The origin and controversies of the status-legitimacy hypothesis

With economic development, social inequality has become increasingly serious in many social-economic systems in the Asia-Pacific region. How do low-status disadvantaged groups in a social system perceive the fairness and justice of the system they live? In recent years, this question has aroused sustained attention of researchers in the field of social psychology. This is not only due to the significance of the question itself, but also because different studies have reported conflicting results. Some studies have shown that compared with high-status groups, low-status groups are to some extent more supportive and accepting of the status quo of the system, although this attitude may conflict with their own interests (e.g. Henry & Saul, Reference Henry and Saul2006; Jost, Pelham, Sheldon, & Sullivan, Reference Jost, Pelham, Sheldon and Sullivan2003; van der Toorn et al., Reference van der Toorn, Feinberg, Jost, Kay, Tyler, Willer and Wilmuth2015). However, a number of studies have arrived at the opposite conclusion, that low-status individuals’ evaluations of the fairness and justice of the social system are significantly lower than that of high-status groups (e.g. Brandt, Reference Brandt2013; Caricati, Reference Caricati2017; Kraus & Callaghan, Reference Kraus and Callaghan2014; Kraus, Rucker, & Richeson, Reference Kraus, Rucker and Richeson2017; Lee, Pratto, & Johnson, Reference Lee, Pratto and Johnson2011; Osborne & Sibley, Reference Osborne and Sibley2013; Yang, Guo, Hu, Shu, & Li, Reference Yang, Guo, Hu, Shu and Li2016; Zimmerman & Reyna, Reference Zimmerman and Reyna2013). The goal of the current article is to discuss this dispute, based on an extensive review of the literature, including research findings from both Western countries and countries in the Asia-Pacific region. We first delineate the core of the dispute.

The origin of the dispute has a connection with system justification theory, although the theory itself does not stand on either side of the dispute, which we will clarify later. System justification theory was proposed by Jost and Banaji (Reference Jost and Banaji1994) to explain the tendency of system support, which is often displayed by disadvantaged groups but is not congruent with their own interests. According to this theory, in addition to motives of ego justification and ingroup justification, people also have system justification motive, which refers to psychological processes contributing to justification of the existing social arrangements, even at the expense of personal interest. In other words, people are motivated (at least to some extent) to defend and justify aspects of the social system in which they live (e.g. Jost, Reference Jost and Dunning2011; Jost, Banaji, & Nosek, Reference Jost, Banaji and Nosek2004), and low-status groups are no exception. Driven by the system justification motive, they tend to hold the same kind of system-justifying beliefs as elite groups (e.g., Jost, Reference Jost2017). To investigate the existence of system-justifying beliefs among disadvantaged groups, Jost et al. (Reference Jost, Pelham, Sheldon and Sullivan2003) examined a number of indicators of attitudes (toward the system) of individuals from different backgrounds in the United States. The result showed that compared with advantaged groups, those of lower social status were more supportive of the existing social system.

However, it should be noted that neither system justification theory nor Jost et al. (Reference Jost, Pelham, Sheldon and Sullivan2003) have asserted that system-justifying beliefs of low-status/disadvantaged groups are always (or even ordinarily) stronger than that of high-status/advantaged groups. As Jost et al. have repeatedly stated, the results of their research only indicate that low-status groups also justify the status quo, but not that their system justification is necessarily stronger than that of high-status groups, because the impact of social status on system justification is not certain and involves multiple motives (e.g. Jost, Reference Jost2017, Reference Jost2018; Kay & Jost, Reference Kay and Jost2014). Nevertheless, given their finding (Jost et al., Reference Jost, Pelham, Sheldon and Sullivan2003) conflicts with people’s common sense, this study was so impressive that it aroused great interest among researchers and has been repeatedly quoted and debated. A decade later, Brandt (Reference Brandt2013) named it the “status-legitimacy hypothesis” in order to better define the debate. According to Brandt (Reference Brandt2013), the status-legitimacy hypothesis refers to the view that members of low-status groups are more likely to see their social systems as legitimate than members of high-status groups, which represents research findings of one side of the dispute (but not the idea of system justification theory). In contrast, findings of the other side, including Brandt’s (Reference Brandt2013) study, support the opposite conclusion that disadvantaged groups are more dissatisfied with the social system.

Revolving around the status-legitimacy hypothesis, researchers have been arguing theoretically and empirically over the past few years. Recently, however, the theoretical debate is likely to wind down, as Jost (Reference Jost2017, Reference Jost2018) has clearly pointed out that system justification theory has never maintained the status-legitimacy hypothesis, and that it is a misunderstanding among many researchers who oppose the status-legitimacy hypothesis. Nevertheless, the mystery of status-legitimacy hypothesis still exists because of numerous conflicting research findings. What is the relationship between social status and system justification? Between high- and low-status groups, who is more likely to justify the status quo? Why have there been conflicting research findings? Many researchers (including us) are still interested in unpacking the puzzle of the relationship between the two variables. Therefore, based on previous studies, this article proposes and integrates the following three possible ways to approach the question.

