Emerging Trends in The Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Emerging Psychology of Social Class

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The Emerging Psychology of Social Class

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The Emerging Psychology
of Social Class
MICHAEL W. KRAUS

Abstract
The objective material conditions of our lives shape social perceptions and relationships in fundamental ways. In this essay, I survey research examining the influence
of one’s social class position in society on basic psychological processes—including
conceptions of the self and relationships with others. Insights from this research
indicate that relatively lower class individuals are characterized by contextualized
selves—selves that are more intertwined with the social environment and other
individuals—whereas relatively upper class individuals are characterized by solipsistic selves—selves that are independent from the environment, and instead linked
with internal goals, wishes, and motivations. Understanding these class-based
differences in the social self—evidenced in social behavior, cognition, and emotion
profiles—has the potential to inform interventions that reduce societal problems
related to constrained social class mobility and rising economic inequality.

THE EMERGING PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL CLASS
When compared to many Western European countries, the United States has
a brief history of social class, and it is this brevity that leads some scholars,
politicians, or regular citizens to the conclusion that social class is not a meaningful social category in American social life—at least not in terms of influencing fundamental psychological processes. Over the last decade, however,
there has been a significant upswing in the amount of psychology research
on the topic of social class (for a review, see Kraus, Piff, Mendoza-Denton,
Rheinschmidt, & Keltner, 2012). This research suggests that one’s material
position in the human social hierarchy has a profound and lasting impact
on the daily lives of individuals, their perceptions of the social world, and
patterns relating to others. This essay explores this emerging psychology of
social class.
Social class is defined by the material conditions of our lives and is typically measured in terms of one’s annual income, educational attainment, and
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

occupation status (Kraus & Stephens, 2012; Oakes & Rossi, 2003). Together,
these measures indicate an individual’s level of access to social and economic
resources. The first studies of social class in psychology research revolved
around the influence of class on health outcomes: Perhaps the best example
of these was an epidemiological study examining health patterns in thousands of British civil service workers. The study found that at every level of
increase in occupational grade, workers showed improved health—across a
wide array of health measures, including absences from work and even mortality (Marmot Whitehall II, 1991 Lancet). Several years later, a similar association between ascending levels of social class and reduced rates of mortality,
by any cause, was observed in the United States (Adler et al., 1994). These
studies suggest that social class shapes the very length of the life course itself,
and set the stage for research examining the fundamental ways in which
available material and social resources change psychological processes in the
social realm.
On this front, research from distinct laboratories converges on the realization that people from relatively lower class backgrounds are not damaged
or maladaptive in comparison to their relatively upper class counterparts.
Rather, people from lower levels of the social class hierarchy develop unique
social selves that are specialized to handle the increased environmental
demands placed on them by their reduced material and social resources
(Stephens, Fryberg, & Markus, 2012). This social self is contrasted directly
with the social self of relatively upper class individuals, which develops
in environments of relatively abundant resources, where outcomes and
opportunities are often within the control of individuals (Kraus, Piff, &
Keltner, 2009). As a result of these unique environmental demands, people
from relatively lower class environments develop contextualized selves that
are characterized by their vigilance and responsiveness to the external
social environment and other individuals. In contrast, relatively upper class
individuals develop solipsistic selves, characterized by their increased focus
on internal traits, goals, and motives as well as a relative lack of awareness
of environmental demands (Kraus et al., 2012).
Importantly, research indicates that the social selves of upper and lower
class individuals develop and are reinforced at early ages: Using both
observations and interviews, Weininger and Lareau (2009) found that relatively lower class parents stressed that their young children should blend
into their elementary school environments, whereas parents of relatively
upper class children, in contrast, were more likely to stress the importance
of children’s independence from others. In this fashion, ways of handling
unique class-based environments are passed from generation to generation
(Fiske & Markus, 2012; Markus & Kitayama, 2010; Stephens, Markus, &
Townsend, 2007).

