Abstract
Previous studies have shown that economic inequality influences psychological processes. In this article, we argue that economic inequality also makes masculine attributes more prototypical. In Study 1 (N = 106), using an experimental design, we showed that individuals belonging to a society characterized by a higher level of economic inequality are perceived as more masculine than feminine. Study 2 (N = 75) shows, also experimentally, that the upper social class is perceived mostly in terms of masculine traits, and that this effect is greater when economic inequality is relatively high. Conversely, the lower social class is more clearly perceived in terms of feminine traits. These results inform our understanding of the impact of economic inequality on social perception.
Highlights
In recent years, economic inequality has been growing in the majority of developed countries (Piketty and Saez, 2014)
We found that, when the economic inequality of a society is higher, the average member of that society is perceived with more masculine than feminine traits, which verifies our H1
Lower social class individuals tended to be described by participants mostly through feminine traits, we did not found that this effect was influenced by economic inequality. These results indicate that economic inequality only changes how individuals judge the prototypically advantaged members of society. These two studies provide us with information about the potential consequences of economic inequality on the perception of the members of a given society, in terms of their masculinity and femininity
Summary
Economic inequality has been growing in the majority of developed countries (Piketty and Saez, 2014). This inequality is associated with important psychological processes, the most unequal societies tend to promote relational dynamics that are focused on personal independence and individualism (Sánchez-Rodríguez et al, 2018, 2019), competitiveness (Sánchez-Rodríguez et al, 2018; Sommet et al, 2018), and aggressiveness and hostility (Greitemeyer and Sagioglou, 2017). The rationale behind how economic inequality has psychosocial effects is the notion that different social structures provide different environments, which are fundamental to the development of human characteristics (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2017).
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