Compare methods

	System Justification Scale	Right-Wing Authoritarianism Scale
Field	Political Psychology	Social Psychology
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	1994	1981
Originator	John T. Jost & Mahzarin R. Banaji	Bob Altemeyer
Type	Self-report attitude scale	Self-report Likert scale
Seminal source	Jost, J. T., & Banaji, M. R. (1994). The role of stereotyping in system-justification and the production of false consciousness. British Journal of Social Psychology, 33(1), 1-27.	Altemeyer, B. (1981). Right-wing authoritarianism. University of Manitoba Press.
Aliases	SJS, General System Justification Scale, Economic System Justification Scale	RWA
Related	4	4
Summary	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.	The Right-Wing Authoritarianism Scale (RWA) is a self-report measure developed by Bob Altemeyer in 1981 to assess individual differences in authoritarian attitudes, including submission to established authorities, adherence to conventional norms, and aggression toward those perceived to violate social conventions. The scale measures three core dimensions: authoritarian submission, authoritarian aggression, and conventionalism. It has become a cornerstone of research on authoritarianism, political attitudes, and intergroup prejudice.