Who aspires to have more? The impacts of social class and economic inequality on people’s desire for wealth and status

Abstract

Previous research has shown that social class influences people’s perceptions, attitudes, and behaviours. However, little attention has been paid to how social class affects people’s motivation, especially in terms of their desire for wealth and status. Furthermore, in societies with higher levels of economic inequality, the disparities between lower- and upper-class individuals in terms of wealth and status become more salient, which could also exert an impact on people’s motivation to seek wealth and status. The present thesis aims to advance our knowledge of how social class and economic inequality shape people’s motivation to pursue wealth and status by providing answers to four key questions: (1) whether social class is associated with people’s desire for wealth and status, (2) whether economic inequality affects people’s desire for wealth and status, (3) whether social class interacts with economic inequality in affecting people’s desire for wealth and status, and (4) whether it is possible to identify potential mechanisms underlying these relationships. In particular, Chapter 1 consists of a literature review introducing key concepts that are related to the current research. It covers theorizing relating to social class, economic inequality, and the social identity approach. In this chapter, I clarify that we define social class as encompassing one’s material wealth and social status, and I explain why we devoted our attention to the investigation of whether and how social class and economic inequality affect people’s motivation to pursue wealth and status. I then provide an overview of the concept as well as the consequences of economic inequality before introducing the social identity approach as the main theoretical framework in the present thesis to understand the potential associations between social class, economic inequality, and people’s desire for wealth and status.Chapter 2 provides an empirical examination of the association between social class and desire for wealth and status. First, studies using cross-national samples provide evidence that higher social class is associated with a stronger desire for wealth and status (Studies 1 and 2). To test the causality of the relationship between class and desire, we then manipulated social class using an experimental design and replicated our correlational findings (Studies 3 and 5). We further explored the potential mechanism underlying the relationship between class and desire for wealth and status (Studies 3-5). In line with social identity theorizing, our results showed that compared to lower-class individuals, upper-class individuals attach greater importance to wealth and status as attributes in defining and categorizing themselves and their group, and such heightened importance explains the effect of higher social class on individuals’ stronger desire for wealth and status.Chapters 3 and 4 focus on whether and how people’s desire for wealth and status change as a response to economic inequality. In particular, Chapter 3 consists of a review of the literature and a theoretical analysis—both of which suggest a potential positive relationship between inequality and desire for wealth and status. The theorizing is further developed through engagement with the social identity perspective which can help understand the “inequality—desire” relationship as well as why and how social class might moderate this relationship. Next, Chapter 4 provides both correlational and experimental evidence that economic inequality heightens people’s desire for wealth and status (Studies 1-4), and that this relationship varies as a function of social class (Studies 1-3). Notably, there is consistent evidence suggesting that the association between inequality and desire is stronger for lower-class individuals than for upper-class individuals.The final chapter (Chapter 5) consists a discussion of broader issues such as the risks for upper-class individuals in relying on wealth and status to define and categorize the self and the obstacles that lower-class individuals face in seeking wealth and status to achieve social mobility. Taken together, by extending our understanding of how social class and economic inequality influence people’s motivation to seek more wealth and status, this thesis sheds lights on one of the consequences of the growing gap between the poor and the wealthy in today’s world.