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System Justification Motivation and Conservative Translational Issues in Psychological Science © 2017 American Psychological Association 2017, Vol. 3, No. 3, e1-e26 2332-2136/17/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/tps0000127 Ideology and the Limits of Self-Interest: System Justification Motivation and Conservative Advantages in Mass Politics John T. Jost, Melanie Langer, Flávio Azevedo and Vivienne Badaan University of Cologne New York University Edgardo Etchezahar and Erin P. Hennes Joaquin Ungaretti Purdue University University of Buenos Aires It is commonly assumed that political attitudes are driven by self-interest and that poor people heavily favor policies aimed at redistributing wealth. This assumption fails to explain the popularity of economic conservatism and the degree of support for the capitalist system. Such outcomes are typically explained by the suggestion that most poor people believe they will become rich one day. In a representative sample of low-income Americans, we observed that less than one-fourth were optimistic about their economic prospects. Those respondents who believed that they would become rich one day were no more likely to endorse the legitimacy of the system and no more supportive of conservative ideology or the Republican Party, compared to those who did not believe they would become rich. From a system justification perspective, we propose that people are motivated to defend the social systems on which they depend, and this confers a psychological advantage to conservative ideology. Providing ideological support for the status quo serves epistemic motives to reduce uncertainty, existential motives to reduce threat, and relational motives to share reality with members of mainstream society. We summarize evidence from the United States, Argentina, Lebanon, and other coun- tries bearing on these propositions—including a survey administered shortly before the 2016 U.S. Presidential election—and discuss political implications of system justification motivation. This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. John T. Jost, Melanie Langer, and Vivienne Badaan, described in this article was supported by Time-Sharing This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individualDepartment user and is not to be disseminated broadly. of Psychology, New York University; Flávio Experiments for the Social Sciences (TESS) and the Na- Azevedo, Center for Comparative Politics, University of tional Science Foundation (Award BCS-1627691). Cologne; Edgardo Etchezahar and Joaquin Ungaretti, In- We are grateful to Tara C. Dennehy, Sarah DiMuccio, terdisciplinary Center of Investigations in Mathematical Shahrzad Goudarzi, György Hunyady, Ido Liviatan, and Experimental Psychology (CIIPME), University of Jaime Napier, Ruthie Pliskin, Benjamin Saunders, Jo- Buenos Aires; Erin P. Hennes, Department of Psycholog- anna Sterling, Chadly Stern, Susanna Stone, and Noga ical Sciences, Purdue University. Sverdlik for helpful comments on an earlier version of This article is based (loosely) on presentations given by this article. the senior author at the Pocantico Center in Tarrytown, Correspondence concerning this article should be ad- New York; the University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany; dressed to John T. Jost, Department of Psychology, New the Whitney Humanities Center at Yale University; and the York University, 6 Washington Place, Room 578, New University of Missouri in Columbia. Some of the work York, NY 10003-6634. E-mail: [email protected] e1 e2 JOST ET AL. What is the significance of this article for the general public? It is commonly assumed that support for economically conservative policies is moti- vated by self-interest, either because an individual is already wealthy or expects to become so in the future. The research reviewed here on system justification theory suggests a different explanation. We propose that conservative ideology is often more attractive than progressive ideology because people are motivated to defend, bolster, and justify aspects of the societal status quo as something that is familiar and known. Although conservatism may address psychological needs for certainty, security, and shared reality with like-minded others, it can also lead people to downplay injustices and other social problems as they seek to maintain valued traditions. Keywords: political ideology, liberalism, conservatism, economic inequality, system justification “I understand why the Republicans get 1 percent of the understood in terms of the expression of “prim- vote—the richest 1 percent. That other 49% someone itive self-interest” (Campbell, Converse, Miller, will have to explain to me . .” (Bill Maher, 2011, Real Time with Bill Maher) & Stokes, 1960, p. 205), and