Where you come from matters: Cultural differences in mobility perceptions and status judgments

Abstract

The present research investigated how culture affects status-related judgments. We examined two Western cultures that, because of their differing socio-ecological histories, were predicted to vary in how information about a person’s familial social class background would affect judgments about this person’s status in a variety of domains. Study 1 demonstrated that, compared to American participants, French participants perceived a lesser likelihood of career success for a target described with a lower (versus higher) familial social class background. Study 2 demonstrated that lower status mobility perceptions in France than the U.S. mediated the role of familial social class background on perceived likelihood of getting ahead in life. Study 3 experimentally manipulated status mobility perceptions and conceptually replicated these cross-cultural effects. We discuss implications for how culturally-shared worldviews can affect and potentially perpetuate inequalities in society.

Self- and Other-Orientation in High Rank: A Cultural Psychological Approach to Social Hierarchy

“…For example, age is a very important component of social ranking in East Asian cultural contexts (Sung, 2001), and recent research found that business and political leaders were significantly older in East Asian compared to Western cultural contexts (Vaughan-Johnston et al, 2021). Moreover, individuals from the French cultural context acknowledged that familial class background was a more important basis for occupying high rank compared to individuals from an American cultural context (Gobel & Kim, 2023). Consistent with these findings, individuals from Mediterranean European cultural contexts, such as Italy or France, compared to individuals from the American cultural context, also reported perceiving less inter generational mobility (Alesina et al, 2018).…”