University of Auckland, New Zealand.
School of Psychology, University of Kent, UK.
Br J Soc Psychol. 2021 Jul;60(3):1027-1050. doi: 10.1111/bjso.12440. Epub 2021 Jan 16.
People often perceive social systems as fair and legitimate in order to satisfy existential, epistemic, and relational needs. Although much work has examined the existential and epistemic roots to system justification, the relational motives underlying the tendency to justify the system have received comparatively less attention. We addressed this oversight by examining the associations approach and avoidance relational goals have with system justification in a national probability sample (N = 21,938). Consistent with the thesis that the need to belong motivates system justification, avoidance goals (i.e., the desire to avoid social conflict) correlated positively with system justification (approach goals also unexpectedly correlated positively with system justification). Also as hypothesized, system justification mediated the relationship between avoidance goals and belongingness. Moreover, system justification mediated the relationship between avoidance goals and belongingness. Finally, sequential mediation analyses revealed that avoidance goals predicted higher well-being via system justification and belongingness. This study is the first to demonstrate that system justification confers palliative benefits by satisfying two different relational goals.
为了满足存在、认知和关系需求，人们常常将社会系统视为公平和合法的。尽管已经有很多研究考察了系统合理化的存在和认知根源，但对于合理化系统的关系动机却相对较少关注。我们通过在全国概率样本（N=21938）中检查关联方法和回避关系目标与系统合理化之间的关系来解决这一疏忽。与归属感需要促使系统合理化的观点一致，回避目标（即避免社会冲突的愿望）与系统合理化呈正相关（出乎意料的是，接近目标也与系统合理化呈正相关）。同样如假设的那样，系统合理化中介了回避目标与归属感之间的关系。此外，系统合理化中介了回避目标与归属感之间的关系。最后，顺序中介分析表明，回避目标通过系统合理化和归属感预测更高的幸福感。这项研究首次表明，系统合理化通过满足两个不同的关系目标来提供缓解作用。