First is the conceptual approach, which proposes that these conflicting research findings have resulted from different operational definitions of social status and system justification in previous studies. Therefore, one possible solution is to specifically define the two concepts. Second is the boundary condition approach, which takes a number of moderators into consideration. It is proposed that some other variables may moderate the relationship between status and system justification, thus providing another way to examine the debate. The third approach focuses on psychological mechanisms of status-legitimacy hypothesis. Some researchers believe that the psychological process assumed in previous studies may not be enough to fully explain the psychological mechanism of system justification among disadvantaged groups. It is necessary to explore other psychological mediators to clarify the controversy. We propose that all of these three lines of research are conducive to settle the dispute over status-legitimacy hypothesis, and to reveal the complex relationship between status and system justification. Based on these explorations, researchers can carry out in-depth studies to unpack the puzzle, rather than merely debating whether the correlation is positive or negative. After all, exploring differences in system justification between groups of different social status is not only an important academic issue in many fields of social psychology, but also has important implications for social development and social governance (e.g. Chang & Kang, Reference Chang and Kang2018; Guo, Yang, & Hu, Reference Guo, Yang and Hu2017). Fortunately, a number of researchers have been exploring the question through the above three approaches in recent years, and there have also been some excellent studies from Asia and the Pacific region. In the following sections, we will review and discuss these three lines of research.

The conceptual approach

The conceptual approach refers to a more detailed examination of the relationship between status and system justification by further clarifying the operational definitions of both status and system justification. Advocates of this approach think that although studies on the status-legitimacy hypothesis all take a certain classification of social status as the independent variable and the support and justification for the system or its various aspects as the dependent variable, the adopted operational definitions of status and system justification differ among researchers. As a result, the issue they are debating may not be the same one, and the research findings may be conflicting. Therefore, it is necessary to define status and system justification specifically.

The boundary condition approach

The boundary condition approach holds that the reason for the disputes over the relationship between status and systems justification in previous studies is probably because the relationship is influenced by some moderator variables. Thus, the relationship may be different at different levels of moderator variables. Based on this, researchers have investigated the boundary conditions of the status-legitimacy hypothesis from personal or social factors.

The psychological mechanism approach

The third approach focuses on psychological mechanisms of status predicting system justification to investigate the relationship between the two variables. Researchers using this approach are less concerned with whether or when low-status groups are more supportive of the status quo than high-status groups, but are rather concerned with psychological processes whereby low-status groups justify or do not justify the status quo. System justification theory proposes that system justification originates from epistemic, existential and relational needs to reduce uncertainty, threat and social discord, which explains why disadvantaged groups tend to justify the system (e.g. Jost, Reference Jost2017, Reference Jost2018). However, some researchers argue that this process alone is not enough to understand the status-legitimacy relationship. Thus, they have put forward some new psychological mechanisms, which may provide important avenues for solving the puzzle of status-legitimacy hypothesis in future research.

In this regard, the research by Owuamalam and colleagues (Owuamalam, Rubin, & Spears, Reference Owuamalam, Rubin and Spears2016; Owuamalam, Rubin, Spears, & Weerabangsa, Reference Owuamalam, Rubin, Spears and Weerabangsa2017) is representative. They suggest that in the past there have been two theoretical perspectives from which to explain intergroup relations and social ideologies of low-status groups. In addition to system justification theory, there are also relevant discussions from the perspective of social identity theory. However, the two theories offer competing propositions in explaining the reason why disadvantaged groups sometimes tend to support the system more than advantaged groups. System justification theory proposes that low-status groups are more likely to support the system when they are less concerned about interests of themselves and their ingroups. In contrast, social identity theory holds that justification should be motivated most among low-status individuals when they are more concerned about their own interests and their ingroups, because their interests are related to the legitimacy of the social system and they can only feel hopeful about the future by acknowledging the legitimacy of the status quo. Owuamalam et al. (Reference Owuamalam, Rubin, Spears and Weerabangsa2017) used Malaysians and Australians as participants in their experiments, and the results showed that low-status individuals endorsed societal systems more strongly when their group interests were strong, thus supporting the viewpoint of social identity theory.

