Upward social mobility and identity

Discrimination and Perceived Cultural Mismatch Increase Status-Based Identity Uncertainty

Periods of social mobility, such as attending college, can challenge one's status-based identity, leading to uncertainty around one's status in society. Status uncertainty is associated with poorer well-being and academic outcomes. Little is known, however, about what experiences lead to status uncertainty. The current longitudinal study investigated discrimination experiences and cultural mismatch as predictors of status uncertainty. We propose that discrimination indirectly predicts increased status uncertainty by increasing perceived cultural mismatch with the university. Participants were Latinx college students, all of whom were low-income and/or first generation to college. Discrimination experiences were measured at the end of participants' first year. Cultural mismatch and status uncertainty were measured at the end of Year 2. Status uncertainty was measured again at the end of Year 3. Results indicated that students who experienced more frequent discrimination felt more cultural mismatch 1 year later, and, in turn, reported increased status uncertainty over the following year.

Connections between academic motivation and benefits to low-grade inflammatory regulation among the socioeconomically advantaged

INTRODUCTION

Working to reach school goals during adolescence and rise in the socioeconomic hierarchy can have unexpected negative consequences for physical health, which are often linked to inflammation. However, certain forms of academic motivation, like finding meaning in difficulty, can benefit health and well-being. The current study tests whether socioeconomic resources explain this paradox and moderate the relationship between motivational processes and indicators of inflammation among adolescents. Having greater socioeconomic resources may provide the circumstances necessary to experience a beneficial connection between higher school motivation and lower indicators of inflammation.

METHOD

Seventy-nine adolescents in the United States from diverse backgrounds completed a survey and health screening (59.6% girls, Mage = 14). The survey included a key measure of motivation indicating how students respond to experiences of academic difficulty. The health screening produced assays of C-reactive protein and interleukin 6 from antecubital blood samples, which provided an indicator of low-grade inflammation.

RESULTS

Multiple linear regression analyses demonstrated the expected pattern of moderation, such that students with high (but not low) socioeconomic resources experienced a positive connection between motivation and indicators of inflammatory regulation, especially C-reactive protein.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings provide an important contribution to understanding the complex links between achievement and health. Future research on the health costs of mobility should consider the health benefits of motivation that may be observed uniquely among the socioeconomically advantaged. Further, education institutions should promote motivation in ways that are connected to health sustaining forms of support for all students.

The impact of social hierarchies on neural response to feedback evaluations after advice giving

Advisors generally evaluate advisee-relevant feedback after advice giving. The response to these feedback-(1) whether the advice is accepted and (2) whether the advice is optimal-usually involves prestige. Prior literature has found that prestige is the basis by which individuals attain a superior status in the social hierarchy. However, whether advisors are motivated to attain a superior status when engaging in advice giving remains uncharacterized. Using event-related potentials, this study investigates how advisors evaluate feedback after giving advice to superior (vs. inferior) status advisees. A social hierarchy was first established based on two advisees (one was ranked as superior status and another as inferior status) as well as participants' performance in a dot-estimation task in which all participants were ranked as medium status. Participants then engaged in a game in which they were assigned roles as advisors to a superior or inferior status advisee. Afterward, the participants received feedback in two phases. In Phase 1, participants were told whether the advisees accepted the advice provided. In Phase 2, the participants were informed whether the advice they provided was correct. In these two phases, when the advisee was of superior status, participants exhibited stronger feedback-related negativity and P300 difference in response to (1) whether their advice was accepted, and (2) whether their advice was correct. Moreover, the P300 was notably larger when the participants' correct advice led to a gain for a superior-status advisee. In the context of advice giving, advisors are particularly motivated to attain a superior status when the feedback involving social hierarchies, which is reflected in higher sensitivity to feedback associated with superior status advisees at earlier and later stages during feedback evaluations in brains.

The Myth of Social Mobility: Subjective Social Mobility and Mental Health

A common assumption is that upward mobility produces positive psychological outcomes. However, status-based identity framework and social class worldview model propose that perceived social mobility in either direction will lead to increased distress. Based on this claim, we examined relations among subjective social mobility, life satisfaction, and mental health using polynomial regression with response surface mapping. In Study 1, groups that experienced both subjective downward and upward mobility reported more depressive symptomatology than groups that remained in middle or upper social statuses in a sample of 567 adults. We did not find significant relations between subjective social mobility and life satisfaction. In Study 2, both groups that experienced subjective downward and upward mobility reported more depressive and academic distress symptomatology than groups that remained in middle or upper social social statuses in a sample of 7,598 clients from college counseling center data. The results provide insights relevant to multicultural counseling and training.