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The contextualized selves of lower class individuals and the solipsistic
selves of their upper class counterparts are expressed in social behavior
studied in psychology laboratory settings. These selves are demonstrated in
increases in threat vigilance displayed at descending levels of social class. In
one study, lower class children watching ambiguous social scenarios, where
a child was held after class, showed elevated heart rate and blood pressure,
physiological reactions consistent with increased threat vigilance, relative to
their upper class counterparts (Chen & Matthews, 2003). Among university
students, lower class individuals experience threat in test-taking scenarios
(Croizet & Claire, 1998) and feel both socially isolated and concerned
about their academic competency relative to their upper class counterparts
(Johnson, Richeson, & Finkel, 2011).
In addition to threat vigilance, the contextualized selves of the lower class
are expressed in the tendency for these individuals to be more accurate
perceivers of others’ emotions relative to upper class individuals. In one set
of studies, relatively lower class university employees and undergraduates
tended to be more accurate in judging others’ emotions in static facial images
and in live interactions in comparison to their upper class counterparts
(Kraus, Cote, & Keltner, 2010). In close friendships between people of differing social class, upper class friends were unaware of the hostile emotions
felt by their friend during a scripted interaction in which the friends were
required to tease one another. In contrast, the lower class friends were
accurate in perceiving all emotions during the teasing interaction, including
hostile ones (Kraus, Horberg, Goetz, & Keltner, 2011).
The solipsistic selves of upper class individuals are displayed in their
tendency to behave in less prosocial ways relative to their lower class
counterparts. By engaging in prosocial behavior, it is theorized that relatively lower class individuals strengthen social ties as a way to mitigate the
demands of their potentially threatening social environments (Piff, Kraus,
Côté, Cheng, & Keltner, 2010). Large-scale survey research bears out this
pattern of prosocial behavior: Although higher income individuals give
more to charity than lower income individuals in an absolute sense, when
examining percentages of income donated, lower income individuals give
more than their high-income counterparts (Independent Sector, 2002). This
pattern is borne out in controlled laboratory experiments as well: In one
study, people who perceived themselves as lower in social class relative to
others tended to share more resources in a single trial dictator game, relative
to their upper class counterparts (Piff et al., 2010). In another example, lower
class individuals reported experiencing elevated compassion and exhibited
reduced heart rate—a physiological correlate of other orientation—after
watching a video where children and their families were suffering through

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

8

76

7

75

5
5

Low social
class
High social
class

4
3
2

Heart rate (BPM)

Self-reported compassion

4

73
72
71
70

1
0

(a)

74

69
Neutral

Compassion

(b)

Neutral

Compassion

Figure 1 Self-reported compassion (a) and heart rate (b) as a function of emotion
induction condition and social class. Source: Data reprinted from Stellar et al.
(2012).

the diagnosis and treatment of cancer in comparison to upper class individuals. No self-report or physiological differences occurred while watching
a neutral video providing instructions for building a brick wall (Stellar,
Manzo, Kraus, & Keltner, 2012; see Figure 1).
Much of the past decade has been spent examining the unique selves of
upper and lower class individuals. This work has brought psychologists to a
new understanding of the ways in which the material conditions of social life
impact psychological processes. Although this research will move in several
directions in the years to come, this essay focuses on the ways in which an
emerging psychology of social class can help to solve social problems related
to the formation and structure of economic hierarchy. In particular, the future
of research on social class is likely to center around two fundamental issues
related to societal structure: (i) How do we increase social class mobility in
society? and (ii) How do we reduce economic inequality?
HOW DO WE INCREASE SOCIAL CLASS MOBILITY?
In comparison to much of the rest of the world, Americans tend to believe
strongly in the possibility of social class mobility. This deeply held belief
arises from the cultural history of the country, in which the promise of equal
opportunity and the pursuit of happiness is a fundamental right of all Americans. However, reality differs markedly from these beliefs: The United States
is faced with record levels of income inequality and one of the lowest rates
of class mobility among industrialized nations (Burkhauser, Feng, Jenkins,
& Larrimore, 2012; Fiske & Markus, 2012; Piketty & Saez, 2003). This lack
of class mobility threatens to leave entire sectors of society out of valuable

