Consanguineous Marriages and the Perception of Wife-Beating Justification in Pakistan: An Application of Fairlie Decomposition Analysis.

Pakistan has a significant occurrence of both consanguineous marriages and intimate partner violence (IPV), which may be interlinked. The practice of consanguineous marriages could potentially influence women to rationalize and accept instances of IPV. Such attitudes perpetuate a culture of violence against women, creating difficulties for victims to reject or escape from it. Pakistan has high prevalence rate of consanguineous marriages and IPV. However, no research has been done to explain the difference in acceptance of IPV between women in consanguineous and non-consanguineous marriages. This study used Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey data and applied association tests, logistic regression, and the Fairlie decomposition analysis. The Fairlie decomposition helps us identify the relative contribution of different socioeconomic factors in the inequalities in IPV between the two types of marriages. Five dimensions of wife-beating justification are used as outcome variables. Age, education, and empowerment of women, husband education, woman witness parental violence, region, place of residence, and household wealth status are used as independent variables. The logistic regression results indicated that women in consanguineous marriages of younger age and who witnessed parental violence are more likely to justify wife-beating than those who belong to wealthy households and enjoy more empowerment. Compared to the Punjab province, women residing in Sindh and Baluchistan are less likely and in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province are more likely to justify wife-beating. The Fairlie decomposition analysis shows that household wealth status, woman education, and empowerment are the main contributors in explaining the gap between the wife-beating justification of the two groups. The IPV gap can be reduced up to 77% if the distribution of women in different wealth quantiles of the consanguineous marriage group is identical to the non-consanguineous marriage group. Furthermore, woman education level is the second highest contributor. Consanguineous marriages are a prevalent cultural practice in Pakistan and are associated with several negative health and social outcomes. Addressing this issue requires a sustained and comprehensive effort by the government, civil society, and international partners, with a particular focus on women from poor households with less education.

Assessing System Justification in Czech Population Using the System Justification Scale.

System justification (SJ) is an important construct in social psychology that has received considerable attention over the past three decades. At the empirical level, system justification is examined by means of a specially developed System Justification Scale (SJS), which is designed to explain how individuals accept justice, whether they consider a given social order to be fair, how they evaluate the conditions in the country in which they live, how they accept social change, or to what extent they express compliance with established rules. System justification involves not only those who benefit from the existing social order, but also those who are disadvantaged. In their case, system justification mitigates negative perceptions of objective inequalities and asymmetries. Empirical evidence suggests that system justification may also be associated with higher perceived quality of life. The present study translated and validated the SJS, providing complex and detailed information on the psychometric properties of the scale. In addition, the scale's internal consistency, unidimensionality, and construct validity were examined. The conclusions presented are based on the results of exploratory factor analysis, internal consistency assessment, analysis of variance, correlation analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis. Results were obtained from face-to-face survey data collected from a sample of 1419 individuals representing the Czech population aged 18-79 years. Since the SJS showed high internal consistency, adequately discriminated levels of system justification, and had robust psychometric properties, it could be recommended for further use.

On The Problem of Defending Basic Equality: Natural Law and The Substance View.

While most theorists agree with the claim that human beings have high and equal moral standing, there are strong disagreements about how to justify this claim. These disagreements arise because there are different ways of managing the difficulty of finding a basis for this claim, which is sufficiently substantial to do this justifying work, but not vary in degree in order to not give rise to inequality of moral considerability. The aim of this paper is to review previous attempts to address this difficulty and to demonstrate why they fail and then to defend another way of dealing with this challenge by applying two views: the substance view on the human person and the natural-law account of morality. My claim is that this approach has comparative advantages because it provides a binary and a normatively significant basis of justification for equality without being implausibly inclusive.

The association between system-justifying ideologies and attitudes toward the social market economy in Germany.

Although the legitimacy of an economic system is often dependent on citizen support, psychological research has paid little attention to attitudes toward economic systems. In the present study, we examined the link between two system-justifying ideologies, namely, right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO), and attitudes toward the social market economy in Germany. Drawing on system justification theory, we hypothesized that RWA would be positively and SDO negatively associated with support for the social market economy because the social component of the German economic system conflicts with beliefs inherent in SDO favoring a group-based hierarchy. Based on a quota sample of German adults (N = 886), we found support for the predicted associations of both system-justifying ideologies with economic system support, except that RWA was negatively associated with support for the welfare component of the social market economy. However, the positive relationship of RWA with support for the social market economy only emerged after SDO was statistically controlled, suggesting a suppressor situation. These findings demonstrate that system-justifying ideologies bear different relations to pro-market attitudes depending on the type of economic regime. Implications for system justification theory are discussed. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-023-04483-7.

