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Accumulated Evidence of Conscious and Unconscious
Bolstering of the Status Quo
John T. Jost
Department of Psychology, New York University
Mahzarin R. Banaji
Department of Psychology and Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study,
Harvard University
Brian A. Nosek
Department of Psychology, University of Virginia
Most theories in social and political psychology stress self-interest, intergroup conflict, ethnocentrism,
homophily, ingroup bias, outgroup antipathy, dominance, and resistance.
System justification theory is influenced by these perspectives—including social identity
and social dominance theories—but it departs from them in several respects. Advocates of
system justification theory argue that (a) there is a general ideological motive to justify the
existing social order, (b) this motive is at least partially responsible for the internalization
of inferiority among members of disadvantaged groups, (c) it is observed most readily at
an implicit, nonconscious level of awareness and (d) paradoxically, it is sometimes
strongest among those who are most harmed by the status quo. This article reviews and
integrates 10 years of research on 20 hypotheses derived from a system justification perspective,
focusing on the phenomenon of implicit outgroup favoritism among members of
disadvantaged groups (including African Americans, the elderly, and gays/lesbians) and
its relation to political ideology (especially liberalism-conservatism).
KEY WORDS:
ideology, system justification, intergroup relations, implicit biasThere is a cluster of related theories that are by now so prevalent in social
science that they strike the contemporary reader as self-evidently true. Although
these theories are by no means indistinguishable, they share a set of common features,
including the tenets that groups serve their own interests, develop ideolo-
Political Psychology, Vol. 25, No. 6, 2004
0162-895X © 2004 International Society of Political Psychology
Published by Blackwell Publishing. Inc., 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA, and 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ
881
gies to justify those interests, have strong preferences for members of their own
kind, are hostile and prejudicial toward outsiders, and are conflict-seeking whenever
it helps to advance their partisan interests and particularistic identities. For
the sake of classification—and in order to contrast them with our own approach—
we refer to these as “group justification” theories (see also Jost & Banaji, 1994).
They hold that people are driven by ethnocentric motives to build ingroup solidarity
and to defend and justify the interests and identities of fellow ingroup
members against those of outgroup members. Such theories may contain one or
more of the following specific assumptions:
Similar others are preferred to dissimilar others. (Allen & Wilder, 1975;
Brewer, 1979; Tsui, Egan, & O’Reilly, 1992)
Prejudice is a form of hostility directed at outgroup members. (Adorno,
Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950; Allport, 1954; Brown,
2000b; Pettigrew, 1982)
Intergroup relations in society are inherently competitive and conflictridden.
(Bobo, 1988; Sherif, 1967; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999)
Intergroup behavior is driven primarily by ethnocentrism and ingroup
favoritism. (Brewer & Campbell, 1976; Brewer & Miller, 1996; Sumner,
1906; Tajfel & Turner, 1986)
Prejudice, discrimination, and institutionalized oppression are inevitable
outcomes of intergroup relations. (Sidanius & Pratto, 1993)
Members of dominant groups strive to impose their hegemonic will on
members of subordinated groups. (Fiske, 1993; Sidanius & Pratto, 1999)
Members of subordinated groups first seek to escape the implications of
group membership by exercising individual exit and mobility options.
(Ellemers, Wilke, & van Knippenberg, 1993; Hirschman, 1970; Tajfel,
1975)
When individual exit/mobility is impossible, members of subordinated
groups engage in identity enhancement strategies of resistance and competition.
(Scott, 1990; Spears, Jetten, & Doosje, 2001; Tajfel & Turner,
1986)
In coping with chronically threatened social identities, members of subordinated
groups typically express stronger levels of ingroup favoritism
than do members of dominant groups. (Leach, Spears, Branscombe, &
Doosje, 2003; Mullen, Brown, & Smith, 1992)
Political ideology mirrors/group membership individual and collective
self-interest and/or social position. (Centers, 1949; Downs, 1957; Olson,
1971; Sidanius, Singh, Hetts, & Federico, 2000)
882 Jost et al.
A sense of injustice is triggered by violations of relative standards or
established fairness norms. (Deutsch, 1985; Gurr, 1970; Taylor &
Moghaddam, 1994; Walker & Smith, 2002)
In the social scientific imagination, it is as if the advantaged are relentlessly
looking to cash in on their dominance and the disadvantaged are proud revolutionaries-
in-waiting. Both types of groups are seen as primarily self-interested,
and overt conflicts of interest are assumed to be endemic.