The Emerging Psychology of Social Class

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social and employment opportunities and create large sectors of undereducated within the population. What can the emerging psychology of social
class do to inform interventions that improve social class mobility in society? In this analysis, we focus on access to higher education, given that this
is the primary means by which individuals ascend the social class hierarchy
(Stephens, Fryberg, & Markus, 2012).
Research on social class suggests that there are three potential sources of
challenge for people from relatively lower class backgrounds who attempt
to ascend the social class hierarchy. First, one direct consequence of having
low amounts of economic resources is that resource scarcity reduces one’s
capacity to make cognitive decisions (Shah, Mullathainan, & Shafir, 2012).
For instance, people in experiments who were made resource poor were more
likely to borrow against their futures than people with abundant resources.
In essence, having low amounts of resources made it more difficult for people
to assess when borrowing was a bad idea (Shah et al., 2012).
Second, people from differing social class backgrounds, as articulated
above, have unique social selves that are socialized in the early environments
where they develop. When relatively lower class individuals bring these
social selves into contexts—like major colleges and universities—where relatively upper class selves are overrepresented among students, faculty, and
administrators, they face additional challenges above and beyond the rigors
of the classroom. More specifically, relatively lower class students must also
learn new norms, values, and expectations for the self in order to feel that
they fit in and belong within the University (Stephens, Fryberg, Markus,
Johnson, & Covarrubias, 2012). In one longitudinal study demonstrating this
process, the stated University norms of attending college to find oneself and
be an independent thinker clashed with the norms held by first-generation
college students, whose parents did not have 4-year degrees, who attended
college as a way to foster social connections and be a part of a community
(Stephens, Fryberg, Markus, et al., 2012). Moreover, the extent of this cultural
mismatch was associated with lower grades among first-generation students
(Stephens, Fryberg, Markus, et al., 2012).
Third, social class differences between people are not invisible, but signaled
and communicated in everyday social life (Kraus, Tan, & Tannenbaum, 2013).
The communication of symbols of rank is generally beneficial for social living mammals because these signals help individuals manage expectations
for their behavior—knowing who has resources or the capacity to punish is
important to mitigate survival-related threats (Krebs, Davies, & Parr, 1993).
Evidence suggests that social class signaling occurs with remarkable precision: For instance, watching 60 sec of strangers engaging in an interaction was enough for a sample of naïve observers to accurately guess where
these strangers rank on the social class hierarchy (Kraus & Keltner, 2009).

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Follow-up work suggests that these perceptions of social class are also accurate based solely on profile photographs from Facebook.com (Kraus et al.,
2013).
One consequence of this accurate signaling of social class is that an individuals’ lower social class—and by implication, their low status identity—is
perceivable in interactions where one is being evaluated. Knowing that
one’s social class might leak out and be expressed in an evaluative context
is likely to engender greater threat vigilance among lower class individuals,
which is linked directly to reduced academic performance (Croizet & Claire,
1998; Johnson et al., 2011). As well, if relatively lower class individuals
chose to conceal their social class, there are likely to be direct costs for this
behavior—concealing aspects of one’s social identity is effortful and thus is
associated with reduced work performance (e.g., Cole, Kemeny, Taylor, &
Visscher, 1996).
Although many intervention strategies currently exist to improve the
performance of students from relatively lower class backgrounds, so that
their access to educational opportunity and social class mobility is increased,
these interventions usually do not take into account all three sources of
challenge. For example, more and more high schools have adopted uniform
policies and free lunch programs in schools, in part, to dampen signals
of social class that divide lower and upper class students. These uniform
policies have shown some modest benefits in academic performance among
students from lower class backgrounds (Bodine, 2003), but these policies
fail to address the cultural mismatch that relatively lower class students
face at major colleges and universities. As well, programs such as Say Yes
to Education (www.sayyestoeducation.org) provide free tuition and direct
costs for attending college for lower class students, but these programs
do not address the cultural mismatch that first-generation students face,
or the threatening possibility of their lower class identity being perceived
by others. Interventions that improve the educational opportunities for
first-generation college students are likely to be effective only in as much as
they manage students’ financial burdens, unique cultural selves, and their
capacity to signal their lower class identity to others.
HOW DO WE REDUCE ECONOMIC INEQUALITY?
The United States is facing record levels of economic inequality and these
large-scale economic disparities between rich and poor place strain on all
Americans (Kraus et al., 2009; Norton & Ariely, 2011; Phillips, 2002): In years
where economic inequality is heightened, Americans report lower life satisfaction and trust of fellow citizens in comparison to years where economic

