The psychological imprint of inequality: Economic inequality shapes achievement and power values in human life.

Abstract

This research investigates how economic inequality shapes basic human values across three cross-national, cross-regional, and longitudinal studies (Ntotal =219,697). Study 1 examined the relationship between objective economic inequality and values across 77 societies from all five continents (n=170,525). Study 2 examined the relationship between objective economic inequality and values across 51 regions in the United States (n=48,559). Study 3 used a two-year longitudinal design to examine the relationship between perceived economic inequality and values (n=613). Results from multilevel modeling and longitudinal analysis suggested that people who lived in areas with higher economic inequality and who perceived higher economic inequality were more likely to endorse achievement and power values. Moreover, people who perceived higher economic inequality were less likely to endorse benevolence values. These effects were robust in within-country tests (Studies 2 and 3) but not in the cross-country tests (Study 1) when accounting for sociodemographic characteristics. Our findings suggest that economic inequality may act as an antecedent of self-enhancement values, particularly within countries. In a world of rising economic inequality, this may over time lead to an overemphasis on achievement and power which have been shown to erode social cohesion.