Abstract
Building on theories explaining social outcomes of economic inequality, our research examined the psychological impact of inequality on the desire for wealth and status. Our studies provide both experimental (Studies 1 and 3, Ns = 321 and 596) and correlational (Study 2; N = 141,477 from 73 countries and regions) evidence that higher inequality heightens people’s desire for wealth and status. Notably, this effect of inequality on desire is independent of the influence of societal wealth. Moreover, our results reveal social class differences in why inequality fuels motivations: Lower-class individuals are more likely to respond to higher inequality with a heightened desire reflecting self-improvement concerns, whereas upper-class individuals are more likely to respond with a heightened desire reflecting social comparison concerns. These findings suggest that higher inequality creates an environment of restlessness in which both the poor and the rich feel obliged to seek wealth and status, albeit for different reasons.
The greater the material differences between us, the more important status and money become. (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2018a in The Guardian) Billionaires joyriding to space while millions go hungry on Earth. (United Nations, 2021, Secretary-General António Guterres highlights the gap between the rich and the poor in the address to the General Assembly)
In recent decades, both developed and developing countries have witnessed an increase in economic inequality (Alvaredo et al., 2018). Economic inequality, here defined as the unequal distribution of economic resources such as income and wealth in a society, is associated with a number of negative physical, psychological, and social consequences (Jetten & Peters, 2019) including worse health outcomes (Pickett & Wilkinson, 2015), reduced life satisfaction and happiness (Oishi et al., 2011), and lower social cohesion (Van de Werfhorst & Salverda, 2012). Notably, this effect of inequality (i.e., the gap between the poor and the rich) is independent of the effect of poverty (i.e., the state of having few material resources) at either the individual (e.g., individual income; Lynch et al., 2000) or the societal level (e.g., national average income; Wilkinson & Pickett, 2010a).
Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain these negative outcomes of inequality. For instance, recent work in line with the social identity perspective proposes that, in more unequal societies, material wealth is viewed as a more fitting basis for categorizing the self and others (Jetten et al., 2017), therefore shaping people’s perceptions about different wealth groups and affecting their support for wealth redistribution policies (Tanjitpiyanond et al., 2021). Similarly, another work building on the status anxiety perspective suggests that higher inequality aggravates people’s anxiety about social status (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2010b, 2018b), thus leading people to be more restless in exhibiting their social status (e.g., through status goods consumption; Walasek & Brown, 2015) and engaging in status competition (e.g., through overwork; Bowles & Park, 2005).
But why do these outcomes exist? Surprisingly little research directly examines the implied motivation produced by inequality: that inequality makes people desire wealth and status. Drawing on the above perspectives, the present research aims to provide a direct examination of the role of economic inequality in people’s expressed desire for wealth and status. Moreover, we explore social class differences in the “higher inequality—heightened desire” link, and attempt to identify whether it is self-improvement or social comparison concerns that explain people’s heightened desire for wealth and status.
Why Does Economic Inequality Affect People’s Desire for Wealth and Status?
The possibility that people’s desire for wealth and status—defined as the concrete material resources that people have access to and the abstract social construct reflecting people’s standing in the society—will be affected by economic inequality has been proposed by three theoretical perspectives.
First, according to the social identity perspective, higher economic inequality will increase the likelihood of people seeing the world through a lens of wealth (Jetten et al., 2017, 2022). In particular, the social identity perspective argues that the salience of “us” versus “them” categorization in a specific situation depends on the accessibility and the fit of that categorization (Turner et al., 1987). Notably, in an unequal society, since wealth disparities between people become more noticeable and distinct, wealth as an attribute should become more accessible for people to use in categorizing themselves and others (Andersen & Curtis, 2012; Jetten et al., 2017; Kraus et al., 2017; North & Fiske, 2014). Furthermore, as inequality grows, people perceive greater differences between groups that differ in wealth and greater similarities within groups of similar wealth (Connor et al., 2021; Heiserman & Simpson, 2017; Tanjitpiyanond et al., 2021), therefore rendering wealth to be a more comparatively fitting category to facilitate people’s understanding of the social world. Consequently, given that wealth is an increasingly important attribute for categorizing the self and others in unequal societies, it is reasonable to infer that people are motivated to seek wealth to achieve a positive identity (Jetten et al., 2017; Tajfel & Turner, 1979).
Second, the status anxiety perspective argues that economic inequality highlights people’s disparities in the social hierarchy and, given that one’s position in the social hierarchy is important to one’s sense of self and prevalent in one’s interaction with others, people living in unequal societies will suffer greater social evaluation anxiety about status (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2010b, 2018b). Such a heightened status anxiety, in turn, is likely to drive people to engage in more heated status competition. In other words, economic inequality increases the pressure to “keep up with the Joneses” and thus manufactures the demand for people to seek more social status to alleviate their status anxiety.
Third, extending the status anxiety perspective, the material rank perspective has further theorized the role of anxiety and the importance of wealth in the context of economic inequality (Walasek & Brown, 2019). Particularly, while the former suggests that inequality increases people’s concerns about social status in general, the latter argues more specifically that inequality increases people’s concerns about social comparison and social status along the dimension of material wealth (Walasek & Brown, 2019). In other words (and consistent with the social identity perspective), the material rank perspective stresses that inequality heightens the importance of material wealth relative to other attributes (e.g., physical attractiveness, social skills, or trustworthiness), thereby driving people to seek more wealth to rise in the social hierarchy.
Aside from these theoretical foundations, there is also empirical evidence suggesting that people are more preoccupied with financial outcomes and social standing in unequal societies. For instance, in the U.S. income inequality was found to be associated with higher expenditure on lottery tickets (which is regarded as a way to make a quick fortune; Bol et al., 2014). Similarly, on gambling tasks, higher inequality has been found to increase participants’ willingness to take higher risks to win a larger prize (Payne et al., 2017). Furthermore, in the U.S. states with higher levels of income inequality, people have been found to express more interest in searching online for status-related goods (e.g., “Ralph Lauren” and “Fur vests”), whereas in the U.S. states with lower levels of income inequality, people’s search terms were less likely to be related to status (e.g., searches for “Flower names” and “Lemon bars recipe”; Walasek & Brown, 2015). Moreover, compared with people living in relatively equal societies, those living in unequal societies were found to be more likely to worry about being looked down on in relation to “their job situation or income” (Layte & Whelan, 2014).
