Percepción de desigualdad económica y su influencia sobre la justificación de las diferencias de ingreso legítimas

This study analyzes the effect of information about economic inequality on the justification of wage inequality. Using a representative sample of the metropolitan area of Santiago, Chile (n=732), we implemented an experimental survey design to replicate the results reported by Kriss-Stella Trump (2017) for the context of Sweden and the United States about wage gap justification. Our results show that factual wage information does not impact the overall wage gap justification. However, we evidenced that information about wage inequality increases the justification of wage gaps according to high and low-status occupations, which is enhanced by the joint exposure to the condition that seeks to motivate the social system justification. The study's methodological limitations are discussed, along with the implications of the evidence for the substantive analysis of attitudes toward inequality and economic redistribution.

Exploring Higher Education Pathways for Coping With the Threat of COVID-19: Does Parental Academic Background Matter?

First-generation students (FGS) are more likely to feel misplaced and struggle at university than students with university-educated parents (continuous-generation students; CGS). We assumed that the shutdowns during the Coronavirus-pandemic would particularly threaten FGS due to obstructed coping mechanisms. Specifically, FGS may show lower identification with the academic setting and lower perceived fairness of the university system (system justification). We investigated whether FGS and CGS used different defenses to cope with the shutdown threat in a large sample of German-speaking students (N = 848). Using Structural Equation Modeling, we found that for all students, independent of academic parental background, high levels of system justification were associated with perceiving the learning situation as less threatening, better coping with failure, and less helplessness. However, in comparison to CGS, FGS showed small but significant reductions in system justification and relied more on concrete personal relationships with other students as well as their academic identity to cope with the threatening situation. We discuss implications for helping FGS succeed at university.

The Effect of Perceived Uncertainty on Competitive Behavior

How do people behave in the face of uncertainty? Some studies suggest that even when they are unaware of how others will behave, people default to cooperative behavior; however, other research suggests that uncertainty leads to more competitive behavior. Little research has examined how individual differences moderate such behavioral decisions. This study proposes that a stable (dispositional) sense of justice may, ironically, lead to more competitive behavior. Specifically, people who score highly in belief in a just world, system justification, and religiosity, and low in ambiguity tolerance may be more inclined to compete rather than cooperate because they believe people who experience positive outcomes deserve those outcomes regardless of the means taken to achieve them. Across two studies, participants (N = 288) engaged in a prisoner’s dilemma game — a task where they must choose to compete or cooperate — and completed the aforementioned individual difference measures. Results show that people tended to cooperate, but those high in system justification and belief in a just world were more likely to compete. In other words, people with a strong sense of cosmic justice were likely to exhibit competitive behavior under uncertain conditions. KEYWORDS: Ambiguity Tolerance; Competition; Cooperation; Just World Beliefs; Prisoner’s Dilemma; Prosocial Behavior; Religiosity; System Justification; Uncertainty

A System Justification Theory of Entrepreneurial Attitudinal Change During a Crisis

Entrepreneurship resilience during a crisis is an important research area. However, prior research has not examined cognitive antecedents of entrepreneurial resilience. Using the 2014 oil price crisis in the Middle East as a natural experiment, we draw on system justification theory to understand why and how entrepreneurs differ in the extent of their attitudinal changes toward corruption. We find foreign entrepreneurs substantially increased their willingness to engage in corruption whereas local entrepreneurs did not. Among foreign entrepreneurs, corruption willingness increases more among those from countries where corruption is not the norm, than those from more corrupt home countries.

Antecedents and consequences of system justification among Iranian migrants in Western Europe

Seeing the sociopolitical system as fair and legitimate is important for people’s participation in civic duties, political action, and the functioning of society in general. However, little is known about when migrants, without life-long socialization in a certain system, justify the sociopolitical system of their host country and how system justification influences their political participation. We examined antecedents of system justification using a survey among Iranian migrants in eight European countries (N = 935). Subsequently, we examined the relationship between system justification and political participation intentions. We found that system justification beliefs are generally high in our sample, mainly stemming from an assessment of opportunity to achieve changes in intergroup relations. Stronger social identity threat, feeling disadvantaged, a longer residence in Europe, and perceived intergroup stability all relate to less system justification. Conversely, stronger efficacy beliefs bolster system justification. Furthermore, we found some support for a curvilinear relationship between system justification and political participation intentions, but the size of this effect is small. The results show that the high levels of system justification of Iranian migrants are at risk when discrimination and disadvantage are perceived to be stable facets of society. Surprisingly, political participation to better Iranian migrants’ societal position is barely affected by system justification. We discuss implications and further research that can increase understanding of system justification among migrants.

Do Members of Disadvantaged Groups Explain Group Status With Group Stereotypes?

