity model of system attitudes (SIMSA; Owuamalam, Rubin, & Spears, 2018) argues that there is insufficient conclusive evidence for this special system motive, and that system justification can be explained in terms of social identity motives, including the motivation to accurately reflect social reality and the search for a positive social identity. Here, we respond to criticisms of SIMSA, including criticisms of its social reality, ingroup bias and hope for future ingroup status explanations of system justification. We conclude that SJT theorists should decide whether system justification is oppositional to, or compatible with social identity motives, and that this dilemma could be resolved by relinquishing the theoretically problematic notion of a system justification motivation.


1986 ◽  
Vol 168 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Owen

The publishers of the Scholastic Aptitude Test have maintained for many years that the SAT has helped blacks and members of other disadvantaged groups get ahead in American society. But this cheerful view has no basis in fact. SAT scores have never been a threat to the social hegemony of the American white upper middle class; indeed, they have reinforced it. Most minority applicants who are admitted to selective colleges are admitted in spite of their SAT scores, not because of them. American society has indeed become more egalitarian during the 60 years the SAT has been in existence, but the test itself has had nothing to do with bringing about that social transformation. If anything, it has stood in the way.


1974 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 335-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence E. Hinkle

The concept of “stress” was applied to biological and social systems in the first half of this century because it appeared to provide an explanation for the apparently “non-specific” effects of biologic agents, and for the occurrence of illness as a part of the response of people to their social environment. Evidence subsequently accumulated has confirmed that a large proportion of the manifestations of disease are produced by reaction of the host and not directly by the “causal agents” of disease, and that the components of the host's reactions are not in themselves “specific” to any given “causal agent”; it has confirmed that reactions of people to other people, or to the social environment may influence any physiological process or any disease; but it has also indicated that the concept of “stress” does not provide an adequate explanation for these phenomena. Living organisms are highly ordered and complex biological organizations that maintain themselves precariously over a limited period of time by the interchange of energy and information with the environment. Their reactions to the environment are complex and highly ordered, are based upon information, and are communicative and “logical” in nature. Although the components are “not specific,” the reactions themselves may be highly specific to the stimulus that initiates them. These reactions are not random but are “directed” (apparently “purposeful”) and tend to preserve the integrity of the organism, and the integrity of its relation to its social group and to its environment. The concept of “stress,” which was derived partly from popular usage, and based upon 18th and 19th century mechanical models of “force,” “counterforce,” and “distortion,” does not provide a meaningful scientific description of organism-environment relationships. These are better described by other concepts. The “stress concept” was heuristically valuable in the past, but it is no longer necessary, and it is in some ways hampering at the present.


1999 ◽  
pp. 58-63
Author(s):  
Vira Serhiyko

Religious and moral ideas are the basis of those social, political and economic relations, with the apology of which stands for Catholicism.The ethic of social ideas, according to Catholic theorists, makes it possible to better perform the "presence" of the church in all social systems. John Paul II formulates this task in the following way: "Christians must spread the social doctrine that is based on the gospel, which the churches have proclaimed always, but even to a greater extent, over the past hundred years. This doctrine relates above all to moral principles, because without them the so-called social question can never be resolved. "


2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 147470491876534 ◽  
Author(s):  
John T. Jost ◽  
Robert M. Sapolsky ◽  
H. Hannah Nam

For centuries, philosophers and social theorists have wondered why people submit voluntarily to tyrannical leaders and oppressive regimes. In this article, we speculate on the evolutionary origins of system justification, that is, the ways in which people are motivated (often nonconsciously) to defend and justify existing social, economic, and political systems. After briefly recounting the logic of system justification theory and some of the most pertinent empirical evidence, we consider parallels between the social behaviors of humans and other animals concerning the acceptance versus rejection of hierarchy and dominance. Next, we summarize research in human neuroscience suggesting that specific brain regions, such as the amygdala and the anterior cingulate cortex, may be linked to individual differences in ideological preferences concerning (in)equality and social stability as well as the successful navigation of complex, hierarchical social systems. Finally, we consider some of the implications of a system justification perspective for the study of evolutionary psychology, political behavior, and social change.


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