The Role of Income in System Justification

BACKGROUND: System justification theory asserts that people’s motivation to defend, justify, and maintain the status quo depends on their socio-economic status. At the same time practically nothing is known about the mediators for the relationship between a person’s income and his adherence to system justification. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to clarify the role of income in motivating an individual to justify the system, taking into account as potential mediators of this relationship his sense of control over life and level of life satisfaction. DESIGN: In an online study (N = 410), a double sequential mediation model was tested, with an individual’s income as an independent variable, his/her system justification as a dependent variable, and his/her perceived control over life and level of life satisfaction as mediators. The impact of education was controlled by inserting it into the model as a covariate. RESULTS: The results demonstrated that people with low incomes justify the system more than people with high incomes do. At the same time, there was a positive indirect effect of income on system justification, indicating that, compared to people with low incomes, those with high incomes had a more pronounced sense of control over their lives, which contributed to an increase in their level of life satisfaction, and was positively associated with justification of the status quo. CONCLUSION: The results are discussed in terms of differences in the palliative function of system justification for individuals of different socio-economic status.