evolutionary the- orists today rely very heavily upon the same The theory of rational choice has cast an assumption (Pinsof & Haselton, 2016; Weeden especially long shadow over the social sciences, & Kurzban, 2017). and the generally sensible proposition that peo- Lincoln, Marx, Lipset, and many others are ple behave in a manner that is congruent with quite right that throughout history the poor have self-interest has often crowded out other types vastly outnumbered the rich. Nevertheless, eco- of explanation in psychology, politics, and re- nomic inequality persists in capitalist democra- lated disciplines (e.g., Green & Shapiro, 1994). cies around the world (Piketty, 2015), and there It is often taken for granted, for instance, that is often considerable ideological support for its support for the societal status quo comes more maintenance (Bénabou, 2008; Wisman & or less exclusively from those who benefit in Smith, 2011). Conservative and right-wing po- material terms from its maintenance, while litical parties and ideologies not only survive those who are disadvantaged by current condi- but continue to thrive throughout Europe and tions are revolutionaries-in-waiting. Thus, one around the world (e.g., Angelos, 2017; Wig- of the most influential political sociologists of more, 2015). the 20th century, Seymour Lipset (1960), wrote In the United States, self-identified conserva- that, “Conservatism is especially vulnerable in a tives outnumbered liberals for most of the 20th political democracy since, as Abraham Lincoln century (Bishop, 2005). According to the Gal- said, there are always more poor people than lup polling organization, over the past 25 years well-to-do ones, and promises to redistribute there have been one and a half conservatives for wealth are difficult to rebut” (p. 128). every liberal (Saad, 2015), and there have been A great many theorists before and after Lipset at least two economic conservatives for every have made precisely the same assumption. As economic liberal (Jones, 2015). According to This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. Bertrand Russell (1938) pointed out, even Karl Bénabou (2008), a majority of citizens not only This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individualMarx—the user and is not to be disseminated broadly. preeminent theorist of hegemonic from the United States and Canada but also ideology—concurred with orthodox economists from the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, that “economic interest could be taken as the Poland, Italy, Mexico, Brazil, China, India, fundamental motive in the social sciences” (p. South Korea, Philippines, Indonesia, Nigeria, 3). Marx did, after all, appeal famously to ra- and Kenya agree that, “The free enterprise sys- tional self-interest when he implored the work- tem and free market economy is the best system ing classes to join in international struggle on on which to base the future of the world” (p. the grounds that they had “nothing to lose but 323). their chains.” The authors of The American Such strong support for the capitalist system Voter, too, assumed that public opinion was best is somewhat surprising given how sharply in- CONSERVATIVE ADVANTAGES IN POLITICS e3 come inequality has risen over the past several In the final months of the 2016 U.S. Presi- decades. Economists agree that by nearly every dential campaign, nearly everyone expected metric the rich in the United States and many Hillary Rodham Clinton to win. Indeed, she led other industrialized nations have grown richer, in almost every national poll leading up to the while the middle and working classes have not election, and many pundits and advisors as- (e.g., Economic Policy Institute, 2012; Piketty, sumed that she would eventually win over the 2015; Stiglitz, 2015). Between 1979 and 2012, working class (see Cohn, 2016). Fatefully, these the earnings of the top 0.1% quadrupled in the expectations proved to be overly optimistic, and United States, and the earnings of the top 1% Donald Trump was elected President after tak- more than doubled, while the earnings of the ing 67% of the White working-class vote (Ty- 1 remainder of the population either remained son & Maniam, 2016). As Garrison Keillor put stagnant or declined in real terms (Bernstein, it, “The disaffected White blue-collar workers 2016). elected a Fifth Avenue tycoon to rescue them Poverty continues to afflict the lives of mil- from the elitists.” But why? lions (e.g., Corning, 2011). And yet genuine In this article, we describe previously pub- efforts to redistribute wealth have been few and lished and unpublished pieces of evidence ad- far between, and they have not been especially dressing social psychological aspects of work- difficult to defeat, often because poor people
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