Surprisingly, despite this growing body of work, direct tests of the effect of inequality on people’s striving for wealth and status are still rare (for an exception, see Paskov et al., 2017). Moreover, there is hardly any empirical work that examines (and compares) people’s desire for wealth and status in response to economic inequality simultaneously. Therefore, the first aim of the present research is to test the hypotheses that compared with those living in equal societies, people living in unequal societies should have a heightened desire for wealth (H1a) and status (H1b).
Does Inequality Differentially Affect the Desire of Lower- and Upper-Class People?
Even though we propose that economic inequality should heighten people’s desire for wealth and status, this effect on desire might vary in its strength and even nature across people from different social backgrounds. One factor that might influence the effect of inequality is social class. Social class generally reflects the wealth and status one holds (Kraus et al., 2012) and therefore when exploring the effect of inequality on people’s desire for wealth and status, it is essential to take how much wealth and status people already possess—indicated by their social class—into account. Taking account of social class is all the more important because the disparities between lower and higher social classes become larger and more salient in more unequal societies, which, in turn, might reinforce the impact of inequality on various sociopsychological outcomes (Jetten et al., 2017, 2022; Kraus et al., 2017). 1
With regard to potential social class differences in wealth and status striving as a response to economic inequality, there are two intuitively opposing predictions. On one hand, it could be the case that it is people from lower (rather than higher) social class backgrounds whose desire for wealth and status increases to a greater extent as a response to higher economic inequality. There are at least three processes that lead to this prediction. First, since lower-class individuals have fewer materials and social resources to buffer the negative consequences of inequality, they should be more likely to feel pressure to accumulate more wealth to cope with challenges in life associated with increasing inequality. For instance, they need more money to afford good health care to counterbalance worsening health (Pickett & Wilkinson, 2015), better education to counterbalance reduced social mobility (Corak, 2013), and better housing to counterbalance deteriorating social environments associated with high levels of inequality (Metz & Burdina, 2018). In contrast, according to this reasoning, equipped with various resources as a protective shield, upper-class individuals might encounter little inconvenience due to inequality and should therefore feel less compelled to take actions (e.g., to seek more wealth) to address unfavorable consequences of inequality.
Second, and somewhat related to the previously outlined process, in line with the status anxiety perspective, because greater economic inequality highlights wealth and status differences in social class hierarchies, it is plausible that, in this context, people from lower social class backgrounds—who are already disadvantaged in terms of wealth and status—suffer greater status anxiety compared with their higher social class counterparts (Pickett & Wilkinson, 2015; Wilkinson & Pickett, 2010b; see also Jetten et al., 2022). To regain control in an unequal world that causes status anxiety, the lower class should to a greater extent than the upper class seek more wealth and status to prepare for an uncertain future.
Third, in line with classic social identity theorizing (Tajfel & Turner, 1979), members of lower social class groups are expected to use various strategies to achieve a more positive identity. According to this reasoning, higher levels of inequality should enhance individual mobility attempts (i.e., accumulating more wealth and status so that one can leave the lower-class group and join in the upper-class group) as well as social competition intentions (i.e., striving for more wealth and status collectively so the lower-class group can improve its relative position). Consistent with this idea, in more unequal societies, people have been found to show greater self-enhancement tendencies to “stand out as superior to others” (Loughnan et al., 2011). Furthermore, higher inequality has been found to enhance social class salience and, in an attempt to redress inequality, this may fuel collective actions among those from the lower-class groups (e.g., the Yellow Vest movement in France, see Jetten et al., 2020). Taken together, there are at least three reasons to expect that the effect of inequality on heightening people’s desire for wealth (H2a) and status (H2b) should be greater among lower than higher social class individuals.
On the other hand, there are also reasons to suspect that it is people from higher (rather than lower) social class backgrounds who are likely to express a more heightened desire for wealth and status in the context of economic inequality. Particularly, recent work extending the social identity perspective has challenged the notion that only the lower class are concerned with their position in the social hierarchy. The upper class, too, maybe concerned with relative position and status, albeit for different reasons. For instance, it has been found that members of higher (rather than lower) social class groups make greater use of wealth and status as a way to categorize themselves and others in the society (because wealth and status render them positively distinct from others) and, as a result, they value wealth and status to a greater extent (Easterbrook et al., 2020; Wang et al., 2020). In unequal societies, given that wealth and status disparities between lower and higher social class groups become larger and more salient, members of higher social class groups can benefit even more from using wealth and status in self-categorization, and this increased return on using wealth and status in self-categorization should in turn motivate the upper class to seek even more wealth and status to extend their lead.
Furthermore, compared with the disadvantaged, higher inequality can also bring about greater “fear of falling” among the advantaged whereby they are more fearful of losing their wealth and status (Jetten et al., 2021; Mols & Jetten, 2017). Specifically, in relatively equal societies, temporary failure to stay at the top of the social hierarchy is less consequential because the disparities between those ahead and those behind are relatively small. However, in unequal societies, falling behind is more consequential because the gap between the rich and the poor becomes too large to cross (Côté et al., 2015; Mols & Jetten, 2017). Therefore, in unequal societies, the need to alleviate the “fear of falling” should lead the upper class to become particularly eager to accumulate more wealth and status relative to others so as to avoid being surpassed. This reasoning is consistent with research showing that upper class (compared with lower class) individuals are more inclined to maintain inequality so as to maintain their advantages (Brandt, 2013; Brown-Iannuzzi et al., 2015), and one way to maintain inequality (and advantages) is to strive for even more wealth and status. Together, this leads us to propose opposing hypotheses: the effect of inequality on heightening people’s desire for wealth (H3a) and status (H3b) should be greater among higher than lower social class individuals.
