System Justification Of High And Low Social Class:Difference And Mechanism

Social mentality is now a hot academic research realm, in which those lower social class call for more concern, no matter the governor or the researcher. Whether those lower class individuals can feel fair and just have respect to social harmony. For this issue, system justification theory points out that lower class tends to consider the social system more justified, compared with the higher, which is called status-legitimacy hypothesis and a number of research supports this statement. Many researches, however, hold the opposite opinion, that the higher class holds a stronger system justification. Because of this theoretical argument and its practical value, the present research we explore those questions:whether the status-legitimacy hypothesis stand, if there is another mediate variable existing, and if this effect can be moderated by another variable.Based on questionnaire method, study1collected survey data in different province in china, getting a sample of707individuals. After a hierarchical linear regression analysis, the results showed that the effect of an individual’s subject social class on system justification is significant, higher class tended to justify the system stronger.Putting in attribution in the rich-poor gap, study2went on to explore its potential mediate effect between subject social class and system justification.142postgraduates participated in this study. After controlling unrelated variables, internal attribution in the rich-poor gap played partial mediate effect between subject social class and system justification. The higher one’s subject social class is, the more he attributed the rich-poor gap on the internal factors, and the more his system justification is.Within study3,208postgraduates were randomly arranged into two treatment groups, priming them with higher or lower perceived control, in order to test the moderate effect on the mediate model in study2. The results support the moderated mediation models, for the mediate effect of attribution in the rich-poor gap between subject social class and system justification was moderated by perceived control. For lower-control-group, the mediate model existed; but for lower-control-group, the mediate model did not. This result was not only a useful exploration of status-legitimacy hypothesis, but a valuable reference for social management.