The Emerging Psychology of Social Class

7

inequality is lower (Oishi, Kesebir, & Diener, 2011). As well, a review of studies examining health in societies that differ in economic inequality found that
roughly 70% of studies suggested that societal health worsens as economic
inequality deepens (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2006). It is clear from these data and
others that economic inequality is bad for all members of society regardless
of the position in the hierarchy. Moreover, few avenues exist for everyday
Americans to combat these discouraging levels of economic disparity. How
then, can the emerging psychology of social class inform interventions that
could reduce economic inequality in society more broadly?
The emerging psychology of social class highlights challenges inherent in
societal attempts to reduce economic inequality. Specifically, people at the top
of the social class hierarchy are likely to justify and legitimize their privileged
positions in society. These justification processes occur because acknowledging that privilege (i.e., elevated social class) was unfairly achieved threatens
core beliefs about the self as good and the world as fair. Thus, individuals
who perceive themselves as higher in rank in the social class hierarchy tend
to endorse essentialist beliefs—beliefs that social class position is natural and
biologically determined—relative to their lower ranking counterparts (Kraus
& Keltner, 2013). That is, when faced with perceptions of the self as higher
in social class than others, upper class individuals endorse beliefs that better
genes are responsible for their elevated social positions.
Powerful members of the relatively upper class in society also engage in
social behaviors that directly maintain economic inequality: In a study of
members of the US House of Representatives, Republicans were uniformly
likely to sponsor legislation (i.e., corporate tax havens) that maintains economic inequality. In contrast, as wealth increased among Democrats, the tendency to maintain economic inequality in society also increased (Kraus &
Callaghan, 2014). Together, this research indicates the upper class individuals are likely to be particularly resistant to reductions in economic inequality
in society.
Despite these significant challenges in the way of reducing economic
inequality, several promising areas of future research suggest that some
reduction in economic inequality is desired by all Americans. One example
of this comes from a large survey of American attitudes toward the economic
distribution of society: When asking Americans about the ideal distribution
of wealth, all Americans regardless of wealth suggested that an ideal America would be more equal than the current one (Norton & Ariely, 2011). These
results suggest that under certain conditions, all Americans, even upper
class individuals, tend to support some reduction in economic inequality
when asked specifically about the topic.
One promising area of economic inequality reduction lies in wealth redistribution through charitable donations. On this front, recall that higher income

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

individuals give a lower percentage of charitable donations annually relative
to their lower income counterparts (Independent Sector, 2002). What interventions might lead higher income individuals to give more to charity than
they do normally?
Reducing the solipsistic selves of upper class individuals by increasing
their baseline, other orientation might be one means to increase prosocial
behaviors and generosity. In one study examining this, a random sample
of participants was assigned to watch a video depicting people in neutral
emotional states whereas the other half of participants watched a video
depicting intense suffering on the part of vulnerable individuals—the latter
video was used to induce participants to be aware of the possibility that
others sometimes face significant life challenges. After viewing one of these
videos, participants interacted with a distressed experiment partner and
then were asked to divide the remaining tasks between themselves and their
partner. Lower income participants helped their partner more than higher
income participants, by taking on longer experimental tasks, but only in
the neutral video condition. When participants viewed the suffering video,
high-income participants were equally helpful to their partner as their lower
income counterparts (Piff et al., 2010; see Figure 2).
There may be other interventions that enhance prosocial behavior and
wealth redistribution among relatively upper class individuals, which will
be uncovered in future research. For instance, the practice wherein extremely
wealthy billionaires publically disclose their intention to donate a large
proportion of their money to charity suggests that prosocial reputational
concerns are important source of motivation for upper class individuals
Helping behavior as a function of compassion induction
and social class
13

Task minutes

12
11
10
9
8
7
6
Low social class
Neutral

High social class
Compassion

Figure 2 The relationship between emotion induction and social class on helping
behavior measured in terms of the number of minutes helping a distressed
experiment partner. Source: Data Reprinted from Piff et al. (2010).

The Emerging Psychology of Social Class

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(www.givingpledge.org). It is possible that the opportunity to earn a prosocial reputation would motivate enhanced prosocial behavior among upper
class individuals, and future research should examine this possibility.
As psychologists continue to study social class, lay citizens and scholars
alike will come to better understand the fundamental force that one’s position in society exerts on the life course. The emerging psychology of social
class promises several insights into understanding how our objective material reality can fundamentally shape subjective psychological perceptions
of the social world. Importantly, this understanding of the psychological
influence of social class has the capacity to inform our understanding of two
disturbing trends in American social life: low levels of social class mobility
and rising economic inequality. Together, class mobility and rising economic
inequality are among the most pressing problems faced by Americans. The
emerging psychology of social class offers several insights into navigating
these challenges in the years that follow.
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Kraus, M. W., Piff, P. K., Mendoza-Denton, R., Rheinschmidt, M. L., & Keltner, D.
(2012). Social class, solipsism, and contextualism: How the rich are different from
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Kraus, M. W., Piff, P. K., & Keltner, D. (2009). Social class, sense of control, and social
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social class. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 6(9), 642–656.
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Stephens, N. M., Fryberg, S. A., Markus, H. R., Johnson, C. S., & Covarrubias, R.
(2012). Unseen disadvantage: How American universities’ focus on independence
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MICHAEL W. KRAUS SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Michael W. Kraus is an Assistant Professor of Social-Personality Psychology
at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and Director of the Champaign Social Interaction (CSI) Laboratory. He studies how social status and
emotions shape patterns relating to others. Michael was trained in methods
that include ethological observations, controlled laboratory experiments, and
psychophysiological assessments at the University of California, Berkeley,
where he earned his PhD in social psychology.
Michael’s work on social class has been published in top psychology
journals such as Psychological Science and Psychological Review. It has
also received media attention from the Wall Street Journal, National Public
Radio, and the New York Times.
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The Emerging Psychology
of Social Class
MICHAEL W. KRAUS