In addition, although H2 and H3 are proposed as opposing hypotheses predicting the Inequality × Class interaction, the pattern of the interaction might also depend on the nature of the desire. For instance, as illustrated by António Guterres (United Nations, 2021), whereas the poor might want to seek more wealth and status to avoid “going hungry” (i.e., motivated by pragmatic and self-improvement concerns), the wealthy might want to do so to afford “joyriding to space” which provides further distinctiveness from others (i.e., motivated by showing-off and social comparison concerns). Thus, we attempted to further distinguish self-improvement and social comparison concerns by measuring people’s comparative desire in reference to themselves as well as in comparison with others. This is also responding to previous calls for a clarification of whom people feel that they are competing within unequal societies (Buttrick & Oishi, 2017).
Overview of the Present Research
We conducted three studies to examine our hypotheses. In Study 1, we examined whether experimentally manipulated economic inequality heightens people’s desire for wealth and status. In Study 2, using a large-scale cross-national dataset, we examined whether economic inequality—objectively gauged by the Gini coefficient—is associated with a heightened desire for wealth and status. We also explored whether social class moderates the inequality effect on such desire. In Study 3, we manipulated both economic inequality and social class to examine causally the effects of inequality and its interaction with social class on desire for wealth and status. Furthermore, we sought to distinguish desire out of self-improvement and social comparison concerns. 2
All materials and data used in the present research are available online at (https://osf.io/dpxgj/). Study 3 was preregistered on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/dcv95). The present research was approved by The University of Queensland Human Research Ethics Committee (approval number: 2017000288). Participants’ informed consent was obtained in all studies.
Study 1
In Study 1, we experimentally examined the effect of economic inequality on people’s desire for wealth and status to test H1a and H1b.
Participants
Participants were recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. The final sample consisted of 321 U.S. residents (see Table 1 for sample characteristics). The data used in this study were part of another larger dataset collected aiming to address multiple research questions and its sample size was predetermined to be around 300. The post hoc power analysis revealed that the power for this study is 0.75 to 0.87 (d = 0.26–0.31, α = .05).
Sample Characteristics Across Studies 1 to 3.
Note. For the final sample size of each study, participants who had not completed the questionnaire, had not responded to key variable measures, or had failed the comprehension check were excluded.
Procedure and Measures
Participants were invited to participate in an online study introduced as “experiences of living in a fictitious society.” After the manipulation of inequality, participants completed the dependent measures including scales tapping their desire for wealth and status.
Manipulation
We manipulated people’s experience of inequality using a paradigm adapted from Sprong et al. (2019). Participants learned that “they would start a new life in a fictitious society, Bimboola” and were randomly assigned to either a high or a low-inequality condition. First, they were presented with a graph depicting the three income groups in Bimboola. Under the high-inequality condition (N = 158), the disparities between the three income groups were presented to be relatively large (i.e., the low-, middle-, and high-income groups earned 3,000, 40,000, and 77,000 Bimboola dollars per year, respectively), whereas under the low-inequality condition (N = 163), the income disparities were relatively small (i.e., 30,000, 40,000, and 50,000 Bimboola dollars per year). Afterward, participants were informed that they would be randomly assigned to one of the three income groups in Bimboola. In fact, all participants were assigned to the middle-income group earning the same 40,000 Bimboola dollars per year.
Participants were then instructed to start their new life in Bimboola by choosing a house to live in, a means of transport, and a holiday destination. Notably, they could only choose items that their group (i.e., the middle-income group) could afford. Under both conditions, the choices for the middle-income group were identical (e.g., ordinary houses, cars, and holiday options). However, under the high-inequality condition, the choices for the high-income group were significantly superior (e.g., palace-like mansions, luxurious sports cars, and expensive holidays), whereas the choices for the low-income group were significantly inferior (e.g., run-down shelters, rusty bicycles, and no holiday). In contrast, under the low-inequality condition, compared with choices for the middle-income group, choices for the high-income group were only slightly better and those for the low-income group only slightly worse.
After the manipulation, participants completed two manipulation check items “To what extent is Bimboola’s wealth distribution unequal” (1 = not unequal at all, 7 = very unequal) and “To what extent is Bimboolean society equal” (1 = not equal at all, 7 = very equal; reverse coded). They were highly correlated (r = .76, p < .001) and were averaged with higher scores indicating people experiencing greater inequality. Participants also responded to a comprehension check item “Which income group have you been assigned to.” Only participants who chose the correct answer (i.e., Group 2) were included in the final analysis.
Desire for wealth and status
On a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), participants reported their desire for wealth using one item “I want to achieve more wealth than what I currently have” and desire for status using another item “I want to achieve a higher social position than where I am currently in.” These two items were strongly correlated (r = .59, p < .001).
Control variables
We controlled for gender (1 = female, 0 = male), age, and ethnicity (1 = White, 0 = non-White).
Results
First, an independent samples t test on the manipulation check showed that the manipulation was effective: participants under the high-inequality condition experienced Bimboolean society to be more unequal (M = 6.22, SD = 1.13) than those in the low-inequality condition (M = 3.21, SD = 1.19), t(319) = 23.24, p < .001, 95% confidence interval (CI) = [2.76, 3.26], d = 2.59.
Second, independent samples t tests showed that participants under the high-inequality condition reported a greater desire for wealth (M = 5.61, SD = 1.30) than those under the low-inequality condition (M = 5.19, SD = 1.38), t(319) = 2.83, p = .005, 95% CI = [0.13, 0.72], d = 0.31. The former also reported a greater desire for status (M = 4.84, SD = 1.62) than the latter (M = 4.41, SD = 1.73), t(319) = 2.27, p = .024, 95% CI = [0.06, 0.79], d = 0.26. Moreover, to account for control variables, multilinear regression analyses were conducted to predict people’s desire for wealth and status based on the inequality manipulation (dummy coded into 1 = high inequality, −1 = low inequality). Results showed that when controlling for gender, age, and ethnicity, inequality remained a significant predictor for both the desire for wealth, β = 0.20, SE = 0.08, p = .008, 95% CI = [0.05, 0.35], and the desire for status, β = 0.21, SE = 0.10, p = .031, 95% CI = [0.02, 0.39] (see Table S1). Together, these results provided evidence for both H1a and H1b.