Believe to achieve? Understanding how social class background impacts the effects of achievement striving on propensity to negotiate

Purpose

Negotiation is important for career success. Therefore, this study draws from social expectancy and self-regulation theories to develop a model proposing that social class background (SCB) influences the ease with which achievement striving translates into propensity to negotiate. Specifically, the authors examine how SCB moderates the relationship between achievement striving and negotiation propensity via a key mediator—status-based identity uncertainty—reflective of one's (un)certainty about their societal standing.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors collected data across three surveys over a four-week period from 460 participants. The authors assessed negotiation propensity by asking participants to rank-order behavioral reactions, representative of different degrees of negotiation engagement, in response to three scenarios.

Findings

The positive effects of achievement striving on negotiation propensity are attenuated for individuals with lower SCBs, in part, because achievement-oriented individuals with lower SCBs experience a heightened sense of status-based identity uncertainty. Although achievement striving is an asset for initiating negotiations, it appears to disproportionately benefit those with higher SCBs.

Originality/value

Individuals higher in achievement striving and with lower SCBs may approach the negotiation process differently than those with higher SCBs. This dynamic serves as another mechanism through which cumulative (dis)advantage processes in career success may occur over time.

Contextualizing Educational Disparities in Health: Variations by Race/Ethnicity, Nativity, and County-Level Characteristics

Educational disparities in health are well documented, yet the education-health relationship is inconsistent across racial/ethnic and nativity groups. These inconsistencies may arise from characteristics of the early life environments in which individuals attain their education. We evaluate this possibility by investigating (1) whether educational disparities in cardiometabolic risk vary by race/ethnicity and nativity among Black, Hispanic, and White young adults; (2) the extent to which racial/ethnic-nativity differences in the education-health relationship are contingent on economic, policy, and social characteristics of counties of early life residence; and (3) the county characteristics associated with the best health at higher levels of education for each racial/ethnic-nativity group. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, we find that Black young adults who achieve high levels of education exhibit worse health across a majority of contexts relative to their White and Hispanic counterparts. Additionally, we observe more favorable health at higher levels of education across almost all contexts for White individuals. For all other racial/ethnic-nativity groups, the relationship between education and health depends on the characteristics of the early life counties of residence. Findings highlight place-based factors that may contribute to the development of racial/ethnic and nativity differences in the education-health relationship among U.S. young adults.

What Are the Health Consequences of Upward Mobility?

Health disparities by socioeconomic status (SES) have been extensively documented, but less is known about the physical health implications of achieving upward mobility. This article critically reviews the evolving literature in this area, concluding that upward mobility is associated with a trade-off, whereby economic success and positive mental health in adulthood can come at the expense of physical health, a pattern termed skin-deep resilience. We consider explanations for this phenomenon, including prolonged high striving, competing demands between the environments upwardly mobile individuals seek to enter and their environments of origin, cultural mismatches between adaptive strategies from their childhood environments and those that are valued in higher-SES environments, and the sense of alienation, lack of belonging, and discrimination that upwardly mobile individuals face as they move into spaces set up by and for high-SES groups. These stressors are hypothesized to lead to unhealthy behaviors and a dysregulation of biological systems, with implications for cardiometabolic health.

Brain structural correlates of upward social mobility in ethnic minority individuals

PURPOSE

Perigenual anterior cingulate cortex (pACC) is a neural convergence site for social stress-related risk factors for mental health, including ethnic minority status. Current social status, a strong predictor of mental and somatic health, has been related to gray matter volume in this region, but the effects of social mobility over the lifespan are unknown and may differ in minorities. Recent studies suggest a diminished health return of upward social mobility for ethnic minority individuals, potentially due to sustained stress-associated experiences and subsequent activation of the neural stress response system.

METHODS

To address this issue, we studied an ethnic minority sample with strong upward social mobility. In a cross-sectional design, we examined 64 young adult native German and 76 ethnic minority individuals with comparable sociodemographic attributes using whole-brain structural magnetic resonance imaging.

