Thesis (M.A.)--Covenant Theological Seminary, 2007. / Includes abstract. Tsdḳ appears in Hebrew script on t.p. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 99-104).

This dissertation provides an account of the aims of rational inquiry with the purpose of explaining the value of truth, information, justification, understanding, and knowledge. I argue that inquirers ought to have two chief and competing goals: to pursue information, and to avoid error. Inquirers ought to want answers that fully satisfy their demands for information, but they should also want those answers to be true. These goals come into conflict, since an agent aiming solely to avoid error could reject any putative information, while an agent aiming solely at pursuing information could accept any putative information regardless of the evidence. Rational inquirers must, then, have some way of balancing their competing aims. I argue that rational inquirers must strike this balance by appealing to the practical reasons for which they are inquiring, which entails that the theory of inquiry has an essential pragmatic element. In pursuing her primary aims an inquirer will need to pursue justification—an account of which is provided—and also ought to be concerned to avoid the luck that is present in Gettier cases. These reflections explain why knowledge has played such a central role in epistemology, since I argue that successful inquiry will result in a form of internalist knowledge.

Sverige kan ses som ett av världens mest jämställda länder. Människor kan dock inneha ambivalenta stereotyper om kvinnor, vilka kan vara sexistiska i sin karaktär. Syftet med föreliggande studie är att validera Glick och Fiskes (1996) Ambivalent Sexism skala översatt till svenska samt undersöka eventuella kopplingar mellan sexism, politisk inställning och system justification. Undersökningsdeltagarna tog i stor utsträckning avstånd från sexistiska attityder. Hostile sexism skattades högre än benevolent sexism, vilket skulle kunna kopplas till landets strävan efter jämställdhet. Männen skattade dock högre än kvinnorna på samtliga sexismskalor. Sambandet mellan system justification och politisk inställning var svagt. Det fanns dock en mindre skillnad mellan könen gällande uppfattningen om det svenska samhället, där män fann samhället aningen mer legitimt än kvinnorna, något som kan vara en antydan till en rådande samhällssituation där män fortfarande har högre social och ekonomisk status än kvinnor.

It is suggested that people’s perceptions that they are inevitably tied to the social systems within which they operate motivate them to justify these systems. Evidence is obtained across four experimental studies using a variety of different methods. All studies test the basic proposition that increasing inevitability – that is, making a system seem either more difficult to escape or more unlikely to change – increases motivated rationalization. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate this basic phenomenon, using a known measure of system justification. Studies 3 and 4, in addition to conceptually replicating this phenomenon via different paradigms, provide support for a motivational (as opposed to purely cognitive-inferential) account, and mediational and moderational evidence for my proposed mechanism, respectively. The implications of these results – for the refinement of system justification theory – are discussed.

When people are motivated to justify their socio-political systems they come to view the current status quo as the most desirable status quo--a process termed injunctification (Kay et al., 2009). Here, two studies suggest that injunctification processes can perpetuate gender inequalities in politics. In Study 1, I manipulated the system justification (SJ) motive of 64 female undergraduates and presented information suggesting there are many or few women in federal politics. Participants with their SJ motive heightened and who read there were many women more showed more egalitarian attitudes compared to other conditions. Study 2 (90 female undergraduates) again manipulated the SJ motive and manipulated the status quo about the number of women in politics. Participants with a heightened SJ motive who read there would soon be many women in politics reported more personal political interest, compared to other conditions. Implications for inequality and System Justification Theory are discussed.

During times of economic and political uncertainty, people often feel a lack of control and security. Three studies demonstrate that the motive for a sense of control can increase the desire for a romantic partner who is likely to provide a sense of control. When the sociopolitical system is threatened, men are more interested in warm, caring, submissive women consistent with ‘benevolent’ sexist ideals of femininity (Study 1). Women, on the other hand, are less interested in men consistent with the masculine stereotype as assertive, independent, and achievement-oriented to the extent that a relationship with these men can diminish their sense of control (Study 2). Threatening beliefs in personal control produced the same effect on women’s romantic interest in stereotypically masculine men, which supports the observed effects of system threat as due to motive for a sense of control. But when women perceive these men as benevolent, external sources of control, they remain interested in these men when threatened (Study 3). Together, the studies suggest that romantic relationships can be a means of establishing a sense of control following economic and political uncertainty.

