Origins
Previous social psychological theories that aimed to explain intergroup behavior typically focused on the tendencies for people to have positive attitudes about themselves (ego-justification) and their self-relevant groups (group-justification). In other words, people are motivated to engage in behaviors that allow for them to maintain a high self-esteem and a positive image of their group. System Justification theory proposed that people have an additional motive (system-justification) to defend the social systems (status quo), and that this system-justification motive might overpower self and group interests in some people. Thus, SJT was conceptualized to account for these instances in which people tended to legitimize the prevailing social systems of their society that theorists argued previous social psychological theories could not.
Read more about this topic: System Justification
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“The origins of clothing are not practical. They are mystical and erotic. The primitive man in the wolf-pelt was not keeping dry; he was saying: “Look what I killed. Aren’t I the best?””
—Katharine Hamnett (b. 1948)