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High Economic Inequality Makes Us Feel Less Wealthy Cover

High Economic Inequality Makes Us Feel Less Wealthy

Open Access
|Nov 2019

Abstract

Given that people evaluate their own income and that of their group by comparing it with that of others, economic inequality (i.e., the gap between the poor and the wealthy) may affect how people perceive their ingroup wealth. Additional analyses of data of six previously conducted studies (n = 747) provided initial evidence that individuals with average levels of affluence felt that their income group was less wealthy when inequality was high than when it was low. The seventh study consisted of a preregistered experiment to independently test our hypothesis (n = 222). As predicted, compared to participants in the low inequality condition, those in the high inequality condition perceived their own group as less wealthy. The discussion focuses on the importance of considering self-perceived wealth in research on economic inequality.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/irsp.333 | Journal eISSN: 2397-8570
Language: English
Submitted on: Jul 30, 2019
Accepted on: Oct 18, 2019
Published on: Nov 7, 2019
Published by: Ubiquity Press
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Publication frequency: 1 issue per year

© 2019 Ángel Sánchez-Rodríguez, Jolanda Jetten, Guillermo Willis, Rosa Rodríguez-Bailón, published by Ubiquity Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.