1In this paper, we question these common, almost ubiquitous assumptions and
make a case for a contrary perspective. We challenge these conventionally
accepted principles not because we think that they are unhelpful or incorrect or
fail to capture the modal case, but because the many notable exceptions and deviations
are instructive, revealing, and helpful for creative theory-building (see
McGuire, 1997). The received view is a good story, but it is not the whole story.
We think that it needs to be supplemented with an alternative theoretical perspective
that takes the important exceptions seriously. In this article, we further
advance a psychological theory of
system justification, defined as the “process bywhich existing social arrangements are legitimized, even at the expense of personal
and group interest” (Jost & Banaji, 1994, p. 2). Specifically, we review 10
years of research stimulated by a system justification perspective on intergroup
relations, and we present some new data pertaining to the ideological basis of
conscious and nonconscious intergroup attitudes.
The Accumulation of Evidence Against the Received View
In recent years, evidence against the propositions listed above has been accumulating,
and a number of commentators have begun to express dissatisfaction
with pieces of the received view. Jackman (1994), for instance, railed against
“conflict theories” of intergroup relations and the conception of prejudice as “irrational
antagonism.” She suggested that, from a system maintenance perspective,
there is far more to be gained by members of dominant groups fostering cooperative,
even affectionate relationships with their subordinates. Her historical and
survey research shows that dominants and subordinates are highly averse to conflict
and antagonism and generally develop collaborative relationships, even
within the context of dramatically inegalitarian institutions such as slavery. Glick
and Fiske (2001) similarly criticized Allport’s (1954) popular definition of prejudice
as antipathy for failing to explain benevolent forms of sexism. They showed
that seemingly favorable attitudes toward women can help to sustain gender
A Decade of System Justification Theory 883
1
The assumption of universal self-interest, whether made by social scientists or lay people, may itselfcontribute to system justification, insofar as it justifies self-interested behavior on the part of advantaged
group members by suggesting that everyone—including members of disadvantaged groups—
equivalently embraces self-interest (which is not the case, as we will show).
inequality and discriminatory systems and should therefore be considered prejudicial,
even though such attitudes are highly appealing to many women (e.g.,
Kilianski & Rudman, 1998). The weight of evidence is also mounting against the
notion that ingroup bias is a default feature of intergroup relations and that
members of low-status groups typically use a wide repertoire of identity enhancement
strategies. To take one example from the survey literature, Sniderman and
Piazza (1993) found in a large, nationally representative sample that African
American respondents generally accepted unfavorable stereotypes of their own
group as lazy, irresponsible, and violent. Indeed, they endorsed these stereotypes
even more strongly than European American respondents did. Experimental and
field studies have since shown that members of disadvantaged groups often hold
ambivalent, conflicted attitudes about their own group membership and surprisingly
favorable attitudes toward members of more advantaged groups (e.g., Jost
& Burgess, 2000; Jost, Pelham, & Carvallo, 2002). On the basis of these and
other findings, Smith and Mackie (2002) concluded that intergroup attitudes
are more complex and differentiated than the received view allows. Ingroup
favoritism and outgroup derogation may be relatively common, but they are by
no means the only reactions that people have to social groups, especially when
status and power differences are involved.
