Adaptation of the Political, Gender and Economical System Justification Scale on a Russian Sample

One of the widely researched aspects in social psychology is the issue of justification. Justification is understood as a mechanism aimed at legitimizing various beliefs, beliefs or behavior and affects the essential spectrum of life. For a long time only private mechanisms of justification were known, but with the advent of the theory of justification of a social system, the very system of structure of life and society also began to be considered as a subject that can be justified. Justification of the system is a motivational-personal mechanism aimed at justifying the status quo of the existing system using various psychological means, such as stereotypes and prejudices. In addition to developing the theory, Jost and Banaji developed scales for measuring the general justification of the social system (Jost, Kay, 2003), and justification of gender (Jost, Kay, 2005), political (Jost, Liviatan, 2010) and economic (Jost, Thompson, 2000) systems. The theory perfectly explains such paradoxical phenomena as outgroup favoritism and the lack of protest activity in the presence of inequality in society. Strong connections of SJ were found with such classic constructs of social psychology as social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, and belief in a just world. Typical consequences of a high level of system justification (low protest activity) are consistent with the current situation in our country, and measuring the level of justification of the Russian system would add more information to explain the low protest activity in the face of high social inequality and other fundamental problems of society. The novelty of this work lies in the development of the first reliable and valid tool for measuring the level of system justification on a Russian sample. The object of the study is the construct of the system justification and its system-specific options, and the subject of the study is the testing of methods for the general, political, economic and gender system justification assessment in the Russian sample. The relevance and practical significance of this study lies in the fact that, as a result of its conduct, a reliable and valid tool has appeared, with the help of which it will be possible to conduct research in various social sciences, allowing to learn more about the current situation in our country and take a fresh look at public opinion in Russia. The purpose of the work is the successful adaptation of the scales “justification of the social system” (Jost, Kay, 2003), “justification of the gender system” (Jost, Kay, 2005), “justification of the political system” (Jost & Liviatan, 2010) and “justification of the economic system” (Jost, Thompson, 2000) in the Russian-language sample. The objectives of this study: adaptation and validation of methods. To achieve the goal of the study, the theoretical base and existing studies of the justification of the system are analyzed, and relevant psychometric techniques are used to adapt and validate the English-language scales of justification. The result of the work are 4 reliable and valid methods for measuring the level of justification of the system.