Movin’ on Up? How Perceptions of Social Mobility Affect Our Willingness to Defend the System

People's motivation to rationalize and defend the status quo is a major barrier to societal change. Three studies tested whether perceived social mobility - beliefs about the likelihood to move up and down the socioeconomic ladder - can condition people's tendency to engage in system justification. Compared to information suggesting moderate social mobility, exposure to low social-mobility frames consistently reduced defense of the overarching societal system. Two studies examined how this effect occurs. Compared to moderate or baseline conditions, a low social-mobility frame reduced people's endorsement of (typically strong) meritocratic and just-world beliefs, which in turn explained lower system defense. These effects occurred for political liberals, moderates, and conservatives, and could not be explained by other system-legitimizing ideologies or people's beliefs about their own social mobility. Implications for societal change programs are discussed.