Miller (1999) argued persuasively that self-interest is a product of social and
cultural norms rather than a universal “fact” about human motivation. Empirical
studies conducted by Miller and Ratner (1998) demonstrate that group memberships
have much weaker effects on social attitudes than observers assume. With
regard to political attitudes, there is notoriously little correspondence between
indicators of self-interest (such as income, social class, and demographic group
membership) and ideology (e.g., Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003a;
Lane, 1959/2004; Lipset, 1981; Sears & Funk, 1991; Sidanius & Ekehammar,
1979; Stacey & Green, 1971; Wilson, 1973). Even on issues that should be highly
relevant to considerations of self-interest, such as policies of economic distribution,
research repeatedly shows that low-income groups are scarcely more likely
than high-income groups to support such policies, although they would obviously
benefit from them (Fong, 2001; Gilens, 1999; Jost, Pelham, Sheldon, & Sullivan,
2003; Kluegel & Smith, 1986). In a similar vein, Newman (2002) concluded on
the basis of her urban ethnographic work that, in defiance of current sociological
theories, “ghetto dwellers are neither the passive victims of nor the heroic resisters
against capitalist or racist exploitation” (p. 1586). Evidence against the received
view has been accumulating, and much of it is more consistent with a system
justification perspective that stresses accommodation and rationalization of the
status quo than with identity-based or interest-based theories.
Like all contemporary researchers of intergroup relations, we have been influenced
immensely by theories of social identification (Tajfel & Turner, 1986) and
social dominance (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). From our viewpoint, however, these
approaches are hampered by adhering so closely to conventional assumptions of
884 Jost et al.
self-interest, homophily, ingroup bias, outgroup antipathy, and intergroup conflict.
In the case of social identity theory, Tajfel (1975) absorbed much of this framework
from Hirschman’s (1970) rational choice analysis of exit versus loyalty.
Other aspects may have resulted from Tajfel and Turner’s (1986) overgeneralization
of results from the minimal group paradigm in an effort to explain very different
contexts involving longstanding inequalities between groups. With regard
to social dominance theory, assumptions of self-interest may derive from a reading
of evolutionary theory in which, among other things, ethnocentrism among
humans is seen as determined by inclusive fitness as an extension of “genetic selfishness”
(Sidanius & Pratto, 1999, p. 27).
To the limited extent that these theories address attitudes toward the overarching
social system (rather than intergroup attitudes), they tend to regard the social
order as something that is imposed by one group and resisted by the other.
2 Thisis their strength—because there is considerable heuristic value in making such an
assumption—but it is also their weakness. The image of intergroup relations that
results is overly self-interested and insufficiently ideological; these two criticisms
are not contradictory, because ideology is motivated by many factors in addition
to self-interest (Jost et al., 2003a). Theories of social identity and social dominance
fail to account for the degree to which psychological responses to the social
and political status quo are characterized by active bolstering and system justification,
especially among members of disadvantaged groups. That is, hierarchy is
maintained not only through mechanisms of ingroup favoritism and outgroup
derogation exercised by members of dominant groups, but also by the complicity
of members of subordinated groups, many of whom perpetuate inequality
through mechanisms such as outgroup favoritism.
To illustrate the one-sided emphasis on homophily, ingroup favoritism, and
ethnocentrism (and the corresponding neglect of outgroup favoritism), we have
listed in Table 1 several books on social identity and intergroup relations, comparing
the number of index entries for “ingroup bias” and “ingroup favo(u)ritism”
to entries for “outgroup bias” and “outgroup favo(u)ritism.” For 11 books published
between 1981 and 2000, there were 142 index entries for ingroup
favoritism, whereas there were 12 entries for outgroup favoritism, 8 of which
came from a single chapter by Hinkle and Brown (1990). This one-sidedness is
not accidental. Prevailing theories contain a much more developed set of explanatory
concepts around the struggle to foster positive group distinctiveness and to
favor ingroup members than around the motive to justify the status quo and the
tendency to internalize status hierarchies. Framing theories around concepts of
A Decade of System Justification Theory 885
2
On this issue, Havel (1991) wrote perceptively that “only a very generalized view (and even thatonly approximative) permits us to divide society into the rulers and the ruled. . . . In the posttotalitarian
system [the line of conflict] runs de facto through each person, for everyone in his own
way is both a victim and a supporter of the system. What we understand by the system is not, therefore,
a social order imposed by one group upon another, but rather something which permeates an
entire society and is a factor in shaping it” (p. 144).
