John Jost Speaks to Democrat Club
Professor of Psychology and Politics and Co-Director of the Center for Social and Political Behavior at New York University John Jost spoke to Exeter’s Democrat Club on March 15 at 6:55 p.m. on his theory on system justification and contemporary American politics. Club members agreed that whether it be climate change or individual identity, Jost’s talk that Monday prompted informative discussion and learning.
Hailing from Toronto, Canada, Jost is a social psychologist known for his work on system justification theory, which gives insight as to why people defend policies that harm them. He received his PhD in Social and Political Psychology at Yale University as a doctoral student under notable psychologist William McGuire in 1995. He has contributed multiple theories regarding political ideologies over the years, and also served as President of the International Society of Political Psychology from 2015 to 2016.
Jost noted that people have a psychological tendency to defend the status quo. “System Justification Theory, subjectively if not objectively, doesn’t solve the problem but appears to solve the problem of epistemic, existential, and relational motives,” Jost said.
For many club members, while they had previously heard of these ideas, it was powerful to see the data behind Jost’s conclusions. “He provided researched, informed facts to justify a widely drawn conclusion - that people who benefit from systemic injustices are quicker to justify the system than those who do not,” upper Riley Valashinas said.
Senior Bea Burak said that Jost’s data backed her ideas as an activist for climate change. “Mr. Jost mentioned that one method he’s found effective for convincing strong system-justifiers to support climate action is framing climate change as something that will disrupt the status quo—therefore a change in policy is necessary to prevent even greater change to our way of life,” Burak said. “I think in many ways that’s how I already think and talk about climate change so it was interesting to see it backed up by his studies.”
Burack also found that Jost confirmed her personal ideas and research. She said, “His talk reinforced something I’ve been thinking about for a while, which is that people’s responses to particular issues tend to be highly predictable (similar to the idea of motivated reasoning). Mr. Jost’s research shows that individuals tend to have a certain level of desire to justify the systems in place (government systems, social systems, etc.) and that mindset impacts how they fall on different issues. For instance, someone who scores higher on ‘system justification’ is more likely to defend the current state of wealth inequality, gender disparities, environmental regulation, etc. when they hear the status quo criticized.”
While Jost’s presentation reinforced many people’s previous ideas, there were also some unexpected pieces of data that raised new points of interest for club members. Lower Montana Dickerson said, “I think one statistic that a lot of people will come back to is the idea that Republicans are happier than Democrats, because I think there's a lot to unpack there. It's just something for people to keep in mind.”
Upper and Democrat Club co-head Grace Valashinas agreed that the talk gave her new ideas to think about. “I thought it was interesting how we talked about how France was the only exception to mostly liberal people and Progressives being more likely to score higher on the system justification scale,” she said. “I also got a lot out of the ways in which he tied politics to psychology as a whole, which I hadn't seen.”
“Dem Clubbers got a taste for a different disciplinary lens through which politics can be evaluated. Political psychology is fascinating and an understanding of the biological basis for our political actions can help to further progressive change more effectively,” co-head and senior Maggie Wainwright said,
According to Wainwright, since Democrat Club had mostly internal dialogues this year, learning about the psychology behind politics was a unique experience for many.
Looking back, Wainwright said, “Political psychology is fascinating and an understanding of the biological basis for our political actions can help to further progressive change more effectively… I love politics so much, because really it's just shorthand for exploring how we should live together, and it makes me so happy whenever Dem Club expands my definition of what politics can be.”
