CIMCYC Members of the Social Psychology of Inequality Laboratory (http://wwwlocal.ugr.es/~psidesigualdad/; and part of the Psychology of Social Problems group (HUM-289) in collaboration with the University of Salamanca (USAL), have developed a theoretical model supported by multiple empirical investigations to account for the psychosocial consequences of economic inequality.
The large differences between individuals in terms of wealth resources is one of the greatest challenges we face as a society, as high levels of inequality have severe psychosocial consequences. The Economic Inequality as Normative Information Model (EINIM) proposed by the researcher(s) points out that part of these consequences is due to the fact that we use the level of economic inequality we perceive as a key to infer what most people living in that context are like.
Because human beings are extremely social, we tend to use the behavior of others as guides to our own behavior. Therefore, once we have inferred how the people around us behave, we tend to adjust our behavior to that of others.
Thus, if, for example, we perceive a lot of economic inequality in society, we may infer that people living in such an unequal context are extremely competitive. And if we think that we live in a very competitive environment, our own behavior will tend to be competitive as well.
In conclusion, according to the proposed model, the degree of economic inequality we perceive around us can affect our behavior because it leads us to think about what the people we live with are like, which in turn makes us adjust our own behavior.
Full reference:
Sánchez-Rodríguez, A., Rodríguez-Bailón, R. & Willis, G. B. (2023) The economic inequality as normative information model (EINIM), European Review of Social Psychology, DOI: 10.1080/10463283.2022.2160555
Contact researcher(s):
Ángel Sánchez-Rodríguez (angelsr@usal.es)
Rosa Rodríguez-Bailón (rrbailon@ugr.es)
Guillermo B. Willis (gwillis@ugr.es)