Based on social identity theory, Owuamalam, Rubin, and Spears (Reference Owuamalam, Rubin and Spears2018) propose that low-status groups’ attitude of system justification may result from three psychological processes. First, it is merely a passive reflection of social reality. For example, members of disadvantaged groups may acknowledge that people with a higher social class have better education and income. This acknowledgment represents a passive acceptance of social reality. Second, low-status groups may interpret the overarching system (e.g. country) to be an extension of the ingroup that includes the higher status. Thus, their system justification may be a form of ingroup bias. Third, low-status individuals may justify systems as fair in order to support their hope that, in the longer term, the system may allow their group to improve its social status. This is consistent with their above line of thinking (Owuamalam et al., Reference Owuamalam, Rubin and Spears2016, Reference Owuamalam, Rubin, Spears and Weerabangsa2017). In short, as Owuamalam and colleagues have suggested through their research, there may be more complicated mechanisms involved in the status-legitimacy relationship other than the motive of system justification.

Moreover, some scholars have noted that the key that triggers system justification may be cognitive factors (Hussak & Cimpian, Reference Hussak and Cimpian2015). The cognitive pathway explanation emphasizes that the most important psychological basis for system justification is the inherent cognitive tendency; that is, the tendency of individuals to pay more attention to their intrinsic characteristics when perceiving external objects and to make more internal attributions for their own results. When socioeconomic disparities (such as the gap between rich and poor) are perceived in this way, it is natural to think that the difference between things is due to differences in intrinsic factors (e.g. income disparity is due to the differences in inherent characteristics of the rich and the poor), thereby taking socioeconomic disparities for granted and thus believing that the social system is fair and legitimate and should be supported (Hussak & Cimpian, Reference Hussak and Cimpian2015). In their studies, Hussak and Cimpian (Reference Hussak and Cimpian2015) did find that participants had a greater tendency to make more internal attributions for the differences in economic status between people (i.e. considering high-status individuals as more intelligent and more competent than low-status individuals), and the support for the system was positively predicted by the degree of internal attribution. And in order to be different from studies based on system justification theory, Hussak and Cimpian (Reference Hussak and Cimpian2015) controlled effects of participants’ palliative motives in their research, because previous studies had emphasized that system justification is a result of individuals’ need to alleviate anxiety. Therefore, Hussak and Cimpian’s (Reference Hussak and Cimpian2015) results showed that the cognitive factor independently triggered the tendency to justify the system without taking the motive of system justification into consideration.

Based on the findings of Hussak and Cimpian (Reference Hussak and Cimpian2015), Chinese researchers (Yang et al., Reference Yang, Guo, Hu, Shu and Li2016) have further integrated social class into their study. As previous studies have shown that low-class individuals tend to make fewer internal attributions for socioeconomic disparities (e.g. Li, Reference Li2014) and that a lower level of internal attribution for socioeconomic disparities corresponds to a lower level of system justification (Hussak & Cimpian, Reference Hussak and Cimpian2015), Yang et al. (Reference Yang, Guo, Hu, Shu and Li2016) hypothesized that the effect of social class on system justification was mediated by attributional tendency for the rich-poor gap. Specifically, they proposed that when explaining socioeconomic disparities, low-class individuals were more likely to attribute it to external factors (such as resource distribution, regional disparity), thus exhibiting lower level of system justification. Yang et al. (Reference Yang, Guo, Hu, Shu and Li2016) conducted two studies using different samples and indicators of social class; both results gave support for the mediation model of class-attribution-justification. Thus, it not only replicated the cognitive pathway of system justification proposed by Hussak and Cimpian (Reference Hussak and Cimpian2015), but also demonstrated the cross-cultural consistency of the conclusion with Chinese samples. Therefore, the perspective of social cognition can provide new research avenues in exploring the status-legitimacy relationship.

In addition to the above, the perspective of compensatory control may also be a psychological process that helps to explain the status-legitimacy hypothesis. According to this perspective, when the sense of control is low, or when one’s control ability is threatened by the external environment, individuals will experience a tendency for structural need, unconsciously increasing their needs and preferences for order and certainty (e.g. Landau, Kay, & Whitson, Reference Landau, Kay and Whitson2015). This need for structure is considered as a trigger of system justification, because the system can provide individuals with a general structure, order and certainty, compensating for the threat to their sense of control they suffer (e.g. Kay & Friesen, Reference Kay and Friesen2011). Many studies have supported this theory and found that a low sense of control or deprivation of control can induce system justification (e.g. Kay, Gaucher, Napier, Callan, & Laurin, Reference Kay, Gaucher, Napier, Callan and Laurin2008; Friesen, Kay, Eibach, & Galinsky, Reference Friesen, Kay, Eibach and Galinsky2014). For instance, one study by Chinese researchers (Liu, Wang, & He, Reference Liu, Wang and He2014) found that low levels of perceived control could prompt individuals to purchase more domestically produced goods (a form of system support). Although there are few studies directly linking compensatory control to status-legitimacy hypothesis, this perspective is also one direction that future studies may explore, because studies have found that low-status individuals are more likely to exhibit compensatory control (e.g. Li, Lu, Xia, & Guo, Reference Li, Lu, Xia and Guo2018). Thus, given cognitive dissonance may not be the only explanation for the mechanism between status and system justification, it is important to further explore other possible psychological processes.