Sustaining Livelihoods or Saving Lives? Economic System Justification in the Time of COVID-19.

An ongoing debate in the United States relating to COVID-19 features the purported tension between containing the coronavirus to save lives or opening the economy to sustain livelihoods, with ethical overtones on both sides. Proponents of opening the economy argue that sustaining livelihoods should be prioritized over virus containment, with ethicists asking, "What about the risk to human life?" Defendants of restricting the spread of the virus endorse saving lives through virus containment but contend with the ethical concern "What about people's livelihoods and individual freedoms?" A commonly held belief is that political ideology drives these differential preferences: liberals are more focused on saving lives, whereas conservatives favor sustaining livelihoods with no additional government intervention in the free-market economy. We examine these lay beliefs among US residents in four studies and find that economic system justification (ESJ), an ideology that defends the prevailing economic system when under threat, is a reliable psychological predictor beyond political ideology. Specifically, compared to those who scored low on ESJ, people who scored high on ESJ judged China as more justified in downplaying the spread of virus to protect its interest in the global free-market economy, supported in-person over online learning, viewed shelter in place as less desirable, and perceived the opening of the Texas economy as more legitimate. We also find that multiple psychological mechanisms might be at work-resistance to market interventions, perceived legitimacy of opening the economy, perceived seriousness of the health crisis, and violation of human rights. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10551-022-05091-4.

Socio-economic inequalities in intimate partner violence justification among women in Ghana: analysis of the 2014 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey data.

BACKGROUND: One of the key reasons for the high prevalence of intimate partner violence among women is the justification of intimate partner violence. Socio-economic status of women plays a key role in intimate partner violence justification. This study investigated the socio-economic inequalities in the justification of intimate partner violence among Ghanaian women. METHODS: Data from the 2014 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey were used in this study. The study involved a total of 9267 women. A binary logistic regression analysis was performed to examine the socio-economic disparities in intimate partner violence justification. The findings were presented as adjusted odds ratios (aORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) demonstrating precision. Statistical significance was set at p<0.05. RESULTS: The prevalence of intimate partner violence justification among women in Ghana was 28.2%. Compared with women with no formal of education, those with a higher level of education (aOR 0.17 [95% CI 0.10 to 0.30]) were less likely to justify intimate partner violence. In terms of wealth status, women in the richest quintile had lower odds of justifying intimate partner violence compared with women in the poorest wealth quintile (aOR 0.44 [95% CI 0.28 to 0.67]). CONCLUSIONS: Interventions, policies, strategies and programs such as women's equitable access to formal education, formation of stronger social networks to improve women's socio-economic status, advocacy to stop intimate partner violence and empowerment interventions among women should be focused toward contextualizing intimate partner violence in terms of the acceptance of this behaviour, since this can play a significant role in victimization and perpetration.

Social position and economic system justification in Canada: Implications for advancing health equity and social justice from an exploratory study of factors shaping economic system justification.

Objective: Many socio-economic reforms that could reduce health disparities are not implemented because people justify existing systems and fear changes thereto. This study aimed to identify socio-demographic factors associated with system justifying beliefs to better understand how they are maintained in Canada. In doing so, we hypothesized that (1) systems justification is a default cognitive position, buttressed by the palliative benefits of system-justification, (2) lack of success in a given system generally motivates people to doubt the legitimacy of that system, and (3) system-justifying beliefs are rejected only when the costs of doing so are low enough and/or the benefits are high enough to outweigh the innate needs-fulfillment benefits of system-justification. Methods: Testing these hypotheses, we recruited participants living in Canada, aged 16+, to complete an online survey after being recruited via paid social media advertisements. Multivariable regression models identified factors associated with Economic System Justification Scale (ESJS) scores. Explanatory variables included demographic measures of social position, self-rated health, and patterns of social inclusion. Results: Among 2,619 participants, system-justifying beliefs were wide-spread, with the average level of support across ESJS scale items exceeding 50%. Lower ESJS scores were associated with worse health, more loneliness, and lower socioeconomic status. Despite the pattern that marginalization erodes system-justification, several historically marginalized characteristics (e.g., non-white ethnicity and non-binary gender) were associated with relatively high system-justification, compared to matching privileged characteristics (e.g., white ethnicity; masculine gender). Conclusion: Supporting our hypotheses, we identify a general trend that social marginalization is associated with less system-justification. Those benefitting from the status quo (e.g., healthier, wealthier, less lonely) were more likely to hold system-justifying beliefs. However, some groups who are disadvantaged within the existing system reported higher system-justification-suggesting that system oppression may be a key moderator of the effect of social position on system justification.

