System Justification Scale

The System Justification Scale operationalizes system justification theory, introduced by Jost and Banaji (1994), which holds that people are motivated to defend, bolster, and rationalize the existing social, economic, and political status quo, even when doing so runs against their personal or group interest. The general version, refined by Kay and Jost (2003), is an 8-item self-report measure on which respondents rate agreement with statements such as 'In general, the American political system operates as it should' on a 7- or 9-point Likert scale.