TY - CHAP
T1 - FAIR MARKET IDEOLOGY
T2 - ITS COGNITIVE-MOTIVATIONAL UNDERPINNINGS
AU - Jost, John T.
AU - Blount, Sally
AU - Pfeffer, Jeffrey
AU - Hunyady, György
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was funded in part by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago, and the Stern School of Business at New York University. We thank Deborah Gruenfeld, Peter Henry, Orsolya Hunyady, Rick Larrick, George Loewenstein, and Michael Morris for helpful advice concerning the planning and implementation of empirical research described here. We are also grateful to Agnish Chakravarti, Kathie Koo, Tibor Palfai, Oliver Sheldon, and Jojanneke van der Toorn for assistance at various stages with data collection, entry, or analysis. Finally, we credit Rod Kramer and Barry Staw with improving the chapter by providing characteristically insightful and constructive feedback.
PY - 2003
Y1 - 2003
N2 - Public opinion research indicates that most people espouse egalitarian ideals and acknowledge substantial income inequality in society, but they consistently perceive the economic system to be highly fair and legitimate. In an attempt to better understand this paradox by considering the cognitive and motivational bases of ideological support for the free market system, we draw on and integrate a number of social psychological theories suggesting that people want to believe that the systems and institutions that affect them are fair, legitimate, and justified. We have developed an instrument for measuring fair market ideology, and we have found in several samples that its endorsement is associated with self-deception, economic system justification, opposition to equality, power distance orientation, belief in a just world, political conservatism, right-wing authoritarianism, and scandal minimization. We also present evidence that people evince a system-justifying tendency to judge profitable companies to be more ethical than unprofitable companies. In addition, results from an experimental study we conducted in Hungary indicate that support for the free market system is strongest among people who score high in self-deception under conditions of system threat, suggesting the presence of a (non-rational) defensive motivation. Finally, we discuss several organizational and societal implications of the tendency to idealize market mechanisms and to view market-generated outcomes as inherently fair.
AB - Public opinion research indicates that most people espouse egalitarian ideals and acknowledge substantial income inequality in society, but they consistently perceive the economic system to be highly fair and legitimate. In an attempt to better understand this paradox by considering the cognitive and motivational bases of ideological support for the free market system, we draw on and integrate a number of social psychological theories suggesting that people want to believe that the systems and institutions that affect them are fair, legitimate, and justified. We have developed an instrument for measuring fair market ideology, and we have found in several samples that its endorsement is associated with self-deception, economic system justification, opposition to equality, power distance orientation, belief in a just world, political conservatism, right-wing authoritarianism, and scandal minimization. We also present evidence that people evince a system-justifying tendency to judge profitable companies to be more ethical than unprofitable companies. In addition, results from an experimental study we conducted in Hungary indicate that support for the free market system is strongest among people who score high in self-deception under conditions of system threat, suggesting the presence of a (non-rational) defensive motivation. Finally, we discuss several organizational and societal implications of the tendency to idealize market mechanisms and to view market-generated outcomes as inherently fair.
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U2 - 10.1016/S0191-3085(03)25002-4
DO - 10.1016/S0191-3085(03)25002-4
M3 - Chapter
AN - SCOPUS:21144444620
SN - 0762310545
SN - 9780762310548
T3 - Research in Organizational Behavior
SP - 53
EP - 91
BT - Research in Organizational Behavior
ER -