Social psychologists have gained considerable traction in studying the epistemic, existential, and relational underpinnings of attitudes and behavior (Greenberg et al. Reference Greenberg, Koole and Pyszczynski2004; Jost et al. Reference Jost, Kay and Thorisdottir2009). Diverse, seemingly incongruous programs of research have helped to illuminate the structure and function of human needs and the causes of seemingly paradoxical, self-defeating behavior – why, for example, “the freed bird finds a new cage” (Pyszczynski et al. Reference Pyszczynski, Solomon, Greenberg, Stewart-Fouts, Oosterwegel and Wicklund1995).

Unfortunately, researchers are often drawn into unhelpful debates about which single theory or motive – for example, social identification, terror management, system justification, social dominance, or meaning maintenance – subsumes the others or is otherwise more “basic” or “fundamental.” The problem is that competition among “rival” theories tends to be illusory, and such debates are rarely, if ever, resolved (Greenwald Reference Greenwald, Jost, Banaji and Prentice2004; Sullivan et al. Reference Sullivan, Landau and Kay2012). Another, quite different approach is to distill a common denominator (such as inconsistency compensation) and conclude that seemingly disparate theories are really all saying the same thing (Proulx et al. Reference Proulx, Inzlicht and Harmon-Jones2012). We share the scientific values of parsimony and unification, but this approach is also unsatisfying, insofar as it obscures important differences in theoretical insight and diminishes our ability to distinguish between (sometimes vastly) different behavioral outcomes.

Far more promising is Huang & Bargh's (H&B's) proposal that the motivational system is itself composed of multiple, potentially conflicting goals that vary chronically and temporarily in terms of activation and strength. We share the authors' supposition that system justification – defined as the motivation to defend, bolster, and justify aspects of the societal status quo – is one of many “autonomously operating motivational structures.” The basic idea is that people are generally unaware that they possess the goal of imbuing social, economic, and political systems with legitimacy – but they do so anyway (Jost et al. Reference Jost, Pietrzak, Liviatan, Mandisodza, Napier, Shah and Gardner2008).

Evidence is accumulating that system justification operates as a largely nonconscious goal. For example, we know that exposure to criticism of the system stimulates defensive motivation (Kay et al. Reference Kay, Gaucher, Peach, Friesen, Laurin, Zanna and Spencer2009), as well as automatic positive evaluation of societal symbols and heightened accessibility of concepts related to legitimacy and social stability (Liviatan & Jost Reference Liviatan and Jost2014). These effects persist only as long as the system justification goal is active; they tend to disappear when the goal is satiated through acts of direct system-affirmation. Otherwise, system justification persists even in the face of obstacles, so that individuals work hard (even on impossible tasks) in an effort to affirm the legitimacy of “the American dream” (Ledgerwood et al. Reference Ledgerwood, Mandisodza, Jost and Pohl2011).

At the same time, system justification frequently conflicts with other goals that the individual possesses, including goals to maintain self-esteem (ego justification) and to defend the interests or actions of fellow group members (group justification). Members of disadvantaged groups, such as women and minorities, appear to suffer from motivational conflicts involving ego, group, and system justification concerns. Indeed, system justification is a perfect example of what H&B refer to as a “self-defeating” goal. For example, African Americans who justify the status quo possess lower levels of self-esteem and higher levels of depression and neuroticism (Jost & Thompson Reference Jost and Thompson2000), and women who justify the status quo exhibit a depressed sense of entitlement, coming to believe that they deserve inferior wages (McCoy & Major Reference McCoy and Major2007; O'Brien et al. Reference O'Brien, Major and O'Gilbert2012).

The point of system justification theory is not to suggest that everyone always justifies the societal status quo (cf. Reynolds, et al., in press) – or that those who are disadvantaged are necessarily the ones who justify it the most (cf. Brandt Reference Brandt2013). Often, the goal to defend or bolster personal or collective self-esteem is stronger or more active than the goal to defend or bolster the social system. The point is that nearly everyone – including members of disadvantaged as well as advantaged groups – possesses some (variable) degree of motivation to believe that the systems on which he or she depends are fair, legitimate, and so on. There is no reason to assume that people will always justify the status quo because they may also possess other goals (in addition to ego and group justification), such as goals to be egalitarian, fair, accurate, innovative, contrarian, or vengeful.

This has been illustrated vividly in experiments demonstrating that people respond to the same social or political stimulus (such as proposed legislation that infringes upon personal freedom) by either rationalizing (Kay et al. Reference Kay, Jimenez and Jost2002) or reacting against it (Brehm Reference Brehm1966). Laurin et al. (Reference Laurin, Kay and Fitzsimons2012) demonstrated that reactance and rationalization are both motivational structures that operate autonomously in different sets of circumstances. Individuals strive to resist infringements upon freedom of choice when the possibility remains that the new restrictions will not be enacted. When the same infringements are described as inevitable, however, individuals tend to accept and begin justifying the new regime.

The fact that human beings are capable of divergent responses to the same stimulus event makes evolutionary sense. It may be that investing resources to resist external forces (such as the impositions of social or political systems) is adaptive only when there is some chance, however remote, that the impositions can be avoided. When this is impossible, it may be more adaptive to accommodate new realities and focus on “silver linings” rather than committing resources to a fight that appears to be unwinnable. This is a useful, integrative conclusion that would have been excluded from typical forms of theory competition, such as the search for a “critical test.”

Rather than debating, perhaps indefinitely, which motive is the strongest or most fundamental for human behavior, we believe that researchers would be better off using their prodigious theoretical and methodological skills to determine how and why a given goal-state operates autonomously and when it is especially likely to guide behavior. We applaud H&B for helping to show us the way forward. Recognizing that there is a multiplicity of (sometimes conflicting) motives – and that each one varies in terms of accessibility and strength as a function of the person and the situation – is essential if we are to achieve genuine theoretical and empirical integration in motivational science.