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System‐justifying beliefs and political disaffection
Author(s) -
Echebarria Echabe Agustin
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/jasp.12218
Subject(s) - meritocracy , politics , suffrage , social psychology , psychology , voting , political system , political science , positive economics , law , democracy , economics
This paper presents two studies which enquired into the role played by system‐justifying beliefs ( SJB s) in political disaffection and abstention from voting. The first (correlational) study revealed that politically disaffected participants defined by their reluctance to identify with any political option, preferring the “apolitical” option, are characterized by negative attitudes toward suffrage (regarded as useless), a past of frequent abstention from political polls, a low attachment to both SJB (meritocracy and just‐world beliefs) and liberal values. The second (experimental) study showed that SJB s play a causal role in abstention from suffrage.