Abstract
The objective material conditions of our lives shape social perceptions and relationships in fundamental ways. In this essay, I survey research examining the influence
of one’s social class position in society on basic psychological processes—including
conceptions of the self and relationships with others. Insights from this research
indicate that relatively lower class individuals are characterized by contextualized
selves—selves that are more intertwined with the social environment and other
individuals—whereas relatively upper class individuals are characterized by solipsistic selves—selves that are independent from the environment, and instead linked
with internal goals, wishes, and motivations. Understanding these class-based
differences in the social self—evidenced in social behavior, cognition, and emotion
profiles—has the potential to inform interventions that reduce societal problems
related to constrained social class mobility and rising economic inequality.

THE EMERGING PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL CLASS
When compared to many Western European countries, the United States has
a brief history of social class, and it is this brevity that leads some scholars,
politicians, or regular citizens to the conclusion that social class is not a meaningful social category in American social life—at least not in terms of influencing fundamental psychological processes. Over the last decade, however,
there has been a significant upswing in the amount of psychology research
on the topic of social class (for a review, see Kraus, Piff, Mendoza-Denton,
Rheinschmidt, & Keltner, 2012). This research suggests that one’s material
position in the human social hierarchy has a profound and lasting impact
on the daily lives of individuals, their perceptions of the social world, and
patterns relating to others. This essay explores this emerging psychology of
social class.
Social class is defined by the material conditions of our lives and is typically measured in terms of one’s annual income, educational attainment, and
Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Edited by Robert Scott and Stephen Kosslyn.
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-1-118-90077-2.

1

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EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

occupation status (Kraus & Stephens, 2012; Oakes & Rossi, 2003). Together,
these measures indicate an individual’s level of access to social and economic
resources. The first studies of social class in psychology research revolved
around the influence of class on health outcomes: Perhaps the best example
of these was an epidemiological study examining health patterns in thousands of British civil service workers. The study found that at every level of
increase in occupational grade, workers showed improved health—across a
wide array of health measures, including absences from work and even mortality (Marmot Whitehall II, 1991 Lancet). Several years later, a similar association between ascending levels of social class and reduced rates of mortality,
by any cause, was observed in the United States (Adler et al., 1994). These
studies suggest that social class shapes the very length of the life course itself,
and set the stage for research examining the fundamental ways in which
available material and social resources change psychological processes in the
social realm.
On this front, research from distinct laboratories converges on the realization that people from relatively lower class backgrounds are not damaged
or maladaptive in comparison to their relatively upper class counterparts.
Rather, people from lower levels of the social class hierarchy develop unique
social selves that are specialized to handle the increased environmental
demands placed on them by their reduced material and social resources
(Stephens, Fryberg, & Markus, 2012). This social self is contrasted directly
with the social self of relatively upper class individuals, which develops
in environments of relatively abundant resources, where outcomes and
opportunities are often within the control of individuals (Kraus, Piff, &
Keltner, 2009). As a result of these unique environmental demands, people
from relatively lower class environments develop contextualized selves that
are characterized by their vigilance and responsiveness to the external
social environment and other individuals. In contrast, relatively upper class
individuals develop solipsistic selves, characterized by their increased focus
on internal traits, goals, and motives as well as a relative lack of awareness
of environmental demands (Kraus et al., 2012).
Importantly, research indicates that the social selves of upper and lower
class individuals develop and are reinforced at early ages: Using both
observations and interviews, Weininger and Lareau (2009) found that relatively lower class parents stressed that their young children should blend
into their elementary school environments, whereas parents of relatively
upper class children, in contrast, were more likely to stress the importance
of children’s independence from others. In this fashion, ways of handling
unique class-based environments are passed from generation to generation
(Fiske & Markus, 2012; Markus & Kitayama, 2010; Stephens, Markus, &
Townsend, 2007).

