A Competitiveness-Based Theoretical Framework on the Psychology of Income Inequality

Abstract

Social scientists have begun to extensively study how living in contexts with high income inequality affects psychological outcomes. Herein we overview a conceptual framework that integrates, organizes, and extends these complex (and sometimes contradictory) findings. First, we describe studies showing that income inequality breeds an ethos of competitiveness. Second, we argue that the inequality-competitiveness relation explains why income inequality (a) promotes status-focused behaviors aimed at lifting oneself up and/or bringing others down, (b) harms social relations when they pose an obstacle to one’s economic advancement, (c) exerts opposing effects on well-being via avoidance motivation (focusing on the risk of economic failure) and approach motivation (focusing on the prospect of economic success), and (d) represents a threat to those who perceive they do not have sufficient individual/contextual resources to cope with the demands of competition but a challenge to those with sufficient resources. We also discuss limitations and future directions for research.

Economic inequality and student outcomes: What we know and where to go from here.

“…A large body of literature indicates that exposure to contexts of economic inequality shapes social perceptions and affects psychological outcomes (for recent reviews, see Gobel & Carvacho, 2024; Peters & Jetten, 2023; Sánchez-Rodríguez et al, 2023; Sommet & Elliot, 2023a; Wienk et al, 2022). Residing in a country or region characterized by an unequal distribution of economic resources (e.g., where there is a large gap between low- and high-income earners) increases the salience of economic stratification (Wilkinson, 1997), which in turn may influence a range of affective, relational, and behavioral outcomes (see Cheung & Lucas, 2016; Du et al, 2021; B.…”

“…Recently, Sommet and Elliot (2023a) introduced a conceptual framework to organize the dense and complex evidence in this area of research. This framework is based on the idea that contexts of economic inequality shift individuals’ focus toward the economic dimension of social comparison and foster an ethos of competitiveness.…”

“…This means that the statistical effects of economic inequality discussed in this review are observed after removing the variance in outcomes that can be attributed to between-person differences in socioeconomic status (SES) and between-context differences in economic development. 2 Recently, Sommet and Elliot (2023a) introduced a conceptual framework to organize the dense and complex evidence in this area of research. This framework is based on the idea that contexts of economic inequality shift individuals' focus toward the economic dimension of social comparison and foster an ethos of competitiveness.…”

Economic inequality increases the number of hours worked and decreases work–life balance perceptions: longitudinal and experimental evidence

“…Study 2 was built to replicate results found in the pilot study with a larger sample size. Moreover, we explored the effect of competitiveness as another potential mediating variable and the role of socio-economic class in the relationship between inequality and WLB [71]. Study 2 was pre-registered on the platform AsPredicted.com (https://aspredicted.org/blind.php?x= jp9uk9).…”

“…With categorizations based on wealth becoming more salient [ 45 ], people are more likely to feel deprived [ 46 ] and less wealthy [ 47 ] compared with others. Inequality breeds the perception of a competitive normative climate [ 41 , 48 ] in which people's behaviour is driven by concern over their position on the social ladder (status anxiety; [ 22 , 49 ]).…”