ABSTRACT
According to system justification theory, people are motivated to defend and legitimize social systems that affect them. In this chapter, the authors review 15 years of theory and empirical research bearing on the motivational underpinnings of system justification processes. They begin by explaining why people are motivated to system justify (i.e., it serves certain social and psychological needs). They then describe five lines of evidence that corroborate the motivational claims of system justification theorists. Specifically, they find that (a) individual differences in self-deception and ideological motivation are linked to system justification, (b) system threat elicits defensive responses on behalf of the system, (c) people engage in biased information processing in favor of system-serving conclusions, (d) system justification processes exhibit properties of goal pursuit, and (e) the desire to legitimize the system inspires greater behavioral effort. The authors conclude by discussing the implications of a motivational approach for understanding conditions that foster resistance to versus support for social change.