“identification” and “dominance” dictates a focus on difference, conflict, and the
advancement of specific group interests.
The neglect of system-justifying processes is ironic, given that the historical
record reveals far more acquiescence than identity-based competition or revolt on
the part of disadvantaged group members. Zinn (1968), for example, noted that
Society’s tendency is to maintain what has been. Rebellion is only an
occasional reaction to suffering in human history; we have infinitely
more instances of forbearance to exploitation, and submission to authority,
than we have examples of revolt. Measure the number of peasant
insurrections against the centuries of serfdom in Europe—the millennia
of landlordism in the East; match the number of slave revolts in America
with the record of those millions who went through their lifetimes of toil
without outward protest. What we should be most concerned about is not
some natural tendency towards violent uprising, but rather the inclination
of people, faced with an overwhelming environment, to submit to
it. (pp. 16–17)
In the remainder of this article, we demonstrate that a theory of system justification
like the one we proposed a decade ago (Jost & Banaji, 1994) is needed to
account for the full range of empirical evidence pertaining to the causes, consequences,
and depth of the individual’s psychological investment in the existing
886 Jost et al.
Table 1.
Number of Subject Index Entries in Books on Social Identification and IntergroupRelations Referring to Ingroup Favoritism and Outgroup Favoritism, 1981–2000
Book Ingroup Outgroup
favoritism/ favoritism/
ingroup bias outgroup bias
Turner & Giles (1981) 21 0
Tajfel (1984, both volumes) 6 0
Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell (1987) 8 0
Brown (1988) 24 0
Abrams & Hogg (1990) 13 8
aOakes, Haslam, & Turner (1994) 7 1
Taylor & Moghaddam (1994) 5 0
Stephan & Stephan (1996) 3 0
Spears, Oakes, Ellemers, & Haslam (1997) 38 3
bSedikides, Schopler, & Insko (1998) 6 0
Brown (2000b) 11 0
Total 142 12
Average per book 12.9 1.1
a
All eight of these entries refer to a chapter by Hinkle and Brown (1990).b
Two of these three entries refer to a chapter by Stangor and Jost (1997).social system, especially when that investment contradicts his or her own selfinterest
and/or ingroup solidarity.
We argue that there is a general (but not insurmountable) system justification
motive to defend and justify the status quo and to bolster the legitimacy of the
existing social order. Such a motive is not unique to members of dominant groups.
We see it as comparable—in terms of its strength and social significance—to
widely documented motives to defend and justify the interests and esteem of the
self-concept and the social group (Brewer, 1979; Cialdini et al., 1976; Greenwald,
1980; Tajfel & Turner, 1986). We expand previous theoretical notions and claim
that people want to hold favorable attitudes about themselves and about their own
groups, but they also want to hold favorable attitudes about social and political
systems that affect them.
Ego, Group, and System Justification Motives
Jost and Banaji (1994) distinguished among three different justification tendencies
or motives that have the potential to be in conflict or contradiction with
one another for members of disadvantaged groups. The first motive is “ego justification,”
and it describes the need to develop and maintain a favorable selfimage
and to feel valid, justified, and legitimate as an individual actor. The second
is referred to as “group justification,” and this is the primary focus of social identity
theory, namely the desire to develop and maintain favorable images of one’s
own group and to defend and justify the actions of fellow ingroup members. The
third is “system justification,” and it captures social and psychological needs to
imbue the status quo with legitimacy and to see it as good, fair, natural, desirable,
and even inevitable. Within this theoretical framework, one can see that members
of disadvantaged groups are likely to engage in social change only when ego
justification and/or group justification motives overcome the strength of system
justification needs and tendencies.
