Browsing by Author "Valdes EA"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    A cross-cultural test of competing hypotheses about system justification using data from 42 nations
    (Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of International Society of Political Psychology., 2024-09-25) Valdes EA; Liu JH; Williams M; Carr SC
    System justification theory (SJT) is a thriving field of research, wherein the primary questions revolve around why individuals and groups are motivated to see the systems they depend on as just, fair, and legitimate. This article seeks to answer how accurate the postulates of SJT are when compared to competing self-interest claims of social identity and social dominance theory. We addressed the ongoing debates among proponents of each theory by identifying who, when, and why individuals decide to system-justify. We used data comprised of 24,009 participants nested within 42 countries. Multilevel models largely supported the competing claims of social dominance and social identity theories over SJT. The most robust findings were: (1) greater objective socioeconomic status (SES) was associated with greater system justification; (2) the consistent positive relationship between subjective SES and system justification was partially mediated by life satisfaction; and (3) both ends of the political spectrum were willing to system-justify more when the political party they favored was in power. The results presented are used to discuss both the current state and the future directions for system justification research.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Continuities and discontinuities in the cultural evolution of global consciousness.
    (The Royal Society, 2024-01-01) Zhang RJ; Liu JH; Lee M; Lin M-H; Xie T; Chen SX; Leung AK-Y; Lee I-C; Hodgetts D; Valdes EA; Choi SY
    Global consciousness (GC), encompassing cosmopolitan orientation, global orientations (i.e. openness to multicultural experiences) and identification with all humanity, is a relatively stable individual difference that is strongly associated with pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours, less ingroup favouritism and prejudice, and greater pandemic prevention safety behaviours. Little is known about how it is socialized in everyday life. Using stratified samples from six societies, socializing institution factors correlating positively with GC were education, white collar work (and its higher income) and religiosity. However, GC also decreased with increasing age, contradicting a 'wisdom of elders' transmission of social learning, and not replicating typical findings that general prosociality increases with age. Longitudinal findings were that empathy-building, network-enhancing elements like getting married or welcoming a new infant, increased GC the most across a three-month interval. Instrumental gains like receiving a promotion (or getting a better job) also showed positive effects. Less intuitively, death of a close-other enhanced rather than reduced GC. Perhaps this was achieved through the ritualized management of meaning where a sense of the smallness of self is associated with growth of empathy for the human condition, as a more discontinuous or opportunistic form of culture-based learning. This article is part of the theme issue 'Evolution and sustainability: gathering the strands for an Anthropocene synthesis'.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Cross-cultural investigation of the relationship between social identity, trusting the system, COVID-19 vaccine adherence and conspiratorial beliefs
    (Asian Association of Social Psychology and John Wiley and Sons Australia, Ltd, 2025-09-01) Valdes EA; Delos Santos JJI; Liu JH
    Understanding how individual beliefs and societal values influence support for measures to prevent COVID-19 transmission and risk is vital to developing and implementing effective prevention policies. Surges in COVID-19 infections continue to be prevalent worldwide, and strategies to address the increase in vaccine hesitancy and related conspiracy theories are enacted globally. Using the lenses of the social identity approach and system justification theory, we examined how individual-level conceptualizations of identity, system legitimacy, conspiracy beliefs and trust in science, government and healthcare influence an uptick in COVID-19 vaccine adherence. Data from an international survey of adults from China, the Philippines and the United States (N = 358; Study 1) and a six-country two-wave stratified online sample (N = 6138; Study 2) allowed the present research to investigate how cultural values and governmental policies intersect with COVID-19 risk perception and vaccine hesitancy. The most robust findings were: (1) identifying with a superordinate global identity was associated with greater vaccine adherence; (2) having a stronger subordinate national identity was associated with greater vaccine hesitancy; and (3) the association between having a strong national identity and the endorsement of COVID-19 conspiracy theories was mediated by system justification. The results presented are used to discuss strategies for increasing vaccine uptake globally for future pandemics.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Testing the status-legitimacy hypothesis: Predicting system justification using objective and subjective socioeconomic status in China and the United States
    (Asian Association of Social Psychology and John Wiley & Sons Australia Ltd, 2022-06) Valdes EA; Liu JH; Williams M
    The status-legitimacy hypothesis proposes that those who are most disadvantaged by unequal social systems are even more likely than members of more advantaged groups to provide ideological support for the very social system that is responsible for their disadvantages. Li, Yang, Wu, and Kou (2020, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin) sought to expand the generalizability of this hypothesis by testing it in China, addressing inconsistencies surrounding the empirical support for this hypothesis by postulating that the construct of status should be separated into an objective and subjective status marker. They reported that objective socioeconomic status (SES; income and education) negatively predicted system justification, while subjective SES positively predicted system justification. In the present study we attempt to replicate and extend the work of Li et al. in a cross-cultural comparison of demographic stratified quota online samples in China and the United States. We test the status-legitimacy hypothesis using objective and subjective SES to predict system justification using cross-sectional and cross-lagged regression analyses. We received partial support for Li et al.'s findings. Specifically, subjective SES positively predicted system justification for both societies during cross-sectional and cross-lagged longitudinal analyses. However, we failed to replicate Li et al.'s findings surrounding objective SES in China during cross-sectional and cross-lagged analyses.