on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of system justification theory. The first two commentaries are highly favourable in their evaluation of the state of theory and research on system justification, and they provide insightful suggestions for new directions. The third commentary is far more critical of system justification theory. We address each objection in some detail, seeking to correct a number of misconceptions about system justification theory and clarify the fact that the theory specifies threeego, group, and system justificationmotives rather than one. Finally, we end by proposing exciting new areas for future research, such as (1) distinguishing between subjective and objective consequences of system justification in a broader array of social and political contexts and (2) developing practical interventions to reduce system justification motivation and strengthen the motivation to improve upon the status quo.Nobody suffers like the poor people suffer. (Todd Snider, 'Incarcerated')

Although humans display inequality aversion, many people appear to be untroubled by widespread economic disparities. We suggest that such indifference is partly attributable to a belief in the fairness of the capitalist system. Here we report six studies showing that economic ideology predicts self-reported and physiological responses to inequality. In Studies 1 and 2, participants who regard the economic system as justified, compared with those who do not, report feeling less negative emotion after watching videos depicting homelessness. In Studies 3-5, economic system justifiers exhibit low levels of negative affect, as indexed by activation of the corrugator supercilii muscle, and autonomic arousal, as indexed by skin conductance, while viewing people experiencing homelessness. In Study 6, which employs experience-sampling methodology, everyday exposure to rich and poor people elicits less negative emotion among system justifiers. These results provide the strongest evidence to date that system-justifying beliefs diminish aversion to inequality in economic contexts.

Although humans display inequality aversion, many people appear to be untroubled by widespread economic disparities. We suggest that such indifference is partly attributable to a belief in the fairness of the capitalist system. Here we report six studies showing that economic ideology predicts self-reported and physiological responses to inequality. In Studies 1 and 2, participants who regard the economic system as justified, compared with those who do not, report feeling less negative emotion after watching videos depicting homelessness. In Studies 3-5, economic system justifiers exhibit low levels of negative affect, as indexed by activation of the corrugator supercilii muscle, and autonomic arousal, as indexed by skin conductance, while viewing people experiencing homelessness. In Study 6, which employs experience-sampling methodology, everyday exposure to rich and poor people elicits less negative emotion among system justifiers. These results provide the strongest evidence to date that system-justifying beliefs diminish aversion to inequality in economic contexts.

In an era of increased political polarization, it is important to measure how receptive US American citizens are to diverse political views. Being more open to diverse political viewpoints—openness to political pluralism—may involve holding emotional and intellectual tolerance, non-rigidity, and proactive motivation to seek out different political perspectives. In three preregistered studies of US residents, we present a new self-report measure of openness to political pluralism (OPP) consisting of 25 items. In Study 1 (MTurk n = 400), we verified a preregistered bifactor model with four facets, conducted initial validity analyses, and created a short five-item version (OPPS). Both OPP and OPPS have high internal consistency and test-retest reliability. In Studies 2 and 3, MTurk participants (n = 258) and Qualtrics panel participants (n = 296) completed OPP and measures of related constructs to validate our scale. OPP was modestly correlated with actively open-minded thinking (AOT) and highly correlated with open-minded cognition-political (OMC-P). Greater OPP was associated with an inverted U-shape relation to left-right political orientation. It was also correlated with more politically diverse social networks and varied information seeking. We discuss how our measure of openness to political pluralism can be used in future research.

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