Social class, control, and explanations of rising economic inequality

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Kraus ◽  
Dacher Keltner
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Economic Inequality

6. ‘Your station in life’

2019 ◽  
pp. 64-77
Author(s):  
Florian Coulmas
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Social Identity ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
Service Sector ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Group Identities ◽  
Single Identity ◽  
Class Divisions

Social identity is to do with membership in groups that are horizontally and vertically structured, internally and in relation to each other. Taken together these groupings constitute a society. ‘ “Your station in life”: social identities in our time’ explains how with the growth of the service sector, class divisions started to become less distinct and were supplemented by ethnic divisions. Consequently, the general understanding of social class is changing and, as economic inequality rises, the issue of social stratification and identity remains topical. Group identities are relational, resulting from the inclusion of peers and the exclusion of others. Reducing individuals to a single identity as members of a group amounts to discrimination and stigmatization.

scholarly journals Review of Cut Adrift: Families in Insecure Times

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip N. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Great Recession ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Class Differences ◽  
The Great Recession ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Moment

The questions Marianne Cooper asks are relevant beyondthe context of the Great Recession – the event that headlines her analysis – but the crisis of the moment underscores their importance: How do people (women, men, families) increasingly charged with managing their owneconomic security experience and handle that task, emotionally? And further, what do the social class differences in that process tell us about life in an era of ballooning economic inequality?

scholarly journals Does Economic Vulnerability Affect Social Cohersion? Evidence from a Comparative Analysis

2010 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loris Vergolini
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Social Class ◽  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Welfare Regimes ◽  
Main Research ◽  
European Foundation ◽  
The Relationship

This article explores the relationship between social cohesion and social inequalities in Europe. The analysis is built around two main research questions: Does economic inequality exert an impact on the level of social cohesion? Does social class mediate between economic inequality and social cohesion? The comparative analysis is based on the welfare regimes perspective. In particular, I believe that welfare state is relevant because it influences both the relationship between social class and economic inequality, and the link between social cohesion and economic inequality. The empirical analysis, based on data from the “European Quality of Life Survey” collected by European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions in 2003, shows that economic inequality does influence social cohesion and that social class and welfare regime are not fully able to mediate this effect.

Social Class Competence Stereotypes Are Amplified by Socially Signaled Economic Inequality

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-105
Author(s):  
Paul Connor ◽  
Jordan Varney ◽  
Dacher Keltner ◽  
Serena Chen
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
High Income ◽  
Consistent Effect ◽  
Psychological Theories

A number of psychological theories suggest that increased economic inequality may lead to greater social class stereotyping. However, all existing evidence for this claim is correlational. Across three experiments (one exploratory and two confirmatory, N = 2,286), we observed that exposure to socially signaled inequality—operationalized in terms of variation in perceived incomes among groups of target individuals—amplified the endorsement of one key social class stereotype: the perception that higher income individuals are more competent. When judged amid greater inequality, the same high-income targets were perceived as more competent and the same low-income targets were perceived as less competent, compared with when judged amid greater equality. By contrast, we found no consistent effect of exposure to inequality on stereotypes regarding warmth and relatively weak class-based stereotyping on the warmth dimension in general. We discuss implications of these findings for theories regarding the effects of economic inequality.

scholarly journals Signs of Social Class: The Experience of Economic Inequality in Everyday Life

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 422-435 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael W. Kraus ◽  
Jun Won Park ◽  
Jacinth J. X. Tan
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Person Perception ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Group Boundaries ◽  
Interaction Partners ◽  
Health And Well Being ◽  
Signaling Process

By some accounts, global economic inequality is at its highest point on record. The pernicious effects of this broad societal trend are striking: Rising inequality is linked to poorer health and well-being across countries, continents, and cultures. The economic and psychological forces that perpetuate inequality continue to be studied, and in this theoretical review, we examine the role of daily experiences of economic inequality—the communication of social class signals between interaction partners—in this process. We theorize that social class signals activate social comparison processes that strengthen group boundaries between the haves and have nots in society. In particular, we argue that class signals are a frequent, rapid, and accurate component of person perception, and we provide new data and analyses demonstrating the accuracy of class signaling in 60-s interactions, Facebook photographs, and isolated recordings of brief speech. We suggest that barriers to the reduction of economic inequality in society arise directly from this class signaling process through the augmentation of class boundaries and the elicitation of beliefs and behaviors that favor the economic status quo.

How economic inequality shapes social class stereotyping

2022 ◽  
Vol 98 ◽  
pp. 104248
Author(s):  
Porntida Tanjitpiyanond ◽  
Jolanda Jetten ◽  
Kim Peters
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Economic Inequality

The Context: Growing Economic Inequality and Weakening Unions

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kay Lehman Schlozman ◽  
Sidney Verba ◽  
Henry E. Brady
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Union Membership ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Class Differences ◽  
Political Voice

This chapter reviews evidence about two complex trends: the increase in economic inequality and the decrease in union membership. In two fundamental ways, class inequalities underlie this inquiry into both the roots and the consequences of inequalities of political voice. Inequalities of political participation are, first, grounded in disparities in income, occupation, and especially education. As this chapter demonstrates, social class has multiple consequences for differences in individual and collective political participation. Second, inequalities on the basis of class shape the content of political conflict. That is, class differences are an important source of political division. Although the list of contentious political issues in contemporary America is long and varied, there can be no doubt that matters associated with differences in income and material well-being are critically important in generating political conflict.

scholarly journals Evidence for the reproduction of social class in brief speech

2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (46) ◽  
pp. 22998-23003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael W. Kraus ◽  
Brittany Torrez ◽  
Jun Won Park ◽  
Fariba Ghayebi
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Speech Patterns ◽  
The Social ◽  
Signing Bonus ◽  
Job Candidates ◽  
Health And Well Being ◽  
Speech Content

Economic inequality is at its highest point on record and is linked to poorer health and well-being across countries. The forces that perpetuate inequality continue to be studied, and here we examine how a person’s position within the economic hierarchy, their social class, is accurately perceived and reproduced by mundane patterns embedded in brief speech. Studies 1 through 4 examined the extent that people accurately perceive social class based on brief speech patterns. We find that brief speech spoken out of context is sufficient to allow respondents to discern the social class of speakers at levels above chance accuracy, that adherence to both digital and subjective standards for English is associated with higher perceived and actual social class of speakers, and that pronunciation cues in speech communicate social class over and above speech content. In study 5, we find that people with prior hiring experience use speech patterns in preinterview conversations to judge the fit, competence, starting salary, and signing bonus of prospective job candidates in ways that bias the process in favor of applicants of higher social class. Overall, this research provides evidence for the stratification of common speech and its role in both shaping perceiver judgments and perpetuating inequality during the briefest interactions.

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