Because system justification theory distinguishes more clearly than other theories
among the three motives of ego, group, and system justification, it has taken
the lead, even over its predecessors, in identifying the social and psychological
consequences of supporting the status quo, especially among members of lowstatus
groups (see also Jost, Burgess, & Mosso, 2001). Because social identity
theory locates all social behavior on a continuum ranging from “interpersonal” to
“intergroup” behavior (e.g., Tajfel, 1981; Tajfel & Turner, 1986), it has contributed
much to our understanding of the first two motives (ego and group justification)
and the relations between them, but it has done relatively little to advance our
understanding of system justification processes. Tajfel and Turner (1986) hinted
that people may find it difficult to imagine “cognitive alternatives,” but they did
not explain the origins of this difficulty, nor does such an assumption follow from
other tenets of social identity theory.
A Decade of System Justification Theory 887
Social dominance theory has addressed the second and third motives (group
and system justification), but in such a way that they are frequently conflated with
one another. Jost and Thompson (2000) demonstrated that some items from the
Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) scale load onto a “group-based dominance”
factor, whereas others load onto a separate “opposition to equality” factor.
Because of conceptual and empirical ambiguities concerning the meaning and
measurement of the construct of social dominance, some have interpreted it as a
form of group justification, whereas others have treated it as synonymous with
system justification. Sniderman, Crosby, and Howell (2000), for example, concluded
that “the job of the social dominance measure” is to “assess the strength
of the desire of some to enjoy the benefits of dominance over others” (p. 270),
and they are by no means alone in this interpretation (e.g., Altemeyer, 1998;
Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth, & Malle, 1994; Sidanius, 1993; Sidanius & Pratto,
1993). Recently, the definition of social dominance orientation has shifted to make
it more compatible with a system justification perspective. Sidanius, Levin,
Federico, and Pratto (2001), for instance, described the concept as a “general
desire for unequal relations among social groups, regardless of whether this means
ingroup domination or ingroup subordination” (p. 312, italics omitted), which
renders it much closer to system justification than group justification. Consistent
with this interpretation, Overbeck, Jost, Mosso, and Flizik (2004) found that
members of low-status groups with high SDO scores adopted system-justifying
styles of acquiescence rather than group-justifying styles of resistance to the status
quo (see also Jost & Burgess, 2000).
As part of an increased effort to specify and, ultimately, formalize the central
tenets of a system justification perspective, Jost and Hunyady (2002) listed 18
hypotheses that have been derived from this framework and reviewed empirical
support for each of them. The hypotheses cover rationalization of the status quo,
internalization of inequality (including outgroup favoritism and depressed entitlement),
relations among ego, group, and system justification motives (including
consequences for attitudinal ambivalence, self-esteem, and psychological wellbeing),
and the reduction of ideological dissonance. The fact that each of these
hypotheses has received at least some empirical support suggests that the first
decade of system justification theory has been a productive one.
We organize our review of the relevant research around the hypotheses identified
by Jost and Hunyady (2002) and two others addressed by Jost and Kay (in
press; Kay & Jost, 2003), but we will not devote equal space to each of them.
Instead, we will emphasize and elaborate on those thematic issues that (a) are
most relevant to political psychology, and (b) particularly distinguish a system
justification perspective from related theories of social identification and social
dominance. The themes we stress in this article are rationalization of the status
quo; implicit, nonconscious outgroup favoritism; effects of political ideology on
ingroup/outgroup favoritism; conflicts among ego, group, and system justification
888 Jost et al.
motives; evidence of enhanced system justification among the disadvantaged; and
system-justifying effects of complementary stereotyping.
Rationalization of the Status Quo
According to McGuire and McGuire (1991), people engage in “sour grapes”
and “sweet lemons” rationalizations by adjusting their preferences to fit with their
expectations about what is likely to occur. Kay, Jimenez, and Jost (2002) elaborated
on the McGuires’ analysis of rationalization and offered the following
hypothesis to distinguish its consequences from predictions derived from cognitive
dissonance and social identity theories:
Hypothesis 1.
