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

Abstract

The prospect of socioeconomic mobility is central to America’s meritocratic ethos; however, research has shown that economic inequality can weaken Americans’ beliefs in the prospect of upward mobility for poorer individuals in their country. In one correlational study, two experimental studies, and an internal meta-analysis, we extend this work by demonstrating that Americans’ perceptions of inequality can also influence their beliefs about another form of mobility that is essential in a functioning meritocracy: downward mobility for richer individuals. Specifically, we found that the more that Americans’ perceptions of inequality in their country shifted towards extreme levels—towards the view that a small minority of the population holds a much greater proportion of the state’s wealth than all other groups combined—the more likely they were to believe that both upward and downward mobility were unlikely. That is, they believed that social class groups in their country were largely ossified and impermeable, and thus that Americans were unlikely to move out of the groups they were born into—beliefs that conflict with the long-held American value of meritocracy. We discuss the potential implications of these findings for important motivational and behavioral outcomes.

Cultural psychology of inequality: Current and future directions

“…Browman et al. (2021, this issue) explored the degree to which the perception of income inequality affects the perception of upward and downward social mobility. Participants who perceived a large gap between the top quintile and the rest also perceived it difficult for the people in the bottom quintile to move up the economic ladder.…”

The psychology of lay beliefs about economic mobility

“…And, whereas lay beliefs about upward mobility are a topic of ongoing academic debate (e.g., Davidai & Gilovich, 2018; Swan et al., 2017), there is relative consensus that lay people underestimate downward mobility (Chambers et al., 2015; Cheng & Wen, 2019; Davidai & Gilovich, 2015a). Importantly, lay beliefs about upward and downward mobility are only weakly correlated (Browman et al., 2021) and have opposing effects on attitudes toward redistribution (Mérola & Helgason, 2016). Thus, knowing the trajectory of mobility that people have in mind is critical for understanding their lay beliefs about it.…”

“…Whereas research on lay beliefs has mostly skirted the question of the amount of mobility people expect to experience (but see Davidai, 2018, and Shariff et al., 2016), the strength of these beliefs is bound to be affected by whether people are thinking about moving from the bottom quintile to the middle quintile or whether they are thinking about moving all the way from the bottom to the top. Indeed, people differentiate between moving to the richest quintile (i.e., top‐bound mobility) and moving up to a quintile that is not the richest (Browman et al., 2021). And, as people believe that individual effort plays a bigger role in moving to the middle class than to the richest quintile (Alesina et al., 2018), differences in how they construe the amount of mobility may be important.…”

Elevating the Objectives of Higher Education to Effectively Serve Students From Diverse Socioeconomic Backgrounds

“…Prevailing rhetoric in the United States about the “American Dream” emphasizes the possibility that people can ascend the socioeconomic hierarchy and acquire higher social standing through individual achievement. Social psychological studies demonstrate that young people vary in the extent to which they believe that socioeconomic mobility occurs in society, and these beliefs are malleable based on available information and exposure to inequality (Browman et al, invited revision; Davidai, 2018). A stronger belief in socioeconomic mobility does have a positive effect on academic motivation and outcomes especially for students from lower SES backgrounds; however, greater inequality in society weakens beliefs in such opportunity.…”