Vitamin D deficiency in British South Asians, a persistent but avoidable problem associated with many health risks (including rickets, T2DM, CVD, COVID-19 and pregnancy complications): the case for correcting this deficiency.

High vitamin D deficiency rates, with rickets and osteomalacia, have been common in South Asians (SAs) arriving in Britain since the 1950s with preventable infant deaths from hypocalcaemic status-epilepticus and cardiomyopathy. Vitamin D deficiency increases common SA disorders (type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease), recent trials and non-linear Mendelian randomisation studies having shown deficiency to be causal for both disorders. Ethnic minority, obesity, diabetes and social deprivation are recognised COVID-19 risk factors, but vitamin D deficiency is not, despite convincing mechanistic evidence of it. Adjusting analyses for obesity/ethnicity abolishes vitamin D deficiency in COVID-19 risk prediction, but both factors lower serum 25(OH)D specifically. Social deprivation inadequately explains increased ethnic minority COVID-19 risks. SA vitamin D deficiency remains uncorrected after 70 years, official bodies using 'education', 'assimilation' and 'diet' as 'proxies' for ethnic differences and increasing pressures to assimilate. Meanwhile, English rickets was abolished from ~1940 by free 'welfare foods' (meat, milk, eggs, cod liver oil), for all pregnant/nursing mothers and young children (<5 years old). Cod liver oil was withdrawn from antenatal clinics in 1994 (for excessive vitamin A teratogenicity), without alternative provision. The take-up of the 2006 'Healthy-Start' scheme of food-vouchers for low-income families with young children (<3 years old) has been poor, being inaccessible and poorly publicised. COVID-19 pandemic advice for UK adults in 'lockdown' was '400 IU vitamin D/day', inadequate for correcting the deficiency seen winter/summer at 17.5%/5.9% in White, 38.5%/30% in Black and 57.2%/50.8% in SA people in representative UK Biobank subjects when recruited ~14 years ago and remaining similar in 2018. Vitamin D inadequacy worsens many non-skeletal health risks. Not providing vitamin D for preventing SA rickets and osteomalacia continues to be unacceptable, as deficiency-related health risks increase ethnic health disparities, while abolishing vitamin D deficiency would be easier and more cost-effective than correcting any other factor worsening ethnic minority health in Britain.

Intensive mothering and the perpetuation of gender inequality: Evidence from a mixed methods research.

Intensive mothering is a cultural model of appropriate childrearing according to which mothers should unselfishly make a tremendous investment in their child. Using a mixed methodology, we examined the relevance of this ideology to understand the persistence of gender inequality. A content analysis of the most popular French mommy blogs indicates that this ideology remains commonplace, and has even incorporated contemporary concerns regarding sustainable development. Besides the expected themes of the sacredness of the child, the primary responsibility of the mother, and the use of intensive methods for all aspects of childrearing, the analysis of blog posts highlights new themes, including the sacredness of home, need for balance, and the praise of fathers. Furthermore, mommy blogs, as public online diaries involving everyday experience, prompt mothers to confess their failure to comply with intensive mothering demands and, at the same time, to reaffirm their commitment to its principles. Social influence is evidenced by the comments in response to the posts, which demonstrate polarization toward intensive mothering among the readers. A survey study further demonstrates that this ideology is positively related to a series of gender hierarchy-enhancing beliefs and attitudes. As a whole, the present research indicates that intensive mothering should be considered a system justifying ideology, while mommy blogs provide a platform for its diffusion and strengthening.

Workplace factors facilitating the radiographers' assessment of referrals for diagnostic imaging - A qualitative study.