Discussion
Study 1 offered support for our hypotheses that, compared with those in lower-inequality contexts, people in higher-inequality contexts have a heightened desire for both wealth (H1a) and status (H1b).
A few questions remain. First, given that participants’ social class was fixed in the manipulation paradigm in Study 1, we were unable to explore the interaction between economic inequality and social class to test H2 and H3. Therefore, we conducted Study 2 in which both economic inequality and social class were measured.
Second, although people’s perceptions of economic inequality tend to be closely aligned with objective inequalities (see Sprong et al., 2019), research suggests that objective indices of inequality can diverge from subjective indices of inequality (Chambers et al., 2014; Gimpelson & Treisman, 2017). For this reason, in Study 2, we tested whether Study 1 findings would generalize in reference to objective inequalities in the real world.
Third, in studying people’s desire, particularly for wealth, it is important to separate the psychology of inequality from the psychology of societal wealth. For instance, in unequal but wealthy societies, if even the poorest groups have sufficient wealth to live a comfortable life, will they still want to seek more wealth as a response to inequality? In contrast, in equal but poor societies, even the richest groups might suffer resource shortages. So, will they be motivated to seek more wealth regardless of levels of inequality? Therefore, in Study 2, we controlled for two indices of societal wealth: the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and the poverty rate.
Study 2
In Study 2, we examined whether economic inequality—objectively measured by the Gini coefficient—is associated with people’s desire for wealth and status in a large-scale cross-national sample from the World Values Survey (WVS). The WVS has investigated human beliefs and values across a number of countries and regions for more than three decades (World Values Survey Association, 2021). The WVS includes items concerning people’s desire for wealth and status in its two latest survey waves (i.e., wave 5 and wave 6; Inglehart et al., 2005–2008, 2010–2014), so we used data from these two waves in our analysis. We also explored the interaction between the Gini coefficient and social class in predicting people’s desire for wealth and status to test H2 and H3, and further tested whether the effect of inequality was independent of the influence of societal wealth.
Participants
The data from the fifth and sixth WVS waves were pooled, rendering a sample covering 141,477 participants from 73 countries and regions. Sample characteristics are reported in Table 1 (we reported more details pertaining to this specific cross-national sample in Table S2 in the Supplementary Materials). All data were downloaded from the WVS website (www.worldvaluessurvey.org).
Procedure and Measures
Economic inequality
We retrieved the country-level Gini coefficient based upon income (adjusted for household size, after-tax) from the World Bank Open Data (https://data.worldbank.org) and the World Income Inequality Database (https://www.wider.unu.edu/data). In theory, the Gini coefficient ranges from 0 (absolute equality, i.e., everyone has the same income) to 1 (maximal inequality, i.e., all income is concentrated in one person). In the present sample, the countries’ Gini coefficients varied between .25 (Slovenia) and .64 (South Africa). More details about the process of retrieving the Gini coefficient are reported in the Supplementary Materials.
Desire for wealth and status
Participants were presented with a list of statements about people in general (Schwartz, 1992, 2012). On a scale from 1 (not at all like me) to 6 (very much like me), participants indicated the degree to which they were like the character (i.e., “this person”) in each statement. The statement “It is important to this person to be rich; to have a lot of money and expensive things” was used as the measure of desire for wealth (M = 3.16, SD = 1.53), and the statement “Being very successful is important to this person; to have people recognize one’s achievements” was used as the measure of desire for status (M = 4.03, SD = 1.45). These two measures were moderately correlated (r = .36, p < .001).
Social class
Participants were informed that “People sometimes describe themselves as belonging to the working class, the middle class, or the upper or lower class” and were asked to indicate their social class on a scale from 1 (lower class) to 5 (upper class).
GDP per capita
We retrieved the country-level GDP per capita (in constant 2010 U.S. dollars) from the World Bank Open Data (https://data.worldbank.org) as the indicator of societal wealth. It ranged from 272.4 (Ethiopia) to 91,617.3 (Norway). For countries and regions which contain both two waves of data (n = 31 in both the fifth and the sixth waves), we averaged the GDP per capita of the 2 years when the WVS data were collected in the two waves. We entered the log of the GDP per capita in our analysis.
Poverty rate
We retrieved the country-level headcount ratio from the World Bank Open Data (https://data.worldbank.org) as an additional indicator of societal wealth. This poverty rate is the percentage of the population living on less than 1.90 a day and so it is comparable across countries and regions. For countries and regions which contain two waves of data (n = 29 in both the fifth and the sixth waves), we averaged the poverty rate of the 2 years when the WVS data were collected in the two waves.
Control variables
We controlled for gender (1 = female, 0 = male), age, survey wave (1 = the sixth wave, 0 = the fifth wave), and the belief in meritocracy (from 1 = hard work does not generally bring success—it is more a matter of luck and connections to 10 = In the long run, hard work usually brings a better life). 3
Analytic strategy
Since the WVS data consist of participants from different countries and regions, it is important to consider the nested structure of the data. Accordingly, we conducted multilevel modeling analysis with two levels—the individual level (Level 1) and the country level (Level 2).
With respect to our research aims, we conducted two sets of multilevel models—one set to examine the relationship between the Gini coefficient and the desire for wealth (testing H1a), and another set to examine the relationship between the Gini coefficient and the desire for status (testing H1b). We also examined whether the Gini coefficient interacted with social class in each set of models to test H2 and H3. We used the “lme4” package (Bates et al., 2015) for R to conduct multilevel modeling analysis.
In each set of multilevel models, we started by comparing the variance component model (Model 1) to the single-slope regression model to check whether multilevel modeling was justified (Hox, 2010). We then added the Gini coefficient, social class, and their interaction to the model (Model 2) to test our hypotheses. Next, we added all other variables to the model (Model 3) to examine whether the association between the Gini coefficient and desire for wealth and status is still held when accounting for those control variables.
