Wage (in)equality matters: the effect of organizational economic inequality on others’ and self-ascriptions

Abstract

Economic inequality has consequences at the social-psychological level, such as in the way people make inferences about their environment and other people. In the present two preregistered studies, we used a paradigm of an organizational setting to manipulate economic inequality and measured ascriptions of agentic versus communal traits to employees and the self. In Study 1 (N = 187), participants attributed more agency than communion to a middle-status employee, and more communion than agency when economic equality was salient. In Study 2 (N = 198) this finding was replicated. Further, this inequality-agency association was explained by perceptions of competitive employee relationships. Results, moreover, suggested that participants mainly attributed more communion than agency to themselves in the equality condition. We conclude that agency and communion ascriptions may be functional and thus inform about the expectations people have on the nature of social relationships in the face of economic inequality.

Evaluación de (in)justicia distributiva en jóvenes de Centroamérica

“…Guatemala, El Salvador y Honduras son países en los cuales las pandillas y la violencia asociada a esta tiene un fuerte arraigo (López, 2019). Este círculo entre violencia y criminalidad produce que, a priori, las jóvenes sean excluidas del ámbito laboral, se limiten sus ofertas laborales a las organizaciones delictivas y que las actividades laborales autogeneradas sean inviables (Moreno-Bella et al, 2022;2023). Al ver afectadas sus oportunidades para la movilidad social por razones que escapan a su control, las jóvenes sienten injusticia respecto a su situación, lo que se extrapola a una evaluación de que la situación a nivel país también es injusta.…”