The Emerging Psychology of Social Class

3

The contextualized selves of lower class individuals and the solipsistic
selves of their upper class counterparts are expressed in social behavior
studied in psychology laboratory settings. These selves are demonstrated in
increases in threat vigilance displayed at descending levels of social class. In
one study, lower class children watching ambiguous social scenarios, where
a child was held after class, showed elevated heart rate and blood pressure,
physiological reactions consistent with increased threat vigilance, relative to
their upper class counterparts (Chen & Matthews, 2003). Among university
students, lower class individuals experience threat in test-taking scenarios
(Croizet & Claire, 1998) and feel both socially isolated and concerned
about their academic competency relative to their upper class counterparts
(Johnson, Richeson, & Finkel, 2011).
In addition to threat vigilance, the contextualized selves of the lower class
are expressed in the tendency for these individuals to be more accurate
perceivers of others’ emotions relative to upper class individuals. In one set
of studies, relatively lower class university employees and undergraduates
tended to be more accurate in judging others’ emotions in static facial images
and in live interactions in comparison to their upper class counterparts
(Kraus, Cote, & Keltner, 2010). In close friendships between people of differing social class, upper class friends were unaware of the hostile emotions
felt by their friend during a scripted interaction in which the friends were
required to tease one another. In contrast, the lower class friends were
accurate in perceiving all emotions during the teasing interaction, including
hostile ones (Kraus, Horberg, Goetz, & Keltner, 2011).
The solipsistic selves of upper class individuals are displayed in their
tendency to behave in less prosocial ways relative to their lower class
counterparts. By engaging in prosocial behavior, it is theorized that relatively lower class individuals strengthen social ties as a way to mitigate the
demands of their potentially threatening social environments (Piff, Kraus,
Côté, Cheng, & Keltner, 2010). Large-scale survey research bears out this
pattern of prosocial behavior: Although higher income individuals give
more to charity than lower income individuals in an absolute sense, when
examining percentages of income donated, lower income individuals give
more than their high-income counterparts (Independent Sector, 2002). This
pattern is borne out in controlled laboratory experiments as well: In one
study, people who perceived themselves as lower in social class relative to
others tended to share more resources in a single trial dictator game, relative
to their upper class counterparts (Piff et al., 2010). In another example, lower
class individuals reported experiencing elevated compassion and exhibited
reduced heart rate—a physiological correlate of other orientation—after
watching a video where children and their families were suffering through

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

8

76

7

75

5
5

Low social
class
High social
class

4
3
2

Heart rate (BPM)

Self-reported compassion

4

73
72
71
70

1
0

(a)

74

69
Neutral

Compassion

(b)

Neutral

Compassion

Figure 1 Self-reported compassion (a) and heart rate (b) as a function of emotion
induction condition and social class. Source: Data reprinted from Stellar et al.
(2012).

the diagnosis and treatment of cancer in comparison to upper class individuals. No self-report or physiological differences occurred while watching
a neutral video providing instructions for building a brick wall (Stellar,
Manzo, Kraus, & Keltner, 2012; see Figure 1).
Much of the past decade has been spent examining the unique selves of
upper and lower class individuals. This work has brought psychologists to a
new understanding of the ways in which the material conditions of social life
impact psychological processes. Although this research will move in several
directions in the years to come, this essay focuses on the ways in which an
emerging psychology of social class can help to solve social problems related
to the formation and structure of economic hierarchy. In particular, the future
of research on social class is likely to center around two fundamental issues
related to societal structure: (i) How do we increase social class mobility in
society? and (ii) How do we reduce economic inequality?
HOW DO WE INCREASE SOCIAL CLASS MOBILITY?
In comparison to much of the rest of the world, Americans tend to believe
strongly in the possibility of social class mobility. This deeply held belief
arises from the cultural history of the country, in which the promise of equal
opportunity and the pursuit of happiness is a fundamental right of all Americans. However, reality differs markedly from these beliefs: The United States
is faced with record levels of income inequality and one of the lowest rates
of class mobility among industrialized nations (Burkhauser, Feng, Jenkins,
& Larrimore, 2012; Fiske & Markus, 2012; Piketty & Saez, 2003). This lack
of class mobility threatens to leave entire sectors of society out of valuable