General discussion

Regarding the status-legitimacy hypothesis, we have reviewed and discussed three lines of research. By further clarifying the definitions of status and system justification, it may help to better clarify the independent and dependent variables, and make the relationship in question more specific. By examining moderators of the status-legitimacy relationship, it may help explain why there are divergent results of the correlation between status and system justification in previous studies. By introducing explanatory perspectives other than system justification motive, it may help to reveal the complex processes underpinning the status-legitimacy relationship, and why low-status groups justify or do not justify the status quo.

Although there has been some progress along these lines of research, the puzzle of status-legitimacy hypothesis has not yet been resolved. Even for some representative research findings, most have not been replicated by subsequent studies, and the current results in this field are fragmented and lack a unified theoretical framework to integrate them. Therefore, we believe that future research can further investigate the status-legitimacy relationship from the following aspects.

First, the moderator and mediator variables of the relationship between status and system justification should be further explored. Since the work of Brandt (Reference Brandt2013), more studies have begun to move from simply focusing on the direct effect of the status-legitimacy hypothesis to paying more attention to its boundary conditions. This line of thought in research is worth an ongoing investigation. Although there are relatively few robust conclusions from previous studies, some variables have been found to possibly play a role, such as the level of social inequality (e.g. Brandt, Reference Brandt2013; Caricati, Reference Caricati2017; Vargas-Salfate et al., Reference Vargas-Salfate, Paez, Liu, Pratto and Gil de Zúñiga2018). Moreover, because most current studies focus more on the moderating effects of the social factors, there is less attention paid to personal factors (such as personality and living circumstances) and cultural factors (such as individualism/collectivism and power distance), which are also worthy of further attention. Therefore, investigations based on non-European and non-American cultural groups are especially worthwhile. In addition, research on the psychological mechanism of status-legitimacy relationship also needs to be enhanced. Although there have been some opposing voices (e.g. Hussak & Cimpian, Reference Hussak and Cimpian2015; Owuamalam et al., Reference Owuamalam, Rubin and Spears2018), most studies are still based on the perspective of system justification theory. Thus, these opposing theoretical views need to be investigated by more empirical research.

Second, almost all of the current studies assume that the relationship between status and sense of system legitimacy is linear, but a few studies have found that the relationship between the two may be nonlinear. Using occupational prestige as the indicator, Li (Reference Li2014) divided Chinese social classes into three levels: low, middle and high. The results showed that both high-class and low-class individuals tended to believe that the gap between the rich and the poor in China was mainly determined by personal factors, not by the social system, whereas middle-class individuals tended to think that the social system was responsible for the increasing gap between the rich and the poor, and thus were more dissatisfied with the social system. A study by Wang (Reference Wang2011) also found that the effect of income on an individual’s sense of distribution fairness was not linear: the sense of distribution fairness of middle-income individuals was significantly lower than that of low-income individuals, while there was no significant difference between high-income individuals and low-income individuals. Such findings, though rare at present, may also deserve attention, because if the real relationship between status and sense of system legitimacy is nonlinear but is regarded as linear in research, then the difference in sampling will directly determine the direction of the effect, be it positive or negative. In other words, if some studies use samples only covering middle-class individuals, while others use samples only covering low- or high-class individuals, there will be disagreements between their results. Of course, this line of thought still requires more empirical support.

Lastly, more research paradigms and methods can be applied in future studies of this topic. Past studies related to the status-legitimacy hypothesis mainly used a correlation method. Although that method has great advantages in examining the question with large samples, the experimental method can establish causality and provide new evidence different from the past. Therefore, it is also worth the attention of researchers, and indeed some attempts have been made to utilize it. For instance, Owuamalam et al. (Reference Owuamalam, Rubin, Spears and Weerabangsa2017) tried to examine the variance in participants’ system-justifying beliefs by manipulating their temporarily perceived (high or low) statuses. Moreover, as the dependent variables of the question are usually measured by questionnaires, after the introduction of experimental methods, dictator games and ultimatum tasks may also be used to examine participants’ fairness judgment and fairness sensibility (cf. Blue et al., Reference Blue, Hu, Wang, van Dijk and Zhou2016). All of these studies can provide new insights into the debate on the status-legitimacy hypothesis. In addition, it is particularly worth mentioning that the big-data method may also be considered in the future. Obtaining and using data on people’s social status and social attitudes from relevant websites or social media through natural language processing may yield very persuasive results. In conclusion, there are still numerous potential and interesting research entry points for future researchers to solve the puzzle of the status-legitimacy hypothesis.