People will rationalize the (anticipated) status quo byjudging likely events to be more desirable than unlikely events, (a) even
in the absence of personal responsibility, (b) whether those events are
initially defined as attractive or unattractive, and (c) especially when
motivational involvement is high rather than low.
In support, Kay et al. (2002) found that immediately before the 2000 U.S. presidential
election, both Democrats and Republicans judged potential Bush
and Gorepresidencies to be more desirable as their perceived likelihood increased and less
desirable as their perceived likelihood decreased. Stakeholders did not rationalize
their own preferences or those of the political parties with which they identified.
Rather, they rationalized the status quo even before it became the status
quo, much as Democrats, Republicans, and independents all showed substantial
increases in support for the Iraq war (as well as approval of the president’s job
performance and satisfaction with the direction of the country) immediately after
President George W. Bush’s announcement of war plans and the commencement
of military action (Saad, 2003).
Another way in which people justify the way things are is by using stereotypes
to differentiate between high- and low-status groups in such a way that
inequality seems natural and appropriate (e.g., Jackman & Senter, 1983). To eliminate
actual differences between groups, Jost (2001) developed an experimental
paradigm to assess the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 2.
People will use stereotypes to rationalize social and economicstatus differences between groups, so that the same target group
will be stereotyped differently depending on whether it is perceived to
be high or low in status.
Evidence provided by Jost (2001) and Jost and Burgess (2000) supported this
hypothesis, revealing considerable ingroup derogation and outgroup elevation on
A Decade of System Justification Theory 889
status-justifying attributes when the ingroup was believed to be lower in social
and economic status than the outgroup, and the opposite when the ingroup was
believed to be higher in status.
If there is indeed a motive to defend and justify the status quo, as system justification
theory holds, then people should be especially likely to use rationalizing
stereotypes (and other means) to bolster the legitimacy of the prevailing
system when it is threatened or attacked. Accordingly, Jost and Hunyady (2002)
hypothesized:
Hypothesis 3.
People will defend and justify the social system in responseto threat by using stereotypes to differentiate between high- and lowstatus
groups to a greater degree than when there is no threat.
Many of the social and psychological effects of the 9/11 terrorist attacks
(Pyszczynski, Solomon, & Greenberg, 2003)—including increased presidential
support (Moore, 2001), governmental trust (Chanley, 2002), and stereotyping of
Arab Americans (Goodwin & Devos, 2002)—may be attributable to heightened
needs to defend and justify the system against threat, although it is difficult to distinguish
among personal, group, and system-level threats in this case (e.g., Huddy,
Feldman, Capelos, & Provost, 2002).
On the assumption that people would further rationalize the status quo by
accepting and even bolstering weak justifications for inequality among groups,
Haines and Jost (2000) argued:
Hypothesis 4.
Providing explanations (or pseudo-explanations) for statusor power differences between groups will (a) increase the use of stereotypes
to rationalize differences, and (b) lead members of disadvantaged
groups to express more positive (relative to negative) affect concerning
their situation.
Hypothesis 5.
Members of disadvantaged groups will misrememberexplanations for their powerlessness as being more legitimate than they
actually were.
Both hypotheses were supported. Even placebic explanations led members of a
disadvantaged group to feel better and to ascribe favorable characteristics to
members of an outgroup that had power over them (see also Kappen &
Branscombe, 2001). A memory bias indicated that people were more likely than
would be expected by chance to falsely recall that neutral and illegitimate explanations
for the power differences were in fact legitimate.
None of the myriad ways in which people imbue the status quo with justification
and legitimacy follow from theories of social identification or social dominance.
Rather, hypotheses concerning the varied manner and considerable extent
to which people actively rationalize the status quo must be derived from a perspective
that takes system justification tendencies seriously (see also Schmader,
Major, Eccleston, & McCoy, 2001).
