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.
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Sources
- 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. DOI: 10.1111/j.2044-8309.1994.tb01008.x ↗
- Kay, A. C., & Jost, J. T. (2003). Complementary justice: Effects of poor but happy and poor but honest stereotype exemplars on system justification and implicit activation of the justice motive. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(5), 823-837. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.85.5.823 ↗
How to cite this page
ScholarGate. (2026, June 22). System Justification Scale. ScholarGate. https://scholargate.app/en/political-psychology/system-justification-scale
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