'Social Class Rank, Essentialism, and Punitive Judgment' by Michael Kraus and Dacher Keltner in (2013)
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology comments that
Recent evidence suggests that perceptions of social class rank influence a variety of social cognitive
tendencies, from patterns of causal attribution to moral judgment. In the present studies we tested the
hypotheses that upper-class rank individuals would be more likely to endorse essentialist lay theories of social
class categories (i.e., that social class is founded in genetically based, biological differences) than would
lower-class rank individuals and that these beliefs would decrease support for restorative justice - which seeks
to rehabilitate offenders, rather than punish unlawful action. Across studies, higher social class rank was
associated with increased essentialism of social class categories (Studies 1, 2, and 4) and decreased support
for restorative justice (Study 4). Moreover, manipulated essentialist beliefs decreased preferences for restorative
justice (Study 3), and the association between social class rank and class-based essentialist theories was
explained by the tendency to endorse beliefs in a just world (Study 2). Implications for how class-based
essentialist beliefs potentially constrain social opportunity and mobility are discussed.
They state that
Social rank in society is a fundamental organizing principle in social relations (Keltner, van Kleef, Chen, & Kraus, 2008), and in
the present research, we examined essentialist lay theories about
one aspect of human hierarchy - a person’s social class. Drawing
from theory suggesting that people are motivated to justify their
elevated social position in society (e.g., Keller, 2005), we expected
that upper-class rank individuals would be more likely to endorse
essentialist lay theories about social class than would their lowerclass
rank counterparts.
Consistent with expectations, Study 1 showed that people reporting
elevated social class rank tended to think of social class
categories in more essentialist terms. Study 2 extended these initial
findings by suggesting that upper-class rank individuals endorse
essentialist theories of social class, in part, to justify their elevated
positions in society’s hierarchy. Study 3 demonstrated that manipulating
people’s essentialist beliefs about social class categories
led to reduced support for restorative policies for academic cheating.
Building on these initial studies, Study 4 manipulated momentary
perceptions of relative social class rank. We found that,
compared to their manipulated lower-class rank counterparts, manipulated
upper-class rank individuals endorsed more essentialist
conceptions of social class and were more likely to reject restorative
justice proceedings for people caught engaging in economic
crimes. Moreover, relationships among social class rank, essentialist
beliefs, and punitive judgments could not be accounted for
by measures of individuals’ material resources or political orientation.
Essentialism, Social Policy, and Social Mobility
The current research dovetails with a growing body of research
suggesting that, relative to their lower-class counterparts, upperclass
individuals focus on internal, stable, and trait-based explanations
for the actions of others and deemphasize the social context
(for a review, see Kraus et al., 2012). This research suggests
that these broad class-based differences in social perception extend
to beliefs in the biological basis of fundamental social categories.
These findings have implications for social mobility.
The current results provide some initial evidence suggesting that
essentialist beliefs are associated with justifying and legitimizing
an individual’s own position in society and raise the possibility
that these beliefs will also increase justification of unfairness in the
distribution of economic and social resources: That essentialist
beliefs endorsed by upper-class individuals were associated with
failing, rather than rehabilitating, academic cheaters suggests that
one way in which individuals can maintain current societal structure
is through the use of essentialist beliefs. Future research is
necessary to determine what other legitimizing behaviors highstatus
individuals may engage in to constrain upward mobility in
society (e.g., opposition to affirmative action programs) and
whether essentialist conceptions of social categories explain this
behavior.
As well, endorsing social constructivist beliefs - beliefs that
social class is based on changeable, external social forces - led to
the favoring of social policies related to academic policy and
judicial procedure that focus on rehabilitating individuals. Perhaps
social constructivist views, endorsed by lower-class rank individuals,
may increase optimism among these individuals with regard
to overcoming current financial hardship, future career opportunities,
or even the economic advancement of future generations.
In the present research, both social class rank and essentialist
beliefs about social class categories were not associated with
endorsement of retributive punishments. Given these results, it is
interesting to speculate about why social class rank might be more
closely tied to restorative justice concerns than to retributive ones.
One possible explanation for this pattern is that social class rank is
associated with enhanced contextual explanations—the tendency
to explain broad social events or personal outcomes in terms of
external forces outside of individual control (e.g., Grossmann & Varnum, 2011; Kraus et al., 2009). That is, whereas retributive
punishments hold individuals personally responsible for their unlawful
actions, restorative punishments acknowledge the positive
influence of contextual forces on individual behavior (e.g., rehabilitation
programs). Future studies that examine beliefs about the
efficacy of contextual intervention as the key ingredient that leads
lower-class rank individuals and social constructivists to endorse
restorative justice are likely to yield important insights.
Given that the current justice system in the United States is
based on retributive, rather than restorative, punishment strategies
(Gromet & Darley, 2006; Tyler & Jost, 2007; Weiner et al., 1997),
the current research anticipates the following question: Do essentialist
beliefs in social hierarchy underlie current punishment practices
in the United States? Future research is needed to better
understand how shifting essentialist beliefs could change current
justice practices and how these changes would impact society as a
whole. That is, could social constructivist beliefs of social hierarchy
increase favor for rehabilitation-based punishments that could
improve community life in the long term (e.g., drug treatment
programs for prisoners)?
It is also important to consider how essentialist lay theories
contribute to beliefs about reduced social mobility among lowerclass
individuals (see Kennedy, Kawachi, Prothrow-Stith, Lochner,
& Gupta, 1998). For example, one perspective holds that
social constructivist conceptions of social class represent an optimistic
understanding of social class hierarchy, in that social mobility
is not blocked by genetic predeterminants of lower-class
status. However, as previous research suggests, lower-class individuals
are also keenly aware of the uncontrollable contextual
factors that influence their lives (Kraus et al., 2012) and tend to
favor political actions that perpetuate the current social order (e.g.,
Jost et al., 2002). As such, it will be interesting in future research
to consider whether social constructivist lay theories of social class
increase the pursuit of economic advancement among lower-class
individuals, or whether these theories reveal the many external
obstacles to social advancement (e.g., biased criminal justice system,
unsafe neighborhoods, political influence) that maintain
lower-class individuals in their lower ranking positions.
Notwithstanding the findings from the present investigation, a
few limitations are worth mentioning. First, the results of our
current studies would benefit from generalizing to other communities.
For example, while our adult samples are representative of
the wide range of education and income found in the United States,
the samples do fall short in terms of generalizing to communities
characterized by poverty, or to communities of great affluence.
Replicating this research among these samples gives us greater
confidence in the conclusions reached in the present research. As
well, the current research examined the association between social
class rank and essentialist beliefs about social class categories in
particular. We expect that upper-class rank individuals endorse
essentialist beliefs, in part, to justify their elevated social position.
As such, upper-class rank individuals might engage in essentialist
beliefs about other social categories (e.g., race, gender) more
generally - particularly in contexts where such beliefs can help to
justify their own elevated social position.
It would also be interesting to test the present hypotheses in
other cultures (see Mahalingam, 2007), in particular those where
economic inequality is not as pronounced. Evidence indicates that economic disparities between rich and poor may be at a historical
high in the United States (Phillips, 2002), which suggests that
essentialist lay theories of social class have an objective basis for
being so powerful in shaping voting behavior and policy decisions
among upper- and lower-class individuals. Would similar effects
be observed in cultures with lesser disparities between rich and
poor?
