ABSTRACT

This article rebuts arguments made by proponents of the Social Identity Model of Social Attitudes (SIMSA), especially the claim that needs for accuracy and a positively distinct social identity are sufficient to explain system justification by members of disadvantaged groups. There are many serious conceptual and empirical problems with SIMSA: (1) It treats system justification as the outcome of neutral, non-ideological processes, adopting a relativistic position about social injustice; (2) It conflates completely different concepts, such as (a) holding beliefs that favour an out-group vs. believing that one is a member of that group, and (b) recognising that status differences exist vs. believing that those differences are legitimate; (3) It is fatalistic, implying that it would be “socially inaccurate and maladaptive” for the disadvantaged to challenge “social reality” by protesting against the status quo; (4) It fails to explain individual differences and within-group variability in system justification tendencies; (5) Most SIMSA hypotheses presuppose the existence of system justification by assuming that the social system is already perceived as legitimate and stable; and (6) Existing evidence is based on experiments that are subject to numerous interpretational ambiguities. We call for an integrative model of social attitudes that incorporates ideological factors – such as whether one is motivated to defend vs. challenge the status quo – alongside needs for self-esteem and positive group distinctiveness.

摘要

本文反驳了社会态度的社会认同模型（SIMSA）支持者提出的论点，特别是对准确性和明确的社会认同的需求足以解释弱势群体成员的制度合理性的主张。SIMSA存在许多严重的概念和经验问题：（1）它将制度正当性视为中立的、非意识形态过程的结果，对社会不公正采取相对主义立场；（2）它混淆了完全不同的概念，例如（a）持有有利于外群体的信念与相信自己是该群体的成员，以及（b）认识到地位差异的存在与相信这些差异是存在的合法的; （3）这是宿命论的，暗示弱势群体通过抗议现状来挑战“社会现实”将是“社会不准确和适应不良”；（四）无法解释系统合理化倾向的个体差异和群体内变异性；(5)大多数SIMSA假设都以系统正当性的存在为前提，即社会系统已经被认为是合法和稳定的；(6) 现有证据基于实验，但存在许多解释上的模糊性。我们呼吁建立一种综合的社会态度模型，其中包含意识形态因素（例如一个人是否有动力捍卫或挑战现状）以及对自尊和积极群体独特性的需求。