Contents
Many members of the middle class openly express their dislike of rich people. But perhaps, deep down, their attitude towards the most affluent members of society is completely different? Experiment results.
Researchers Suzanne Horwitz and John Dovidio from Yale University (USA) conducted a series of experiments involving middle-class American adults (found via the Internet). In a typical survey, the vast majority of them did not express any particular sympathy for the well-to-do sections of the population. For example, they were more likely to agree with statements like “I don’t particularly like rich people” than with similar statements about the middle class. But researchers were interested not only in openly expressed beliefs, but also in unconscious attitudes.
Read more:
- “Do not be afraid!” with Anna Arkatova: Don’t be afraid of money
To identify them, there is a so-called hidden association test, with the help of which psychologists can, for example, reveal hidden prejudices against people of a certain gender, age, or race. During the test, words or pairs of words appear on the computer screen, and the subjects are required to press buttons on the keyboard as quickly as possible, assigning words to various categories. By the speed of their reaction, one can judge the presence of hidden associations.
In this study, the words were first assigned to two categories – by pressing the “good” (for words such as “beautiful” or “wonderful”) or “bad” (“terrible”, “nasty”) button. Then the task changed – the words had to be classified as “rich” (“high income”, “wealth”) or “middle class” (“average income”, “ordinary”). At the same time, sometimes the same button that previously meant the “good” category could be used to designate a “rich” category, or it could be vice versa. When the “rich” button was the same as the “good” button, the reaction rate of the participants in the experiment was higher – this shows that they have a subconscious association between these two concepts.
Read more:
- 7 ways to think about money in a way that it is
It is noteworthy that such a positive association with the concept of the “middle class” (to which the subjects themselves belonged) was less pronounced. Participants were also tested for hidden dislike of the poor, and it is noteworthy that no relationship was found between hidden positive attitudes towards the rich and negative attitudes towards the poor (this relationship was not found in their openly expressed beliefs either).
In the latest experiment, the researchers wanted to find out how the subjects’ hidden beliefs might influence their evaluation of real-life situations. Seventy-eight (middle-class) subjects were read a story describing an accident: a luxury Jaguar (driven by a wealthy driver) collided with a regular Toyota (driven by a middle-class driver). The subjects were required to rate how guilty, careless and inept each of the drivers was. An openly expressed attitude towards the rich did not affect their judgments, but unconscious positive associations did: the participants in the experiment did not judge the driver of the Jaguar too harshly …
Подробнее см. S. Horwitz, J. Dovidio «The rich – love them or hate them? Divergent implicit and explicit attitudes toward the wealthy», Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, September 2015.