Legitimization and delegitimization of social hierarchy

Although status and wealth are related facets of social stratification, their association is only moderate. In this article, we

demonstrate that justification of wealth versus status can be independent processes. To this end, we introduce a novel, nondeclarative

measure of system justification. The measure is based on within-individual correlations between the judgments of how

a group ‘‘is doing’’ and how it ‘‘should be doing.’’ Two studies demonstrated that the between-group differentiation in terms of

material wealth was delegitimized—the more a group was perceived as wealthy, the less it was desired to be wealthy. However,

the between-group differentiation in terms of status was generally legitimized—the more a group was perceived as influential, the

more it was desired to be influential. We conclude by discussing the role of sociopolitical context in active legitimization and

delegitimization of different aspects of the system.