Evidence of decreased system justification among extreme conservatives in non-American samples

ABSTRACT

Do extreme rightists criticize the system, or do rightwing extremists exhibit the higher system justification? These competing alternatives were tested across three studies. In Study 1 (N = 38,168), I examined the linear and quadratic relationship between political orientation and satisfaction with the existing national system across 23 nations. In Study 2 (N = 1,206), I investigated the linear and quadratic relationship between political orientation and confidence in the national institution in a representative sample of Italian people. In Study 3 (N = 190), I considered general system justification and investigated its linear and quadratic relations with political conservatism as measured with different indexes. In all the studies, I found some evidence of a positive linear relationship between political conservatism and system justification. Moreover, a quadratic and negative relationship emerged so that system justification appeared to decrease at the extremes of the political continuum.

KEYWORDS:

• Extremism
• political conservatism
• quadratic relationship
• system justification

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their helpful and constructive comments that greatly contributed to improving this paper.

Data and Materials Availability Statement

Questionnaire and data that support the findings of study 1 can be requested at http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/download.html?file=ESS8e01_1&y=2016

Questionnaire and data that support the findings of study 2 can be requested at http://www.itanes.org/dati/

Materials of study 3 are available in the supplementary file via the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/gd7tx/). The data that support the findings of study 3 are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Notes

1. There were 6440 missing values, an overall missing rate of 14%. Of these, 5804 (90.12%) were for political orientation: In fact, there were only 12 unaccounted for missing values, as 1487 participants refused to answer this question, and 4305 participants selected the “don’t know” response. Forty-eight of the missing values (0.75%) were for system justification. Given the low overall rate of missing values and the fact that most of the missing values were for the predictor variable (Allison, 2001), as well as the fact that the large wide sample size assured adequate power, I decided to exclude participants with missing values from the analyses.

2. I also calculated a model in which the wealth of participants, operationalized as net household income, was included as a covariate. However, due to the high number of missing values (n = 5748), I decided not to include participants’ wealth in the model presented here, in order to retain as many participants as possible. The model including wealth indicated that wealth was positively associated with satisfaction with the existing social system (B = 0.057, SE = 0.003, t = 16.82, p < .001, 95%CI [0.050, 0.064]). Other results were unchanged: political conservatism had a positive effect on system justification (B = 0.097, SE = 0.024, t = 3.99, p < .001, 95%CI [0.050, 0.146]), while conservatism squared had a negative effect (B = −0.008, SE = 0.003, t = 2.92, p = .004, 95%CI [−0.014, −0.003]).

3. Three hundred and two missing values appeared on the considered variables, revealing thus a general missing rate of 20.02%. Of those, 296 (98.01%) appeared on political orientation. Actually, 234 participants refused to place themselves on the political continuum, while 44 participants chose the “don’t know” option. Thus, only 18 respondents did not answer this question. Five missing values appeared on system justification. Given the low rate of missing values on the dependent variable (Allison, 2001) and the wide sample size, which ensures adequate power, I decided to analyze complete data only.

4. Italy has two main police forces, the Polizia di Stato and the Carabinieri, which are directly dependent on the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Defense, respectively. Thus, they represent national institutions.

5. Items are included in the supplementary materials; https://osf.io/gd7tx/

6. The so-called “Fiano law” is an Italian law proposal that prohibits the reproduction and dissemination of images and propaganda related to fascism.

7. Analyses were also performed with outliers included. Results were essentially unchanged. For self-placement, the linear effect of political orientation on system justification was not significant (B = 0.032, SE = 0.031, ß = .081, t = 1.03, p = .302, 95%CI [−0.029, 0.090]), while the quadratic effect was significant (B = −0.033, SE = 0.011, ß = −.232, t = 3.05, p = .003, 95%CI [−0.055, −0.011]). For political attitudes, the linear effect of political conservatism was not significant (B = 0.015, SE = 0.045, ß = .032, t = 0.33, p = .738, 95%CI [−0.071, 0.010]), while the quadratic effect was significant (B = −0.026, SE = 0.013, ß = −.174, t = 2.05, p = .041, 95%CI [−0.052, −0.001]). For the composite score, the linear effect of political orientation on system justification was not significant (B = 0.051, SE = 0.039, ß = .112, t = 1.29, p = .197, 95%CI [−0.022, 0.133]), while the quadratic effect was significant (B = −0.048, SE = 0.015, ß = −.283, t = 3.10, p = 0.002, 95%CI[−0.077, -0.018]).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Luca Caricati

Luca Caricati Research Assistant in Social Psychology, are affiliated with the Department of Humanities, Social Sciences and Cultural Industries, University of Parma, Parma, Italy.