Perception of economic inequality weakens Americans’ beliefs in both upward and downward socioeconomic mobility

Subjective economic inequality evokes interpersonal objectification

Interpersonal objectification, treating people as tools and neglecting their essential humanness, is a pervasive and enduring phenomenon. Across five studies (N = 1183), we examined whether subjective economic inequality increases objectification through a calculative mindset. Study 1 revealed that the perceptions of economic inequality at the national level and in daily life were positively associated with objectification. Studies 2 and 3 demonstrated a causal relationship between subjective economic inequality and objectification in a fictitious organization and society, respectively. Moreover, the effect was mediated by a calculative mindset (Studies 3-4). In addition, lowering a calculative mindset weakened the effect of subjective inequality on objectification (Study 4). Finally, increased objectification due to subjective inequality further decreased prosociality and enhanced exploitative intentions (Study 5). Taken together, our findings suggest that subjective economic inequality increases objectification, which further causes adverse interpersonal interactions.

Rising and falling on the social ladder: The bidimensional social mobility beliefs scale

Recent works in the field of Social Psychology have shown the importance of studying subjective social mobility from different perspectives. In the literature about subjective societal mobility, most of the research is focused on the mobility-immobility framing. However, several authors suggested studying social mobility beliefs effects differentiating according to mobility's trajectory, that is, upward (i.e., improving status over time) and downward (i.e., getting worse in status over time). The present research was motivated by the lack of measures that discriminate between beliefs in upward and downward societal mobility. Across two studies using different samples of the Spanish adult population, we examined both dimensions of social mobility beliefs and tested their predictive validity on other related constructs. In Study 1 (N = 164), with an EFA, we corroborated the independence between the two types of mobility. The internal structure was confirmed by a CFA in Study 2 (N = 400). Furthermore, it was shown that upward and downward mobility beliefs are differently related to other related constructs. The results from Studies 1-2 showed good convergent validity. In all correlations with the different constructs (attitudes towards inequality, meritocratic beliefs, justification of the economic system, and status anxiety) we found opposite direction effects for both types of societal mobility (upward and downward). The development of this new instrument can help to deepen our understanding of the psychosocial consequences of subjective social mobility, as well as to differentiate two processes that may have different consequences.

Economic inequality increases the number of hours worked and decreases work-life balance perceptions: longitudinal and experimental evidence

International institutions' attention to work-life balance (WLB) demonstrates the global breadth of this issue. Yet the scientific community has thus far paid little attention to its structural underpinnings and to the interplay between these macro-level underpinnings and individual psychological factors. We examine the contextual role of economic inequality at the national level as a significant factor influencing working time and WLB perceptions using multiple empirical strategies. In the first set of studies (1a and 1b), we compared countries with different levels of inequality (Study 1a with 37 countries, Study 1b with longitudinal data from 34 countries, N = 254) and found increased working time and reduced WLB in highly unequal countries. In a pilot study (N = 81) and in the pre-registered Studies 2 (N = 338) and 3 (N = 499) we corroborated this evidence with an experimentally induced inequality perception, reporting an indirect effect of inequality on WLB (Studies 2 and 3) and working time (Study 3) through status anxiety and competitiveness. In Study 2, we manipulated socio-economic class in addition to economic inequality, showing that the detrimental effect of inequality on WLB is especially marked for participants assigned to a low-class condition. This research contributes to an integrated understanding of the impact of economic inequality and socio-economic class in shaping WLB and provides useful insights for organizations to develop context-specific policies to improve employees' WLB that take both individual and structural factors into account.

How Do University Students Perceive Inequality, Relationships and Power in University Life in the COVID-19 Era?

This study examined university students' perceptions of inequality, relationships and power following the COVID-19 outbreak. We used a qualitative research method, inductive content analysis (ICA), to analyse their perceptions of inequality in their personal life, insiders and outsiders that show superiority in relationships and people with strong and weak characteristics of power structures. We extracted superordinate concepts, such as those in the individual, interaction and social/environmental dimensions, as the perceptions of inequality, insiders and outsiders and people with strong and weak characteristics. First, we found that university students experience inequalities when they perceive that individuals must cope independently with changes brought about by COVID-19. Second, the results showed that individuals can become insiders or outsiders depending on how they act during the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, we demonstrated that strong individuals are less affected by COVID-19-related changes than weak individuals. Therefore, improving university students' quality of life requires plans based on the students' perceptions of inequality.

Does income inequality increase status anxiety? Not directly, the role of perceived upward and downward mobility

Status anxiety theory posits that higher income inequality leads people to attribute more importance to their socioeconomic status and to worry about the position they occupy on the social ladder. We investigated through two experimental studies (N = 1117) the causal effect of economic inequality on status anxiety and whether expected upward and downward mobility mediates this effect. In Study 1, perceived economic inequality indirectly increased status anxiety through lesser expected upward mobility. In Study 2, perceived economic inequality decreased both expected upward and downward mobility, with opposite indirect effects on status anxiety. This suggests that the relationship between inequality and status anxiety is not straightforward, and could implicate the presence of multiple processes working at the same time-whereas lower expected downward mobility could suppress the effect of inequality, lower expected upward mobility could exacerbate it.

Concern about experiencing downward socioeconomic mobility generates precarious types of motivation among students of color

Students' beliefs about whether they will experience changes in their socioeconomic status influence their academic motivation. We propose that students who are concerned about downward socioeconomic mobility will focus their attention on negative academic outcomes and exhibit motivational goals oriented towards preventing negative possibilities and that this relationship will be particularly pronounced among students of color. Two studies investigated the relationship between college students' concerns about downward socioeconomic mobility and their adoption of academic achievement goals. The more that students of color expressed concerns about experiencing downward socioeconomic mobility, the more they adopted academic mastery-avoidance goals (β = 0.76), whereas there was no significant relationship between concerns about downward socioeconomic mobility and mastery-avoidance goals among White students (β = - 0.24; Study 1). Experimentally induced concerns about downward socioeconomic mobility increased academic mastery-avoidance goals among students of color (β =  - 0.58) but decreased mastery-avoidance goals among White students (β = 0.46; Study 2). Together, results indicate that there is a strong relationship between concerns about downward socioeconomic mobility and mastery-avoidance goals among students of color, highlighting the importance of understating how students of color make sense of their future socioeconomic prospects in order to most effectively support their academic trajectories positively.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11218-023-09763-5.

Relative Deprivation Leads to the Endorsement of "Anti-Chicken Soup" in China

"Anti-chicken soup" (ACS) persuades people to yield to reality and give up rather than encouraging people to work hard as "chicken soup" does. The current study explored whether people with a higher level of relative deprivation (RD) would be more likely to endorse ACS. We found that people with high-measured (Study 1) and manipulated (Study 2) RD were more likely to endorse ACS. Study 2 also suggested that the effect was mediated by self-handicapping. It seems that relatively deprived individuals may adopt the strategy of self-handicapping so that they could attribute their failure to external causes, which in turn leads to lower motivation to try their best and ultimately the endorsement of ACS.