The Emerging Psychology of Social Class

5

social and employment opportunities and create large sectors of undereducated within the population. What can the emerging psychology of social
class do to inform interventions that improve social class mobility in society? In this analysis, we focus on access to higher education, given that this
is the primary means by which individuals ascend the social class hierarchy
(Stephens, Fryberg, & Markus, 2012).
Research on social class suggests that there are three potential sources of
challenge for people from relatively lower class backgrounds who attempt
to ascend the social class hierarchy. First, one direct consequence of having
low amounts of economic resources is that resource scarcity reduces one’s
capacity to make cognitive decisions (Shah, Mullathainan, & Shafir, 2012).
For instance, people in experiments who were made resource poor were more
likely to borrow against their futures than people with abundant resources.
In essence, having low amounts of resources made it more difficult for people
to assess when borrowing was a bad idea (Shah et al., 2012).
Second, people from differing social class backgrounds, as articulated
above, have unique social selves that are socialized in the early environments
where they develop. When relatively lower class individuals bring these
social selves into contexts—like major colleges and universities—where relatively upper class selves are overrepresented among students, faculty, and
administrators, they face additional challenges above and beyond the rigors
of the classroom. More specifically, relatively lower class students must also
learn new norms, values, and expectations for the self in order to feel that
they fit in and belong within the University (Stephens, Fryberg, Markus,
Johnson, & Covarrubias, 2012). In one longitudinal study demonstrating this
process, the stated University norms of attending college to find oneself and
be an independent thinker clashed with the norms held by first-generation
college students, whose parents did not have 4-year degrees, who attended
college as a way to foster social connections and be a part of a community
(Stephens, Fryberg, Markus, et al., 2012). Moreover, the extent of this cultural
mismatch was associated with lower grades among first-generation students
(Stephens, Fryberg, Markus, et al., 2012).
Third, social class differences between people are not invisible, but signaled
and communicated in everyday social life (Kraus, Tan, & Tannenbaum, 2013).
The communication of symbols of rank is generally beneficial for social living mammals because these signals help individuals manage expectations
for their behavior—knowing who has resources or the capacity to punish is
important to mitigate survival-related threats (Krebs, Davies, & Parr, 1993).
Evidence suggests that social class signaling occurs with remarkable precision: For instance, watching 60 sec of strangers engaging in an interaction was enough for a sample of naïve observers to accurately guess where
these strangers rank on the social class hierarchy (Kraus & Keltner, 2009).

6

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Follow-up work suggests that these perceptions of social class are also accurate based solely on profile photographs from Facebook.com (Kraus et al.,
2013).
One consequence of this accurate signaling of social class is that an individuals’ lower social class—and by implication, their low status identity—is
perceivable in interactions where one is being evaluated. Knowing that
one’s social class might leak out and be expressed in an evaluative context
is likely to engender greater threat vigilance among lower class individuals,
which is linked directly to reduced academic performance (Croizet & Claire,
1998; Johnson et al., 2011). As well, if relatively lower class individuals
chose to conceal their social class, there are likely to be direct costs for this
behavior—concealing aspects of one’s social identity is effortful and thus is
associated with reduced work performance (e.g., Cole, Kemeny, Taylor, &
Visscher, 1996).
Although many intervention strategies currently exist to improve the
performance of students from relatively lower class backgrounds, so that
their access to educational opportunity and social class mobility is increased,
these interventions usually do not take into account all three sources of
challenge. For example, more and more high schools have adopted uniform
policies and free lunch programs in schools, in part, to dampen signals
of social class that divide lower and upper class students. These uniform
policies have shown some modest benefits in academic performance among
students from lower class backgrounds (Bodine, 2003), but these policies
fail to address the cultural mismatch that relatively lower class students
face at major colleges and universities. As well, programs such as Say Yes
to Education (www.sayyestoeducation.org) provide free tuition and direct
costs for attending college for lower class students, but these programs
do not address the cultural mismatch that first-generation students face,
or the threatening possibility of their lower class identity being perceived
by others. Interventions that improve the educational opportunities for
first-generation college students are likely to be effective only in as much as
they manage students’ financial burdens, unique cultural selves, and their
capacity to signal their lower class identity to others.
HOW DO WE REDUCE ECONOMIC INEQUALITY?
The United States is facing record levels of economic inequality and these
large-scale economic disparities between rich and poor place strain on all
Americans (Kraus et al., 2009; Norton & Ariely, 2011; Phillips, 2002): In years
where economic inequality is heightened, Americans report lower life satisfaction and trust of fellow citizens in comparison to years where economic