Moreover, it is worth noting that (a) the poverty rate statistic was not available for 10 of 73 countries and regions (i.e., these countries and regions had not published their poverty rates) and (b) the data of the belief in meritocracy contained missing values (i.e., a number of participants had not responded to the scale). To make maximum use of available data (to ensure maximum sample diversity as well as to increase the generalizability of our main findings), we first conducted our analyses using the whole sample without controlling for the poverty rate and the belief in meritocracy (N = 141,477 participants from 73 countries and regions). We then repeated our analyses using the reduced sample with the poverty rate and the belief in meritocracy controlled (N = 126,041 participants from 63 countries and regions).
Results
A preliminary correlational analysis showed that the Gini coefficient was positively related to both desire for wealth and status (Table S3; the relationships between the Gini coefficient and desire for wealth and status across countries and regions are visualized in Figure 1), which suggested that higher economic inequality was associated with a heightened desire for wealth and status at least at the country level.
(A) The relationship between the Gini coefficient and the desire for wealth across countries and regions, Study 2. (B) The relationship between the Gini coefficient and the desire for status across countries and regions, Study 2.
We then conducted multilevel modeling analyses using the whole sample of 141,477 participants from 73 countries and regions. Consistent with our prior findings, results showed that a higher Gini coefficient was associated with a greater desire for both wealth (Table 2) and status (Table 3), therefore supporting H1a and H1b. Moreover, the interaction between the Gini coefficient and social class was negatively associated with both desire for wealth and status (see Figure 2). In particular, simple slopes test results showed that the “higher inequality—heightened desire” link was stronger among lower- than upper-class individuals, thus supporting H2a and H2b (we report more details of simple slopes test results in the Supplementary Materials). These findings remained almost identical when controlling for gender, age, wave, and GDP per capita.
Multilevel Models Predicting the Desire for Wealth Based on Economic Inequality and Social Class, Study 2 (N = 141,477).
Note. Class = social class; Gini = the Gini coefficient. The gender variable was dummy coded into 1 = female; 0 = male. The wave variable was dummy coded into 1 = the sixth wave; 0 = the fifth wave. The GDP per capita variable was log-transformed in the analysis. The deviance difference of Model 1 was compared with the single-slope regression model. GDP = gross domestic product. AIC = the Akaike Information Criterion.
Multilevel Models Predicting the Desire for Status Based on Economic Inequality and Social Class, Study 2 (N = 141,477)
Note. Class = social class; Gini = the Gini coefficient. The gender variable was dummy coded into 1 = female; 0 = male. The wave variable was dummy coded into 1 = the sixth wave; 0 = the fifth wave. The GDP per capita variable was log-transformed in the analysis. The deviance difference of Model 1 was compared with the single-slope regression model. GDP = gross domestic product. AIC = the Akaike Information Criterion.
Study 2 (N = 141,477): The desire for wealth (left) and status (right) as a function of the Gini coefficient (low inequality = 1 SD, high inequality = 1 SD) and social class (low social class = 1, high social class = 5). The dashed line depicts the association between inequality and desire among participants from low social class backgrounds, whereas the solid line depicts this association among those from high social class backgrounds.
We further controlled for the poverty rate and the belief in meritocracy using the reduced sample of 126,041 participants from 63 countries and regions. Results were highly similar to those based upon the whole sample: particularly, the Inequality × Class interaction effect remained significant for both desire for wealth and status (see Tables 4 and 5; Figure 3).
Multilevel Models Predicting the Desire for Wealth Based on Economic Inequality and Social Class, Study 2 (N = 126,041).
Note. Class = social class; Meritocracy = the belief in meritocracy; Gini = the Gini coefficient. The gender variable was dummy coded into 1 = female; 0 = male. The wave variable was dummy coded into 1 = the sixth wave; 0 = the fifth wave. The GDP per capita variable was log-transformed in the analysis. The poverty rate variable was the poverty headcount ratio at 1.90 U.S. dollars a day. The deviance difference of model 1 was compared with the single-slope regression model. GDP = gross domestic product. AIC = the Akaike Information Criterion.
Multilevel Models Predicting the Desire for Status Based on Economic Inequality and Social Class, Study 2 (N = 126,041).
Note. Class = social class; Meritocracy = the belief in meritocracy; Gini = the Gini coefficient. The gender variable was dummy coded into 1 = female; 0 = male. The wave variable was dummy coded into 1 = the sixth wave; 0 = the fifth wave. The GDP per capita variable was log-transformed in the analysis. The poverty rate variable was the poverty headcount ratio at 1.90 US dollars a day. The deviance difference of Model 1 was compared with the single-slope regression model. GDP = gross domestic product. AIC = the Akaike Information Criterion.
Study 2 (N = 126,041): The desire for wealth (left) and status (right) as a function of the Gini coefficient (low inequality = 1 SD, high inequality = 1 SD) and social class (low social class = 1, high social class = 5). The dashed line depicts the association between inequality and desire among participants from low social class backgrounds, whereas the solid line depicts this association among those from high social class backgrounds.
Discussion
Study 2 replicated and extended Study 1 findings in the real-world context using an objective indicator of economic inequality—the Gini coefficient. Results showed that a higher Gini coefficient was associated with a greater desire for wealth and status, thus supporting H1a and H1b. Moreover, results showed a moderating role of social class: here the inequality effect on people’s desire for wealth and status was greater among lower than higher social class individuals, which is consistent with H2a and H2b. In addition, after controlling for societal wealth, this Inequality × Class interaction remained robust. 4
Based on Studies 1 and 2, we conducted Study 3 with the aim of manipulating both economic inequality and social class. In addition, to better understand the nature of people’s wealth and status-striving in unequal societies (i.e., whether such striving reflects self-improvement or social comparison concerns), we included different measures of desire for wealth and status.
