Wage (In)equality Matters: The Effect of Organizational Economic Inequality on Others’ and Self-Ascriptions

Economic inequality has consequences at the social-psychological level, such as in the way people make inferences about their environment and other people. In the present two preregistered studies, we used a paradigm of an organizational setting to manipulate economic inequality and measured ascript...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Kulich, Clara, Willis, Guillermo B., Moya, Miguel, Rodríguez Bailón, Rosa, Moreno Bella, Eva
Formato: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2023
País:España
Recursos:Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia
Repositorio:e-spacio. Repositorio Institucional de la UNED
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:e-spacio.uned.es:20.500.14468/12717
Acesso em linha:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14468/12717
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:economic inequality
equality
agency and communion
social perception
competition
Actitudes hacia la desigualdad
Descrição
Resumo:Economic inequality has consequences at the social-psychological level, such as in the way people make inferences about their environment and other people. In the present two preregistered studies, we used a paradigm of an organizational setting to manipulate economic inequality and measured ascriptions of agentic versus communal traits to employees and the self. In Study 1 (N = 187), participants attributed more agency than communion to a middle-status employee, and more communion than agency when economic equality was salient. In Study 2 (N = 198) this finding was replicated. Further, this inequality-agency association was explained by perceptions of competitive employee relationships. Results, moreover, suggested that participants mainly attributed more communion than agency to themselves in the equality condition. We conclude that agency and communion ascriptions may be functional and thus inform about the expectations people have on the nature of social relationships in the face of economic inequality.