Testing the status‐legitimacy hypothesis: Predicting system justification using objective and subjective socioeconomic status in China and the United States

Abstract

The status-legitimacy hypothesis proposes that those who are most disadvantaged by unequal social systems are even more likely than members of more advantaged groups to provide ideological support for the very social system that is responsible for their disadvantages. Li, Yang, Wu, and Kou (2020, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin) sought to expand the generalizability of this hypothesis by testing it in China, addressing inconsistencies surrounding the empirical support for this hypothesis by postulating that the construct of status should be separated into an objective and subjective status marker. They reported that objective socioeconomic status (SES; income and education) negatively predicted system justification, while subjective SES positively predicted system justification. In the present study we attempt to replicate and extend the work of Li et al. in a cross-cultural comparison of demographic stratified quota online samples in China and the United States. We test the status-legitimacy hypothesis using objective and subjective SES to predict system justification using cross-sectional and cross-lagged regression analyses. We received partial support for Li et al.'s findings. Specifically, subjective SES positively predicted system justification for both societies during cross-sectional and cross-lagged longitudinal analyses. However, we failed to replicate Li et al.'s findings surrounding objective SES in China during cross-sectional and cross-lagged analyses.

Effects of socioeconomic status on left-right voting intentions: the role of economic ideology, perceived threats, and national identity

“…Another way to reconcile this discrepancy is by focusing on the subjective vs. objective nature of the two SES measures. Previous studies demonstrated that objective, albeit not subjective, measures of SES negatively predicted system justifying beliefs (Buchel et al, 2021;Li et al, 2020;Valdes et al, 2023). One plausible interpretation of these results is that the status legitimacy hypothesis pertains to contextual effects of social class and that SES effects are probably mediated by the sense of powerlessness which is more common in objectively disadvantaged individuals (Buchel et al, 2021;Van Der Toorn et al, 2015).…”

“…In the present study, we build upon different strands of literature to identify the role of each of the three aforementioned psychological mechanisms (Figure 1) best explain the relationship between SES and left-right voting intentions. Given that different dimensions of SES are often associated with distinct psychological mechanisms (Buchel et al, 2021;Valdes et al, 2023;Willis et al, 2022;Yang et al, 2019), we differentiate between education and subjective income and we compare the effects of these two measures of SES on left-right voting intentions. To accomplish these goals, we use novel data that consists of large representative samples from nine European countries.…”

“…To address these questions, we draw from different branches of social psychological literature that have identified, among other plausible psychological mechanisms, economic ideology, national identification, and perceived economic and symbolic threats as relevant in this process. Numerous studies have shown that subjective and objective income exert different effects (Buchel et al, 2021;Li et al, 2020;Valdes et al, 2023). Specifically, there seems to be a straightforward link between self-placement on the income ladder and political attitudes, while the relationship between objective income and political attitudes is more complex and depends on contextual factors.…”

Perceived Income Inequality, Trust, and Consumers’ Ethical Judgments

“…Using data from China, which is a non-democratic society with relatively high scores on the dimension of “power distance” (Hofstede 1991), Li et al (2020) demonstrated that individuals with lower subjective socio-economic status are more likely to support existing social structures consistent with system justification theory. Recently, Valdes, Liu, and Williams (2022), replicated the findings that individuals with lower subjective socio-economic status have enhanced system justification tendencies in both the United States and China.…”

A fair share: Effects of disparity, allocation strategy and system justification on perceptions of policy support in the education domain

“…In this study, we included measures of subjective SES, objective SES and political orientation. There is evidence that all three of these constructs correlate with system justification (Feygina et al., 2010; Li et al., 2020; Valdes et al., 2022).…”