890 Jost et al.
The Importance of Outgroup Favoritism
Jost and Banaji (1994) argued that by stressing the ubiquity of ingroup
favoritism, social identity theory failed to account adequately for the degree of
stereotype consensus across group boundaries and the prevalence of outgroup
favoritism among members of low-status groups. In advancing this criticism, we
joined several others, including Sidanius (1993) and even a few social identity theorists
(Hewstone & Jaspars, 1984; Hewstone & Ward, 1985; Hinkle & Brown,
1990), some of whom now argue that social identity theory has no problem
handling outgroup favoritism (see Brown, 2000a; Rubin & Hewstone, 2004). In
proposing system justification theory as an alternative, Jost and Banaji (1994)
hypothesized that members of
both high- and low-status groups engage inthoughts, feelings, and behaviors that reinforce and legitimate existing social
systems, and that outgroup favoritism is one such example of the legitimation of
inequality between groups. Outgroup favoritism refers to the expression of an evaluative
preference for members of a group to which one does not belong (see Jost
et al., 2002). The argument is not that people have a special motivation to favor
the outgroup merely because it is an outgroup. Rather, outgroup favoritism is seen
as one manifestation of the tendency to internalize and thus perpetuate the system
of inequality. Its prevalence contradicts the common but false assumption derived
from social identity theory that “members of actual low-status groups, whose
group identity is chronically threatened by their relative inferiority to higher status
groups, evaluate out-groups most negatively” (Leach et al., 2003, p. 933).
Objections to Taking Outgroup Favoritism Seriously
Several different reasons have been offered for downplaying the significance
of outgroup favoritism among low-status group members and for rejecting the
possibility that it reflects system justification. The first is that outgroup favoritism
may be due to demand characteristics. This was the position taken by Mullen et
al. (1992), who dismissed the fact that 85% of the low-status experimental groups
included in their meta-analysis exhibited outgroup favoritism (see Jost, 2001).
Mullen et al. discounted the experimental evidence on the grounds that the studies
used “artificial groups” and “a concentration on transitory, task-specific conceptualizations
of status” (p. 119). To address this issue, Jost (2001) summarized
several studies in which perceived socioeconomic success was experimentally
manipulated in the context of real-world group memberships and found that outgroup
favoritism was still the dominant response of members of low-status
groups.
A second criticism is that most evidence of outgroup favoritism has been on
“status-relevant” dimensions of comparison, which suggests that perceptions of
relative inferiority may be largely accurate. Brewer and Miller (1996), for
instance, argued that “considering this factor, the effect should probably not be
A Decade of System Justification Theory 891
labeled a ‘bias’ at all” (p. 95). In responding to this issue, Overbeck et al. (2004)
showed that members of low-status groups who score high on SDO (and therefore
actively reject egalitarian alternatives to the status quo) exhibit outgroup
favoritism even on status-irrelevant traits, indicating that they have a generalized
sense of inferiority. Behavioral evidence provided by Jost et al. (2002) also establishes
that outgroup favoritism is not restricted to status-relevant stereotypic traits.
A third, related objection is that outgroup favoritism occurs “only” when
members of low-status groups are “constrained” by “social reality” to accept the
legitimacy and stability of the status quo, before they have the chance to adopt
one of several identity enhancement strategies: individual exit/mobility, social creativity,
or social competition (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). With regard to the behavior
of members of disadvantaged groups, social identity theory clearly aims to
focus on how people move “from social stability to social change” (Tajfel, 1981),
from “passive acceptance to collective protest” (Wright, Taylor, & Moghaddam,
1990), and from “social reality to social resistance” (Spears et al., 2001) whenever
circumstances leave the possibility open.
3 The main problem with this formulationis that it underestimates the strength of system justification motives to
rationalize the status quo and leave everything as it is. Consequently, the theory
is overly optimistic about prospects for social change (see Reicher, 2004).
Afourth objection is that outgroup favoritism reflects public impression management
rather than genuine, private internalization of inferiority (e.g., Scott,
1990). In their critique of system justification theory, for example, Spears et al.
(2001) argued that “the resistance of low status social groups to their so-called
‘inferiority’ may have been somewhat underestimated, often because we have
taken expressions of outgroup bias (and the expression of ingroup bias) at face
value” (p. 334). Th
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