Inequality, Discrimination, and the Power of the Status Quo: Direct Evidence for a Motivation to See the Way Things Are as the Way They Should Be
Inequality, Discrimination, and the Power of the Status Quo: Direct Evidence for a Motivation to See the Way Things Are as the Way They Should Be
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DOI：
10.1037/a0015997
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发表时间：
2009-09-01
影响因子：
7.6
通讯作者：
Spencer, Steven J.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Kay, Aaron C.;Gaucher, Danielle;Spencer, Steven J.
现状在决定人们的社会理想方面有多大的力量？作者提出(a)人们从事禁令化，即一种动机倾向，将当前的现状解释为最可取和合理的事态（即，作为事物应该如何的最具代表性）；(b)这种趋势至少部分是由人们为其社会政治制度辩护的愿望所驱动的；(c)禁令对维持不平等和社会变革具有深远的影响。跨越不同领域的四项研究提供了支持性证据。当证明社会政治制度合理性的动机在实验中被强化时，参与者将现有的(a)政治权力（研究1），(b)公共资助政策（研究2），以及(c)政治和商业领域不平等的性别人口统计（分别为研究3和4）结合起来。研究还表明，这种动机现象增加了对那些与现状背道而驰的人的贬损（研究4）。讨论了制度正当性理论、刻板印象形成、平权行动和不平等维持的理论含义。
How powerful is the status quo in determining people's social ideals? The authors propose (a) that people engage in injunctification, that is, a motivated tendency to construe the current status quo as the most desirable and reasonable state of affairs (i.e., as the most representative of how things should be); (b) that this tendency is driven, at least in part, by people's desire to justify their sociopolitical systems; and (c) that injunctification has profound implications for the maintenance of inequality and societal change. Four studies, across a variety of domains, provided supportive evidence. When the motivation to justify the sociopolitical system was experimentally heightened, participants injunctifed extant (a) political power (Study I), (b) public funding policies (Study 2), and (c) unequal gender demographics in the political and business spheres (Studies 3 and 4, respectively). It was also demonstrated that this motivated phenomenon increased derogation of those who act counter to the status quo (Study 4). Theoretical implications for system justification theory, stereotype formation, affirmative action, and the maintenance of inequality are discussed.