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SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article

Front. Soc. Psychol.
Sec. Attitudes, Social Justice and Political Psychology
Volume 2 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/frsps.2024.1440094
This article is part of the Research Topic Current Research on the Palliative Effect of Ideology View all articles

A Systematic Review of Motivated System Justification Among Youth

Provisionally accepted
Henry W. Biedron Henry W. Biedron 1*Nils Karl Reimer Nils Karl Reimer 1Emily Balcetis Emily Balcetis 2
  • 1 University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, United States
  • 2 New York University, New York City, New York, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Redressing social inequities requires people to fight for social change and upend the status quo. However, beliefs that the current state of affairs operates in a just and fair way, referred to as system justifying tendencies, stand as obstacles to social change. With this investigation, we asked if there is evidence to suggest that youth hold system justifying beliefs. Using PRISMA guidelines for a systematic review, we identified studies that measured system justifying beliefs among children [ages 6-12] and adolescents [ages 13-18]. This review synthesizes evidence that, first, both cohorts of youth hold beliefs that the status quo operates in a just and fair manner and that, second, system justification theory and its predictions extend to youth demographics. We note antecedents to system justifying tendencies in youth including demographic and situational factors. Moreover, we find evidence of the palliative consequences of system justifying tendencies in youth. We offer recommendations for future research into system justification among youth demographics.

    Keywords: system justification, Children, adolescents, Systematic review, PRISMA Right: 0.02" Deleted: utilizes Dissonance and Cognitive Regulation Font: Not Bold, Italic

    Received: 28 May 2024; Accepted: 28 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Biedron, Reimer and Balcetis. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Henry W. Biedron, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, United States

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