Class impressions: Higher social class elicits lower prosociality

Doesum, Niels J. Van; Tybur, Joshua M.; Lange, Paul A. M. Van

doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2016.06.001

Cited by 77 publications

(95 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…As Bullock, Williams, and Limbert () suggested, more attention should be paid to how wealthy groups are perceived. Previous studies have shown that people explicitly hold a negative attitude (Horwitz & Dovidio, ) and usually exhibit less prosocial behaviours toward high‐SES groups (Van Doesum, Tybur, & Van Lange, ). The representation of high‐SES individuals as cold, unemotional and inflexible (i.e.…”

Section: Dehumanization and Socio‐economic Statusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Animalizing the disadvantaged, mechanizing the wealthy: The convergence of socio‐economic status and attribution of humanity

et al. 2018

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Differences between groups in socio-economic status (SES) are becoming more salient nowadays. In this context, we examined the animalistic and mechanistic dehumanization that both low and high-SES groups may experience respectively by conducting three studies. In study 1, we manipulated the SES of two fictitious groups (low vs. high-SES) and measured the humanity ascribed to them. Results showed that the low-SES group was animalized in comparison with the high-SES group, which was mechanized. In study 2, we manipulated the humanity of two fictitious groups by describing them as animals or machines and measured the perceived SES of the groups. Participants tended to attribute lower SES to the group described as animals and higher SES to the group described as machines. Finally, in study 3, we used an Implicit Association Test to replicate the results of studies 1 and 2. Taken together, these studies show that low-SES groups are considered as animal-like whereas high-SES groups are seen as robot-like. We discuss the implications of these findings in relation to the justification of income inequality within our society.

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Section: Dehumanization and Socio‐economic Statusmentioning

confidence: 99%

Animalizing the disadvantaged, mechanizing the wealthy: The convergence of socio‐economic status and attribution of humanity

et al. 2018

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“…The authors explained this negative effect of social class from a social-cognitive perspective (17): Individuals from lower social classes are more attuned to the welfare of others as a way to adapt to their more hostile environments, and are thus more likely to be compassionate (18) and to engage in other beneficial prosocial behavior (15). On the other end of the continuum, the abundant resources enjoyed by upper-class individuals lead to an individualistic focus on their own internal states, goals, motivations, and emotions (15,16,18,19; recently reviewed in refs. 17,20,21).…”

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confidence: 99%

No evidence that economic inequality moderates the effect of income on generosity

Schmukle

Korndörfer²,

Egloff

2019

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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A landmark study published in PNAS [Côté S, House J, Willer R (2015) Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 112:15838-15843] showed that higher income individuals are less generous than poorer individuals only if they reside in a US state with comparatively large economic inequality. This finding might serve to reconcile inconsistent findings on the effect of social class on generosity by highlighting the moderating role of economic inequality. On the basis of the importance of replicating a major finding before readily accepting it as evidence, we analyzed the effect of the interaction between income and inequality on generosity in three large representative datasets. We analyzed the donating behavior of 27,714 US households (study 1), the generosity of 1,334 German individuals in an economic game (study 2), and volunteering to participate in charitable activities in 30,985 participants from 30 countries (study 3). We found no evidence for the postulated moderation effect in any study. This result is especially remarkable because (i) our samples were very large, leading to high power to detect effects that exist, and (ii) the cross-country analysis employed in study 3 led to much greater variability in economic inequality. These findings indicate that the moderation effect might be rather specific and cannot be easily generalized. Consequently, economic inequality might not be a plausible explanation for the heterogeneous results on the effect of social class on prosociality.social class | income | economic inequality | prosocial behavior | generosity E conomic inequality has been on the rise around the world for several decades (1, 2), and researchers from several disciplines have investigated the antecedents, correlates, and consequences of this increasing economic divide (3-5). Mostly negative effects have been reported, and not only in the economic domain but also including increases in health and social problems [e.g., increased drug use, higher obesity, more violent crimes, higher imprisonment rates, lower interpersonal trust (6, 7)], ultimately leading to lower levels of life satisfaction in the population (8-10) (but see refs. 11-13 for positive and null effects of inequality on well-being and happiness).An additional negative consequence was recently reported in PNAS, where Côté et al. (14) provided evidence that economic inequality leads higher income individuals to be less generous than low-income individuals. Their study is important for several reasons: (i) It has policy implications because the negative effects of economic inequality on outcomes that are desirable for a society are important issues for the public, (ii) it shows how a macroeconomic variable measured on the state level (economic inequality) can interact with a sociological variable (social class) to affect a psychological variable (prosocial behavior), and (iii) it has the potential to reconcile the debate on why findings on the association between social class and prosocial behavior have been inconsistent.This debate began with two influential psyc...

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“…While previous studies have provided support for each perspective, different studies have used different samples, manipulations, and measures, and no studies have tested the two perspectives simultaneously. Moreover, in previous research either only actor class was considered or, if both actor and target class were considered, at least one of them was not explicitly manipulated or measured (for an exception, see van Doesum et al, 2017). In fact, no study has simultaneously manipulated actor and target status.…”

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confidence: 99%

The Effect of Social Class on Agency and Communion: Reconciling Identity-Based and Rank-Based Perspectives

Aydin

Ullrich

Siem

et al. 2018

Social Psychological and Personality Science

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How does social class affect people’s goals in social interactions? A rank-based perspective suggests actors from higher social classes (compared to lower social classes) have more agentic and less communal goals when interacting with same class or unspecified others. Focusing on targets’ social class, an identity-based perspective suggests the reverse: Actors should more strongly endorse communal (agentic) goals toward illegitimately lower class (higher class) compared to illegitimately higher class (lower class) targets, regardless of actors’ own social class. Three preregistered experiments ( N = 2,023) manipulated actor’s social class and the nature of the target (illegitimately higher/lower class, same class, unspecified) and measured participants’ goals in imagined interactions using the Circumplex Scales of Intergroup Goals. The identity-based perspective received strong support: Across studies, actors expressed stronger agentic (communal) goals toward higher class (lower class) targets. The rank-based perspective received limited support, with relatively low-class (vs. relatively high-class) actors expressing stronger communal goals toward same-class targets.

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Class impressions: Higher social class elicits lower prosociality

Cited by 77 publications

References 62 publications

Animalizing the disadvantaged, mechanizing the wealthy: The convergence of socio‐economic status and attribution of humanity

Animalizing the disadvantaged, mechanizing the wealthy: The convergence of socio‐economic status and attribution of humanity

No evidence that economic inequality moderates the effect of income on generosity

The Effect of Social Class on Agency and Communion: Reconciling Identity-Based and Rank-Based Perspectives

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