INTRODUCTION: Radiology referrals are assessed for appropriate imaging based on the available clinical information. The task is legally the responsibility of the radiologists but could be delegated to radiographers under guidance. Knowledge of how this task is organised in radiology departments is limited. The study aim was to identify workplace factors facilitating the radiographers' assessment of referrals for medical imaging. METHODS: Five radiographers were recruited by convenience- and snowball-sampling techniques through the online social media platform LinkedIn. The participants represented different private and public hospitals and had from three to above ten years of experience with assessment of referrals for plain and cross sectional imaging. Following a qualitative approach, 60-min in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted through online video meetings. Interviews followed a topic guide with 15 questions and 20 keywords, previously tested through a pilot interview. Systematic text condensation was performed using NVivo 12, where central themes and underlying subthemes were developed. RESULTS: Five central facilitating factors were identified, each with subthemes identified as: (1) Formal responsibilities; Documented delegation, Specific role description, (2) Training; Achieving skills, Maintaining skills, (3) Guidelines; Clinical indications, Priority, (4) Resource allocation; Time, Staff, (5) a Supporting environment; Teamwork, Mutual benefits, Feedback and knowledge sharing. CONCLUSION: The study adds new and valuable insights into workplace factors facilitating the radiographers' delegated task of assessing referrals. Workflows adapting such factors benefit radiographers by increasing knowledge and professional development, while positively re-allocating radiologist resources. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: The study findings may support radiology workplaces in establishing or improving referral assessment by radiographers. Subsequently, improved quality of patient services may be achieved.

Beliefs about Legality and Benefits for Mental Health.

Research on mental health pays increasing attention to the influence of social institutions on subjective well-being over the life course. Yet little research has considered how belief in the promise of legal institutions may have beneficial effects for well-being. Through structural equation models of longitudinal data, our findings suggest that belief in the neutrality and fairness of legal institutions has salutary effects for mental health net of social and economic status and across individuals from a wide range of ethnic groups. By combining research in the sociology of mental health, cultural sociology, social psychology, and the sociology of law, we extend the emerging literature on the institutional determinants of mental health by including attention to law as one of the central organizing institutions of social life.

Perceiving fairness in an unfair world: System justification and the mental health of girls in detention facilities.

Psychologists in the helping professions have long accepted the idea that cognitions have implications for mental health and wellbeing. Community psychologists have further established the importance of context and systems in the etiology of mental health problems. In this paper, we argue that as a discipline that prioritizes social justice, community psychology should consider associations between cognitions about structural and systemic inequality and individual mental health, particularly in marginalized populations. As one illustration of this argument and its complexities, we asked if and to what degree mental health was concurrently associated with adolescents' beliefs in societal fairness (i.e., system-justifying beliefs), attending to gender differences. Our findings were informed by a sample of 196 adolescents residing in detention facilities (49.50% girls; 51.75% Black/Caribbean, 21.68% multiracial; 15.38% Hispanic/Latine; 27.98% LGBTQ+). These youth represent an understudied group in the research literature addressing fairness beliefs and their influence on wellness. Results suggested that boys were more likely to endorse societal fairness compared to girls, but these beliefs were unrelated to their mental health. However, we found a significant gender moderation such that girls who perceived society to be fair reported lower levels of internalizing and externalizing mental health problems. We discuss implications for theory, research, and intervention.

What predicts perceived economic inequality? The roles of actual inequality, system justification, and fairness considerations.

Past studies have mostly focused on investigating actual economic inequality with less work devoted to understanding perceived economic inequality and its antecedents. However, numerous studies have shown that perceived inequality is a strong predictor of psychological, political, and social outcomes and hence is an important outcome in and of itself. This paper aims to identify the socioecological (i.e., actual inequality) and psychological (legitimation and fairness considerations) antecedents of perceived economic inequality. We hypothesized that individuals who legitimized income inequality would perceive less inequality, whereas individuals who experienced unfairness engendered by income inequality would perceive more inequality. We utilized a nationally representative sample in China (N = 33,600 respondents nested within 25 provinces) and conducted multilevel longitudinal analyses to test our hypotheses. In line with our predictions, we found that legitimation of inequality was associated with less perceived inequality six years later, whereas unfairness was associated with more perceived inequality six years later. In addition, we found that in more unequal areas, people perceived less income inequality. These longitudinal effects were robust when controlling for prior years of perceived inequality, economic development, and sociodemographic factors. Findings have implications for system justification and economic inequality theories.