Study 3
In Study 3, we applied a revised paradigm that enabled us to simultaneously manipulate economic inequality and social class. Such a “double” manipulation, as far as we know, has rarely been reported in previous research. By using this paradigm, we aimed to examine the causal relationship between inequality (and its interaction with social class) and desire for wealth and status. Moreover, we sought to provide more nuanced insight into people’s wealth and status-striving by including measures that tapped people’s desire for wealth and status reflecting self-improvement and social comparison concerns.
Participants
Participants were U.K. residents recruited from the online survey platform Prolific. We assumed a small-to-medium effect for the interaction (f = .10–.25) and estimated the sample size to be around 500 (α = .05, 1−β > 0.90) using the G*Power 3 software (Faul et al., 2009). This sample size was also sufficiently large to replicate the findings of Study 1 (for the main effect d = 0.26–0.31, α = .05, 1−β > 0.90). Characteristics of the final sample of 596 are presented in Table 1.
Procedure and Measures
Participants were invited to complete an online study about “your experience living in a fictitious society.” They were then guided through inequality and class manipulations. Afterward, participants responded to dependent measures and reported demographic information.
Manipulation
We manipulated both perceived economic inequality and social class. First, adapted from a paradigm developed by Tanjitpiyanond et al. (2021), participants were introduced to a fictitious world that consisted of six countries. Participants learned that these countries differed in the GINI, a measure of economic inequality, and they were informed that they would be randomly assigned to one of these countries. In fact, participants were assigned to either the most unequal country, Nahm, with the highest GINI (the high-inequality condition) or the most equal country, Dinh, with the lowest GINI (the low-inequality condition).
After the country assignment, participants were then introduced to three wealth groups in the country: The top 5% group who were the wealthiest, the middle 5% group who were the middle class, and the bottom 5% group who were the poorest. To strengthen the manipulation, participants were also presented with a scale picture indicating how wealth was distributed across the three groups: under the high-inequality condition, the scale was quite imbalanced with the top 5% group owning immensely more wealth than the bottom 5% group, whereas under the low-inequality condition, the scale was quite balanced with wealth being distributed relatively equally across the three groups. Participants were then informed that they would be randomly assigned to one of the three groups. In fact, they were assigned to either the wealthiest top 5% group (the high social class condition) or the poorest bottom 5% group (the low social class condition). Here, we achieved a two-by-two experimental design: high-inequality-high-class (N = 151), high-inequality-low-class (N = 150), low-inequality-high-class (N = 152), and low-inequality-low-class (N = 143).
After the group assignment, participants were asked to write a few sentences describing “what you think life might be like for you in that country.” Participants also responded to items of comprehension and manipulation checks. The item “Which group have you been assigned to” was used as the comprehension check: Only participants who answered correctly (i.e., The Top 5% in high-class conditions or The Bottom 5% in low-class conditions) were included in the final analysis. The two items “How equal is the wealth distribution in the country” (1 = extremely unequal, 7 = extremely equal; reverse coded) and “How large is the wealth gap between the wealthiest and the poorest people in the country” (1 = extremely small, 7 = extremely large) were combined as the inequality manipulation check (r = .90, p < .001). The two items “How wealthy is your group” (1 = extremely poor, 7 = extremely wealthy) and “How is your group’s social status in the country” (1 = extremely low status, 7 = extremely high status) were combined as the social class manipulation check (r = .95, p < .001).
Desire for wealth and status “more than I have.”
First, the same two items used in Study 1 “I want to achieve more wealth than what I currently have” and “I want to achieve a higher social position than where I am currently in” were included as the measure of desire for wealth and status reflecting self-improvement concerns. These two items were strongly correlated (r = .75, p < .001).
Desire for wealth and status “more than other people.”
Next, we included two new items “I want to achieve more wealth than other people” and “I want to achieve a higher social position than other people.” These two items were treated as the measure of desire for wealth and status reflecting social comparison concerns and were also correlated (r = .78, p < .001).
Desire for wealth and status in general
In addition, we included a three-item scale without specifying the comparison target (Wang et al., 2020) and used it as the measure of people’s desire for wealth in general. Items were “I would like to be wealthy,” “I want to have lots of money,” and “One of my goals in life is to be a rich person” (α = .91). A similar three-item scale (Wang et al., 2020) was used to measure people’s desire for status in general. Items were “I would like to be well regarded,” “I want to have high status in society,” and “One of my goals in life is to be a person of high standing” (α = .87). These two scales were correlated (r = .68, p < .001). All desire measures ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), and their pairwise correlations are reported in Table 6.
Correlations Between Desire for Wealth and Status “More than I Have,” “More than Other People,” and in General in Study 3.
Note. All scales ranged from 1 to 7, higher scores indicate a greater desire.
Control variables
We controlled for gender (1 = female, 0 = non-female), age, ethnicity (1 = White, 0 = non-White), and the belief in meritocracy (from 1 = weakest to 7 = strongest). 3
Results
First, independent samples t tests on manipulation checks showed that both economic inequality and social class manipulations were successful. Participants under the high-inequality condition perceived the wealth distribution in the country to be more unequal (M = 6.93, SD = .36) than those under the low-inequality condition (M = 1.99, SD = .92), t(594) = 86.92, p < .001, 95% CI = [4.83, 5.05], d = 7.07. Participants under the high social class condition perceived their social class to be higher (M = 6.31, SD = .86) than those under the low social class condition (M = 2.13, SD = 1.31), t(594) = 46.20, p < .001, 95% CI = [4.00, 4.36], d = 3.77.
Next, we conducted a series of moderation bootstrapping analyses (Preacher & Hayes, 2008) with 5,000 resamples to examine the interaction between inequality (dummy coded into 1 = high inequality and −1 = low inequality) and social class (dummy coded into 1 = high social class and −1 = low social class). Moderation models were reported in Tables 7 to 12. Results showed that inequality exerted a significant main effect on both comparative and general desire for wealth and status, thus again providing evidence for H1a and H1b. Moreover, the interaction term between inequality and social class was also significant. Interestingly, this interaction term was associated negatively with people’s desire for wealth and status “more than I have” (supporting H2a and H2b; see Figure 4) but positively with people’s desire for wealth and status “more than other people” and in general (supporting H3a and H3b; see Figures 5 and 6). These findings remained almost identical when controlling for gender, age, ethnicity, and the belief in meritocracy (see Tables 7 to 12).
