Although status and wealth are related facets of social stratification, their association is only moderate. In this article, weuddemonstrate that justification of wealth versus status can be independent processes. To this end, we introduce a novel, nondeclarativeudmeasure of system justification. The measure is based on within-individual correlations between the judgments of howuda group ‘‘is doing’’ and how it ‘‘should be doing.’’ Two studies demonstrated that the between-group differentiation in terms ofudmaterial wealth was delegitimized—the more a group was perceived as wealthy, the less it was desired to be wealthy. However,udthe between-group differentiation in terms of status was generally legitimized—the more a group was perceived as influential, theudmore it was desired to be influential. We conclude by discussing the role of sociopolitical context in active legitimization anduddelegitimization of different aspects of the system.
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