RESULTS

Results showed a significant group-dependent interaction between perceived upward social mobility and pACC gray matter volume, with a significant negative association in the ethnic minority individuals. Post-hoc analysis showed a significant mediation of the relationship between perceived upward social mobility and pACC volume by perceived chronic stress, a variable that was significantly correlated with perceived discrimination in our ethnic minority group.

CONCLUSION

Our findings extend prior work by pointing to a biological signature of the "allostatic costs" of socioeconomic attainment in socially disadvantaged upwardly mobile individuals in a key neural node implicated in the regulation of stress and negative affect.

The Structural Dilemma of Citizen Participation: The Interactive Influence of Social Status and Subjective Social Mobility

In the context of rapid social change, the perception of social stratification has far-reaching and complex influences on human psychology and behavior, including citizen participation. The current research explored the interactive influence of social status and subjective social mobility on citizen participation. Two studies used experimental methods to manipulate subjective social mobility and social status, respectively, to examine the interactive effect. Taken together, the results of both studies revealed that the interaction between social status and subjective social mobility had a significant influence on citizen participation: whereas citizen participation with high social status was not affected by subjective social mobility, citizen participation with low social status decreased with increases in subjective social mobility. This research established a combined dynamic and static analysis framework of social stratification structure, elucidating the current status of citizen participation under the influence of the interaction between social status and subjective social mobility, and providing a countermeasure reference for effectively promoting citizen participation.

Implications of intersecting socioeconomic and racial-ethnic identities for academic achievement and well-being

The evolving study of identity development has become increasingly attentive to the ways that young people think about their socioeconomic and racial-ethnic identities. The status-based identity framework provides one way to analyze the implications of these dynamic identities, particularly as people approach young adulthood. For students from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds, the experience of socioeconomic mobility can accompany an aversive sense of uncertainty about their own SES, termed status uncertainty, with potential negative implications for their academic behaviors and outcomes. A longitudinal study and experiment demonstrate some of these consequences and suggest how intersections between socioeconomic and racial-ethnic identities may be associated with well-being. This perspective on the dynamic identities of young people calls for consistent attention to the various levels of context that can be leveraged to support positive development, effective goal pursuit, and desired life trajectories.

The association between racial and socioeconomic discrimination and two stages of alcohol use in blacks

BACKGROUND

This study aimed to characterize the associations of racial and socioeconomic discrimination with timing of alcohol initiation and progression from initiation to problem drinking in Black youth.

METHODS

Data were drawn from a high-risk family study of alcohol use disorder. Mothers and their offspring (N = 806; M_age = 17.87, SD_age = 3.91; 50% female) were assessed via telephone interview. Cox proportional hazards regression analyses were used to examine associations between discrimination and timing of first drink and progression from first drink to problem drinking in two separate models. Predictor variables were considered in a step-wise fashion, starting with offspring racial and socioeconomic discrimination, then adding (2) maternal racial and/or socioeconomic discrimination experiences; (3) religious service attendance and social support as potential moderators; and (4) psychiatric and psychosocial risk factors and other substance use.

RESULTS

Offspring racial discrimination (HR: 2.01, CI: 1.17-3.46 ≤ age 13) and maternal experiences of discrimination (HR: 0.79, CI: 0.67-0.93) were associated with timing of initiation in the unadjusted model only; offspring socioeconomic discrimination predicted timing of initiation among female offspring, even after adjusting for all covariates (HR: 1.49, CI: 1.14-1.93). Socioeconomic discrimination predicted a quicker transition from first use to problem drinking exclusively in the unadjusted model (HR: 1.70, CI: 1.12-2.58 ≤ age 18). No moderating effects of religious service attendance or social support were observed for either alcohol outcome.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings suggest socioeconomic discrimination is a robust risk factor for initiating alcohol use in young Black female youth and should be considered in the development of targeted prevention programs.

Rethinking the health consequences of social class and social mobility

The task of studying the impact of social class on physical and mental health involves, among other things, the use of a conceptual toolbox that defines what social class is, establishes how to measure it, and sets criteria that help distinguish it from closely related concepts. One field that has recently witnessed a wealth of theoretical and conceptual research on social class is psychology, but geographers' and sociologists' attitude of diffidence toward this "positivistic" discipline has prevented them from taking advantage of this body of scholarship. This paper aims to highlight some of the most important developments in the psychological study of social class and social mobility that speak to the long-standing concerns of health geographers and sociologists with how social position, perceptions, social comparisons, and class-based identities impact health and well-being.