Moderation Models Predicting the Desire for Wealth “More than I Have” Based on Economic Inequality and Social Class Manipulations, Study 3.
Note. Inequality = the economic inequality manipulation (dummy coded into 1 = high inequality, −1 = low inequality). Class = the social class manipulation (dummy coded into 1 = high social class, −1 = low social class). Meritocracy = belief in meritocracy (ranged from 1 to 7). The gender variable was dummy coded into 1 = female, 0 = nonfemale. The ethnicity variable was dummy coded into 1 = White, 0 = non-White.
Moderation Models Predicting the Desire for Status “More than I Have” Based on Economic Inequality and Social Class Manipulations, Study 3.
Note. Inequality = the economic inequality manipulation (dummy coded into 1 = high inequality, −1 = low inequality). Class = the social class manipulation (dummy coded into 1 = high social class, −1 = low social class). Meritocracy = belief in meritocracy (ranged from 1 to 7). The gender variable was dummy coded into 1 = female, 0 = non-female. The ethnicity variable was dummy coded into 1 = White, 0 = non-White.
Moderation Models Predicting the Desire for Wealth “More than Other People” Based on Economic Inequality and Social Class Manipulations, Study 3.
Note. Inequality = the economic inequality manipulation (dummy coded into 1 = high inequality, −1 = low inequality). Class = the social class manipulation (dummy coded into 1 = high social class, −1 = low social class). Meritocracy = belief in meritocracy (ranged from 1 to 7). The gender variable was dummy coded into 1 = female, 0 = non-female. The ethnicity variable was dummy coded into 1 = White, 0 = non-White.
Moderation Models Predicting the Desire for Status “More than Other People” Based on Economic Inequality and Social Class Manipulations, Study 3.
Note. Inequality = the economic inequality manipulation (dummy coded into 1 = high inequality, −1 = low inequality). Class = the social class manipulation (dummy coded into 1 = high social class, −1 = low social class). Meritocracy = belief in meritocracy (ranged from 1 to 7). The gender variable was dummy coded into 1 = female, 0 = non-female. The ethnicity variable was dummy coded into 1 = White, 0 = non-White.
Moderation Models Predicting the Desire for Wealth in General Based on Economic Inequality and Social Class Manipulations, Study 3.
Note. Inequality = the economic inequality manipulation (dummy coded into 1 = high inequality, −1 = low inequality). Class = the social class manipulation (dummy coded into 1 = high social class, −1 = low social class). Meritocracy = belief in meritocracy (ranged from 1 to 7). The gender variable was dummy coded into 1 = female, 0 = non-female. The ethnicity variable was dummy coded into 1 = White, 0 = non-White.
Moderation Models Predicting the Desire for Status in General Based on Economic Inequality and Social Class Manipulations, Study 3.
Note. Inequality = the economic inequality manipulation (dummy coded into 1 = high inequality, −1 = low inequality). Class = the social class manipulation (dummy coded into 1 = high social class, −1 = low social class). Meritocracy = belief in meritocracy (ranged from 1 to 7). The gender variable was dummy coded into 1 = female, 0 = non-female. The ethnicity variable was dummy coded into 1 = White, 0 = non-White.
Study 3: the desire for wealth (left) and status “more than I have” (right) as a function of economic inequality (low vs. high inequality) and social class (low vs. high social class) manipulations. The dashed line depicts the effect of inequality on the desire among participants under the low social class condition, whereas the solid line depicts this effect among those under the high social class condition.
Study 3: the desire for wealth (left) and status “more than other people” (right) as a function of economic inequality (low vs. high inequality) and social class (low vs. high social class) manipulations. The dashed line depicts the effect of inequality on the desire among participants under the low social class condition, whereas the solid line depicts this effect among those under the high social class condition.
Study 3: the desire for wealth (left) and status in general (right) as a function of economic inequality (low vs. high inequality) and social class (low vs. high social class) manipulations. The dashed line depicts the effect of inequality on the desire among participants under the low social class condition, whereas the solid line depicts this effect among those under the high social class condition.
To further understand the interaction, we conducted a series of simple main effects and interaction contrast analyses. Results showed that, although inequality heightened desire for wealth and status (in both comparative and general terms) in both low and high social class conditions, the effect on desire for “more than I have” was stronger in the low (rather than high) social class condition, whereas the effect on the desire for “more than other people” and people’s general desire was stronger in the high (rather than low) social class condition. More details are reported in the Supplementary Materials (see also Table S10 for means, adjusted means, SDs, and SEs of the desire measures for the four inequality-by-class groups).
Discussion
Replicating Studies 1 and 2 findings, Study 3 provided further experimental evidence that higher inequality heightened people’s desire for wealth and status (regardless of whether desire was measured in comparative or general terms). Notably, with regard to desire reflecting self-improvement concerns (i.e., desire for “more than I have”), the effect of inequality was stronger among low compared with high social class individuals. This is also consistent with Study 2 findings supporting H2a and H2b. However, in relation to desire reflecting social comparison concerns (i.e., desire for “more than other people”) as well as people’s general desire, the effect of inequality was stronger among high compared with low social class individuals, supporting H3a and H3b. Together, as we will discuss further below, these results suggest nuanced differences in the nature of the desire for wealth and status among people from different social class backgrounds in response to economic inequality.
General Discussion
Across three studies, our work provides both experimental (Studies 1 and 3) and correlational (Study 2) evidence that higher economic inequality heightens people’s desire for wealth and status. This effect of inequality on desire remains robust when controlling for societal wealth, and across subjective and objective operationalizations of inequality and assessments of desire in comparative and general terms. Moreover, the “higher inequality—heightened desire” link is found to be moderated by social class not only in the analysis of real-world cross-national data (Study 2), but also in an experiment in which both economic inequality and social class were manipulated (Study 3). In addition, it reveals that the inequality effect on desire for wealth and status reflecting self-improvement concerns is stronger among lower than higher social class individuals, whereas this effect on desire for wealth and status reflecting social comparison concerns is stronger among higher than lower social class individuals.