Recent research on group attitudes in members of disadvantaged groups has provided evidence that group evaluations closely align with societal stigma, reflecting outgroup favoritism in members of those groups that are most strongly stigmatized. While outgroup favoritism is clearly evident among some groups, there is still debate about the psychological mechanisms underlying outgroup favoritism. The current research focuses on a less intensively examined aspect of outgroup favoritism, namely the use of status-legitimizing group stereotypes. We present data from members of four disadvantaged groups (i.e., persons who self-categorize as gay or lesbian, n = 205; Black or African American, n = 209; overweight n = 200, or are aged 60–75 years n = 205), who reported the perceived status of their ingroup and a comparison majority outgroup and provided explanations for their status perceptions. Contrary to assumptions from System Justification Theory, participants rarely explained perceived group status differences with group stereotypes, whereas they frequently explained ingroup disadvantage with perceived stigmatization and/or systemic reasons. Further exploratory analyses indicated that participants’ status explanations were related to measures of intergroup attitudes, ideological beliefs, stigma consciousness, and experienced discrimination. Our results highlight the need to develop a better understanding whether, under what circumstances, and with which consequences members of disadvantaged groups use group stereotypes as attributions of ingroup status and status differences.

Do Superordinate Identification and Temporal/Social Comparisons Independently Predict Citizens’ System Trust? Evidence From a 40-Nation Survey

Do superordinate in-group bias as well as temporal and social comparisons offer standalone explanations for system justification? We addressed this question using the latest World Value Survey (7th Wave), combining the responses of 55,721 participants from 40 different nations. Results from a random slope multilevel model showed that superordinate (national) identification, temporal comparison (i.e., the outcomes of an individual relative to those of his/her parents at different time points), and social comparison (based on income levels) were independent and positive predictors of system justification. Specifically, system justification increased when national identification was high, when income increased (i.e., the socioeconomic comparison was positive), and when the outcomes of citizens improved relative to the outcomes of their parents at relevant time points (i.e., the temporal comparison was positive). Incidentally, we also observed an interaction between national identification and temporal comparison (but not with social comparison), indicating that positive temporal comparison seemed to have a reduced effect (but still significant) for highly identified citizens. These results are supportive of the social identity approach to system justification and suggest that support for societal systems is a positive function of people’s personal and group interests.

How Do Russians Perceive and Justify the Status Quo: Insights From Adapting the System Justification Scales

This paper aims to adapt the system justification scales (general, political, economic, and gender) for the Russian socio-cultural context and to carry out their psychometric analysis. In Study 1 (N = 450), the original items from four system justification scales on a Russian sample were tested. The results suggested that none of the original scales worked properly in Russia and all of them demonstrated weak fit indices. In Study 2 (N = 553), culturally specific grounds for system justification in the Russian context were highlighted and tested. The results of this study confirmed that all the adapted scales demonstrated a good fit to the data. In Study 3 (N = 1,011), the invariance of system justification scales and the convergent and discriminant validity of the scales was tested. The results confirmed that the general, political, and economic system justification scales demonstrated full invariance, while the gender system justification scale showed partial invariance for multigroup comparison. All the scales convergent and discriminant validity, which leads to consider them as an effective tool for measuring system justification in various types of social relationships in Russia. The role of socio-cultural characteristics in justifying the status quo is discussed.

Obstacles to Birth Surname Retention Upon Marriage: How Do Hostile Sexism and System Justification Predict Support for Marital Surname Change Among Women?

Despite the ongoing shift in societal norms and gender-discriminatory practices toward more equality, many heterosexual women worldwide, including in many Western societies, choose to replace their birth surname with the family name of their spouse upon marriage. Previous research has demonstrated that the adherence to sexist ideologies (i.e., a system of discriminatory gender-based beliefs) among women is associated with their greater endorsement of practices and policies that maintain gender inequality. By integrating the ideas from the system justification theory and the ambivalent sexism theory, we proposed that the more women adhere to hostile and benevolent sexist beliefs, the more likely they would be to justify existing gender relations in society, which in turn, would positively predict their support for traditional, husband-centered marital surname change. We further argued that hostile (as compared to benevolent) sexism could act as a particularly strong direct predictor of the support for marital surname change among women. We tested these possibilities across three cross-sectional studies conducted among women in Turkey (Study 1, N=118, self-identified feminist women; Study 2, N=131, female students) and the United States (Study 3, N=140, female students). Results of Studies 1 and 3 revealed that higher adherence to hostile (but not benevolent) sexism was associated with higher support for marital surname change indirectly through higher gender-based system justification. In Study 2, the hypothesized full mediation was not observed. Consistent with our predictions, in all three studies, hostile (but not benevolent) sexism was found to be a direct positive predictor of the support for marital surname change among women. We discuss the role of dominant ideologies surrounding marriage and inegalitarian naming conventions in different cultures as obstacles to women’s birth surname retention upon marriage.