Consensos em discursos sobre a violência policial: o posicionamento de estudantes universitários / Consensus in discourses on police violence: the positioning of university students / Consenso en discursos sobre violencia policial: el posicionamiento de estudiantes universitarios

Este artigo teve como objetivo analisar se a cor da pele do imigrante (negro ou branco) influencia as justificativas para a tomada de posição frente a uma situação de violência policial cuja vítima era um imigrante suspeito de tráfico de drogas. Participaram do estudo 300 estudantes universitários paraibanos. Os dados foram processados pelo software Iramuteq, por meio da classificação hierárquica descendente (CHD). Como resultado, na condição de imigrante branco, não foram verificados posicionamentos favoráveis à conduta policial. Já na condição de imigrante negro, houve discordância com a ação policial, todavia, houve também culpabilização do imigrante, por vezes utilizada como argumento para tentar justificar ou tolerar a abordagem policial. Assim, constatou-se a existência de um consenso desfavorável em relação à figura do imigrante negro, embasado em argumentos preconceituosos que costumam ser utilizados pela sociedade no intento de proteger os grupos majoritários e fomentar a manutenção da estrutura social, reforçando o preconceito racial e as desigualdades sociais.(AU)

This article aimed to analyze if the immigrants' skin color (black or white) influences the justifications for the positioning in the face of police violence whose victim is an immigrant suspected of drug trafficking. A total of 300 university students from the state of Paraíba participated in the study. The data were processed by the IRAMUTEQ software, by descending hierarchical classification (DHC). As a result, in the condition of white immigrant, no favorable positions were verified for police conduct. In the condition of black immigrant, on the other hand, there was disagreement with the police action, however, blaming the immigrant also occurred, sometimes used as an argument to try to justify or tolerate the police approach. Thus, an unfavorable consensus regarding the figure of the black immigrant was found, based on prejudiced arguments usually used by society in an attempt to protect the majority groups and promote the maintenance of the social structure, reinforcing racial prejudice and social inequalities.(AU)

Este artículo tuvo como objetivo analizar si el color de la piel del inmigrante (blanco o negro) influye en las justificaciones para tomar una posición frente a una situación de violencia policial cuya víctima era un inmigrante sospechoso de narcotráfico. 300 estudiantes de Paraíba participaron en el estudio. Los datos fueron procesados ​​por el software IRAMUTEQ, utilizando la clasificación jerárquica descendente (CHD). Como resultado, como inmigrante blanco, las posiciones favorables a la conducta policial no fueron verificadas. Sin embargo, como inmigrante negro, hubo desacuerdo con la acción policial, sin embargo, la presencia de culpar al inmigrante a veces se usaba como argumento para tratar de justificar o tolerar el enfoque policial. Por lo tanto, hubo un consenso desfavorable con respecto a la figura del inmigrante negro, basado en argumentos prejuiciosos que la sociedad suele utilizar en un intento de proteger a los grupos mayoritarios y promover el mantenimiento de la estructura social, reforzando los prejuicios raciales y las desigualdades sociales.(AU)

The Relationship Between Income Inequality and the Palliative Function of Meritocracy Belief: The Micro- and the Macro-Levels Both Count.

In the current paper, we report the analysis of the relationship between meritocracy belief and subjective well-being using two large international databases, the European Social Survey Program (N = 44,387) and the European Values Study Program (N = 51,752), involving data gathered from 36 countries in total. We investigated whether low status individuals are more likely to psychologically benefit from endorsing meritocratic beliefs, and the same benefits are more pronounced in more unequal societies. Since meritocracy belief can function as a justification for income differences, we assumed that the harsher the objective reality is, the higher level of subjective well-being can be maintained by justifying this harsh reality. Therefore, we hypothesized that the palliative function of meritocracy belief is stronger for both low social status (low income) individuals, and for those living in an unequal social environment (in countries with larger income differences). Our multilevel models showed a positive relationship between meritocracy belief and subjective well-being, which relationship was moderated by both individual-level income status and country-level income differences in both studies. Based on these results, we concluded that the emotional payoff of justifying income inequalities is larger if one is more strongly affected by these inequalities.

Can moral convictions against gender inequality overpower system justification effects? Examining the interaction between moral conviction and system justification.