Implications
The present research has several implications. First, it provides an examination of predictions derived from social identity and status anxiety perspectives (Jetten et al., 2017; Wilkinson & Pickett, 2010b, 2018b) by showing that economic inequality fuels both wealth and status seeking. Notably, this effect of inequality on people’s desire for wealth and status is independent of the influence of societal wealth. 5 It also provides support for the key assumption of the material rank perspective (Walasek & Brown, 2019) by showing that, in unequal societies, people’s desire for wealth was closely linked to their desire for status (rs = .36–.78, ps < .001), and that the former changes in a similar pattern to the latter in response to rising inequality.
Specifically, a heightened desire for wealth and status induced by higher inequality has crucial consequences. At the individual level, it might cause greater pressure for people to work overtime to accumulate wealth and status (Bowles & Park, 2005), and such pressure might further reduce happiness (Oishi et al., 2011) and undermine health (Pickett & Wilkinson, 2015). At the social level, heated wealth and status competition might impede social cohesion (Van de Werfhorst & Salverda, 2012), breed more tension and anomie (Sprong et al., 2019; Tanjitpiyanond et al., 2021), and lead to reckless wealth and status striving (e.g., through aggressive or even criminal behaviors; Greitemeyer & Sagioglou, 2017; Metz & Burdina, 2018).
Second, our present work reveals social class differences in the “higher inequality—heightened desire” link. However, the Inequality × Class interaction is not straightforward. In particular, the inequality effect on people’s desire for “more than I have” is stronger among lower (compared with higher) social class individuals, whereas the inequality effect on people’s desire for “more than other people” is stronger among higher (compared with lower) social class individuals. Consistent with literature suggesting that the psychology of the lower class may be more influenced by concerns about absolute gains and losses, whereas the psychology of the upper class is more affected by concerns about ups and downs relative to others (Coburn, 2015; Rambotti, 2015), these results indicate that striving for wealth and status in unequal societies is likely to reflect self-improvement concerns among lower-class individuals but social comparison concerns among upper-class individuals.
It is worth noting that, in Study 3, the pattern of the Inequality × Class interaction in relation to people’s desire in general (i.e., without specifying a comparison) is similar to that for the desire for “more than other people” measure. This similarity suggests that the default referent of people’s wealth and status-seeking might be more outwardly than inwardly focused (i.e., people are generally more focused on social comparison than self-improvement). This interpretation is also supported by correlational results showing that people’s desire in general is more closely related to their desire for “more than other people” (r = .78, p < .001 for wealth, r = .80, p < .001 for status) than to their desire for “more than I have” (r = .53, p < .001 for wealth, r = .57, p < .001 for status; see Table 6).
It is also worth noting that, in Study 2, the pattern of the Inequality × Class interaction affecting people’s perceived importance of possessing wealth and status (as a proxy of their desire for wealth and status) is similar to that found in Study 3 for the desire for “more than I have.” This similarity is likely due to the wording of items. Namely, since desire items in Study 2 started with “it is important to this person,” it is likely that they made “self”-salient (i.e., “to this person”) as the referent of wealth and status-seeking. Therefore, they may have captured people’s desire for wealth and status in ways that are consistent with measures of “more than I have” (i.e., reflecting self-improvement concerns). Admittedly, at the current stage, different interaction patterns seem to depend on specific items, and it is important for future research to validate and extend the examination of the nuances of people’s desire in response to economic inequality.
Third, inequality research has long been criticized for focusing predominantly on Western developed countries (Buttrick & Oishi, 2017). In the present research, we expanded the literature by testing our hypotheses not only in specific national samples (i.e., the U.S. and the U.K. samples), but also in a much broader context of people from many (N = 73) national and cultural backgrounds, thus underlining the generalizability of our findings.
Limitations and Future Directions
Our studies are not without limitations and these limitations provide directions for future research. First, the desire measures require development. Specifically, across our studies, we have relied on self-reported measures to capture people’s desire for wealth and status. In future research, it would be beneficial to include more diverse approaches to tap wealth and status striving such as through behavioral tasks (Belmi & Laurin, 2016) and physiological responses (Scheepers, 2017). Moreover, it would be useful for future research to use more sophisticated means to measure the nuances in people’s desire reflecting different concerns.
Furthermore, it would be worthwhile to investigate underlying processes in future research. For instance, is it status anxiety in general or specifically along the dimension of material wealth that best explains the inequality effect on people’s desire for wealth and status (Walasek & Brown, 2019)? In addition, other potential mediating processes such as perceived relative deprivation or perceived harshness of the social context are also worth examining in future research.
Conclusion
Extending previous literature on the social consequences of inequality, our present research shows that economic inequality affects people’s motivation by heightening their desire for wealth and status. Moreover, our work reveals a moderating role of social class whereby lower-class individuals respond to inequality with a stronger desire reflecting self-improvement concerns and upper-class individuals respond to inequality with a stronger desire reflecting social comparison concerns. In sum, our work not only shows that economic inequality (independent from societal wealth) enhances people’s striving for wealth and status, but also reveals important social class differences in people’s responses to inequality.
Supplemental Material
sj-docx-1-psp-10.1177_01461672221083747 – Supplemental material for Restless in an Unequal World: Economic Inequality Fuels the Desire for Wealth and Status
Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-psp-10.1177_01461672221083747 for Restless in an Unequal World: Economic Inequality Fuels the Desire for Wealth and Status by Zhechen Wang, Jolanda Jetten and Niklas K. Steffens in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by a China Postdoctoral Science Foundation fellowship (2021M690681) awarded to the first author and an Australian Research Council Discovery grant (DP170101008) awarded to the second author.
Supplemental Material
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Notes
References
Supplementary Material
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