The Emerging Psychology of Social Class

7

inequality is lower (Oishi, Kesebir, & Diener, 2011). As well, a review of studies examining health in societies that differ in economic inequality found that
roughly 70% of studies suggested that societal health worsens as economic
inequality deepens (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2006). It is clear from these data and
others that economic inequality is bad for all members of society regardless
of the position in the hierarchy. Moreover, few avenues exist for everyday
Americans to combat these discouraging levels of economic disparity. How
then, can the emerging psychology of social class inform interventions that
could reduce economic inequality in society more broadly?
The emerging psychology of social class highlights challenges inherent in
societal attempts to reduce economic inequality. Specifically, people at the top
of the social class hierarchy are likely to justify and legitimize their privileged
positions in society. These justification processes occur because acknowledging that privilege (i.e., elevated social class) was unfairly achieved threatens
core beliefs about the self as good and the world as fair. Thus, individuals
who perceive themselves as higher in rank in the social class hierarchy tend
to endorse essentialist beliefs—beliefs that social class position is natural and
biologically determined—relative to their lower ranking counterparts (Kraus
& Keltner, 2013). That is, when faced with perceptions of the self as higher
in social class than others, upper class individuals endorse beliefs that better
genes are responsible for their elevated social positions.
Powerful members of the relatively upper class in society also engage in
social behaviors that directly maintain economic inequality: In a study of
members of the US House of Representatives, Republicans were uniformly
likely to sponsor legislation (i.e., corporate tax havens) that maintains economic inequality. In contrast, as wealth increased among Democrats, the tendency to maintain economic inequality in society also increased (Kraus &
Callaghan, 2014). Together, this research indicates the upper class individuals are likely to be particularly resistant to reductions in economic inequality
in society.
Despite these significant challenges in the way of reducing economic
inequality, several promising areas of future research suggest that some
reduction in economic inequality is desired by all Americans. One example
of this comes from a large survey of American attitudes toward the economic
distribution of society: When asking Americans about the ideal distribution
of wealth, all Americans regardless of wealth suggested that an ideal America would be more equal than the current one (Norton & Ariely, 2011). These
results suggest that under certain conditions, all Americans, even upper
class individuals, tend to support some reduction in economic inequality
when asked specifically about the topic.
One promising area of economic inequality reduction lies in wealth redistribution through charitable donations. On this front, recall that higher income

8

EMERGING TRENDS IN THE SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

individuals give a lower percentage of charitable donations annually relative
to their lower income counterparts (Independent Sector, 2002). What interventions might lead higher income individuals to give more to charity than
they do normally?
Reducing the solipsistic selves of upper class individuals by increasing
their baseline, other orientation might be one means to increase prosocial
behaviors and generosity. In one study examining this, a random sample
of participants was assigned to watch a video depicting people in neutral
emotional states whereas the other half of participants watched a video
depicting intense suffering on the part of vulnerable individuals—the latter
video was used to induce participants to be aware of the possibility that
others sometimes face significant life challenges. After viewing one of these
videos, participants interacted with a distressed experiment partner and
then were asked to divide the remaining tasks between themselves and their
partner. Lower income participants helped their partner more than higher
income participants, by taking on longer experimental tasks, but only in
the neutral video condition. When participants viewed the suffering video,
high-income participants were equally helpful to their partner as their lower
income counterparts (Piff et al., 2010; see Figure 2).
There may be other interventions that enhance prosocial behavior and
wealth redistribution among relatively upper class individuals, which will
be uncovered in future research. For instance, the practice wherein extremely
wealthy billionaires publically disclose their intention to donate a large
proportion of their money to charity suggests that prosocial reputational
concerns are important source of motivation for upper class individuals
Helping behavior as a function of compassion induction
and social class
13

Task minutes

12
11
10
9
8
7
6
Low social class
Neutral

High social class
Compassion

Figure 2 The relationship between emotion induction and social class on helping
behavior measured in terms of the number of minutes helping a distressed
experiment partner. Source: Data Reprinted from Piff et al. (2010).

The Emerging Psychology of Social Class

9

(www.givingpledge.org). It is possible that the opportunity to earn a prosocial reputation would motivate enhanced prosocial behavior among upper
class individuals, and future research should examine this possibility.
As psychologists continue to study social class, lay citizens and scholars
alike will come to better understand the fundamental force that one’s position in society exerts on the life course. The emerging psychology of social
class promises several insights into understanding how our objective material reality can fundamentally shape subjective psychological perceptions
of the social world. Importantly, this understanding of the psychological
influence of social class has the capacity to inform our understanding of two
disturbing trends in American social life: low levels of social class mobility
and rising economic inequality. Together, class mobility and rising economic
inequality are among the most pressing problems faced by Americans. The
emerging psychology of social class offers several insights into navigating
these challenges in the years that follow.
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MICHAEL W. KRAUS SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Michael W. Kraus is an Assistant Professor of Social-Personality Psychology
at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and Director of the Champaign Social Interaction (CSI) Laboratory. He studies how social status and
emotions shape patterns relating to others. Michael was trained in methods
that include ethological observations, controlled laboratory experiments, and
psychophysiological assessments at the University of California, Berkeley,
where he earned his PhD in social psychology.
Michael’s work on social class has been published in top psychology
journals such as Psychological Science and Psychological Review. It has
also received media attention from the Wall Street Journal, National Public
Radio, and the New York Times.
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