It has been shown that disadvantaged groups who endorse system-justifying beliefs tend to internalize their state of inferiority by expressing ingroup derogation and opposing collective action for change. In the present research, we recruited women - as disadvantaged group - from different countries (the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy) and examined whether their moral conviction against gender inequality, as an absolute stance that does not tolerate any violation, may interact with and overpower system-justifying beliefs. Results from three studies provided support for our hypotheses. First, when women held strong moral conviction, they expressed higher identification with their disadvantaged ingroup and, in turn, higher collective action intentions, independent of system-justifying beliefs. Second, when women held weak moral conviction, higher system-justifying beliefs reduced women's ingroup identification and, in turn, undermined their collective action intentions. This support is found across different contexts of gender inequality (the gender leadership gap, the gender pay gap, and the gender power imbalance), using different methodological approaches (online survey, online experiment, laboratory experiment). Implications, limits, and future directions are discussed.

Turning a blind eye: Meritocracy moderates the impacts of social status on corruption perception.

Findings on the effect of social status on corruption perception are mixed. To make sense of the mixed results, three studies were conducted to examine whether meritocracy moderates this effect. In Study 1, we measured all variables using a questionnaire-based correlational design. In the preregistered Study 2, we adopted an experimental design in which we manipulated social status using a false feedback paradigm and measured corruption perception and meritocracy. In Study 3, we manipulated meritocracy using a scrambled sentence task and measured its effect on the relationship between social status and corruption perception. The results consistently demonstrated that meritocracy could moderate the influence of social status on corruption perception. Specifically, social status was negatively associated with corruption perception when meritocracy was weak, whereas the association was not significant when meritocracy was strong. Our results suggest that meritocracy critically affects acknowledgment of the pervasiveness of social injustice and even deters the disadvantaged from fighting against corruption.

From starving artist to entrepreneur. Justificatory pluralism in visual artists' grant proposals.

Inspired by French pragmatism and using Bourdieu's notion of "refraction" as an indication of a field's autonomy, we explore in-depth what kinds of justifications visual artists deploy to legitimate their requests for government money. Based on 494 government grant proposals from visual artists between 1965 and 2015 in Belgium, we find six such justifications. The reputational, esthetic, and romantic justifications are grounded in autonomous criteria of worth, such as artistic CVs, the work of art itself, and a compulsive desire to make art. Since the 90s, social, academic, and entrepreneurial justifications bring in heteronomous criteria, or refractions of field-external values. Artistic practices become increasingly legitimized through engagement with social/political issues, academic methods and terminology, and an entrepreneurial spirit. We empirically show how the refraction of governmental logics is multi-faceted, yet always related to or combined with artistic concerns, which we interpret as characteristic for the artistic field's persisting autonomy in the face of heteronomous pressures.

Making a case for a change to using CEFR-oriented placement test scores: A reflexive ethnographic decision making.

The term 'language testing and assessment' (LTA) seems to often invoke ideas related to numbers, such as mathematical equation and statistical calculation. This may range from scoring performance or responses to examination questions as numbers, to informing stakeholders of test results. This article investigates a series of actions pertaining to LTA by bringing in reflexive ethnography (Davies, C.A. [2008]. Reflexive Ethnography: A Guide to Researching Selves and Others. Routledge: London.). The aims are to add a humanistic element to the discipline in general and to feed another piece of applicability information to ethnographers in particular. Attempting at introducing such an approach largely qualitative as ethnography to the field of LTA can be useful because it may open up possibilities for balanced views in assessing language competence in future studies, in which social factors can also be taken explicitly into account for a decision making in LTA. For ethnographers, applicability of reflexive ethnography in LTA could mean the methodology achieves greater generalizability through a larger sample in the universe of admissible observations. A primary research question is whether a change in using CEFR-oriented placement test scores can be justified using empirical reasoning. Participatory observations, situational weigh-in, and statistical analyses are found capable of synergizing using a reflexive-ethnographic perspective for a justifiable decision-making process.

Justifying Social Inequalities: The Role of Social Darwinism.

Three studies supported a model whereby associations between ideologies that share roots in biological determinism and outcomes that reinforce inequality (based on gender, race, or class) were mediated by system justification beliefs (SJB). Outcomes included support for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton as president (Study 1), justifying police brutality (Study 2), and support for a White House budget that slashed the social safety net to endow the wealthy with tax cuts (Study 3). These findings provoke a vital question: How do people deem unequal systems worthy of defense? Each study compared social Darwinism, social dominance orientation (SDO), and biological essentialism. We expected social Darwinism to account for the most variance in SJB because it provides both the rationale for social hierarchies (natural selection) and defends them as required for human welfare. This prediction was supported in each study. Implications for the psychology of legitimacy are discussed.