It is suggested that people’s perceptions that they are inevitably tied to the social systems within which they operate motivate them to justify these systems. Evidence is obtained across four experimental studies using a variety of different methods. All studies test the basic proposition that increasing inevitability – that is, making a system seem either more difficult to escape or more unlikely to change – increases motivated rationalization. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate this basic phenomenon, using a known measure of system justification. Studies 3 and 4, in addition to conceptually replicating this phenomenon via different paradigms, provide support for a motivational (as opposed to purely cognitive-inferential) account, and mediational and moderational evidence for my proposed mechanism, respectively. The implications of these results – for the refinement of system justification theory – are discussed.

When people are motivated to justify their socio-political systems they come to view the current status quo as the most desirable status quo--a process termed injunctification (Kay et al., 2009). Here, two studies suggest that injunctification processes can perpetuate gender inequalities in politics. In Study 1, I manipulated the system justification (SJ) motive of 64 female undergraduates and presented information suggesting there are many or few women in federal politics. Participants with their SJ motive heightened and who read there were many women more showed more egalitarian attitudes compared to other conditions. Study 2 (90 female undergraduates) again manipulated the SJ motive and manipulated the status quo about the number of women in politics. Participants with a heightened SJ motive who read there would soon be many women in politics reported more personal political interest, compared to other conditions. Implications for inequality and System Justification Theory are discussed.

During times of economic and political uncertainty, people often feel a lack of control and security. Three studies demonstrate that the motive for a sense of control can increase the desire for a romantic partner who is likely to provide a sense of control. When the sociopolitical system is threatened, men are more interested in warm, caring, submissive women consistent with ‘benevolent’ sexist ideals of femininity (Study 1). Women, on the other hand, are less interested in men consistent with the masculine stereotype as assertive, independent, and achievement-oriented to the extent that a relationship with these men can diminish their sense of control (Study 2). Threatening beliefs in personal control produced the same effect on women’s romantic interest in stereotypically masculine men, which supports the observed effects of system threat as due to motive for a sense of control. But when women perceive these men as benevolent, external sources of control, they remain interested in these men when threatened (Study 3). Together, the studies suggest that romantic relationships can be a means of establishing a sense of control following economic and political uncertainty.

A consequential ideology in Western society is the uncontested belief that a committed relationship is the most important adult relationship and almost all people want to marry or seriously couple (DePaulo & Morris, 2005). In the present article, I investigated the extent to which the system justification motive may contribute to the adoption of this ideology. In Studies 1 and 2, I examined whether a heightened motive to maintain the status quo would increase defense of committed relationship values. In Study 3, I examined the reverse association, that is, whether a threat to committed relationship ideology would also affect socio-political system endorsement. As past research has found that the justification of political systems depends upon how much these systems are perceived as having control over life outcomes, in Study 4 I tested whether the defense of the system of committed relationships would also increase when framed as controlling. Results from Studies 1–4 were consistent with my hypotheses, but only for men. In Study 5, using cross-cultural data, I sought to replicate these findings correlationally and probe for a cause of the gender effect. Results from over 33 000 respondents indicated a relationship (for men) between defense of the socio-political system and defense of marriage in countries where the traditional advantages of men over women were most threatened. In Studies 6 and 7, I investigated when the gender difference found in the earlier studies disappears. Results revealed that when I measured (Study 6) or manipulated (Study 7) personal relationship identity (i.e., how much relationships are part of the active self-concept), rather than relationship ideology, effects also emerge for women.