The different effects of income level and educational level on prosocial behavior and other related ideological variables.
Researchers from the Psychosocial Consequences of Social Class Laboratory, that is part of the Psychology of Social Problems Research Group (HUM-289), have recently published an article with seven studies analyzing the effects of educational level and economic income independently on prosocial behavior and other related ideological variables.
The economic and social position in a society, or socioeconomic status, influences many aspects of people's lives, such as emotional well-being or sense of control. To calculate the socioeconomic status of individuals, income and educational level are generally used together, creating a composite index. However, these two characteristics may have different effects on important variables such as prosocial behavior, which refers to activities and behaviors that benefit others and are carried out without expectation of direct or immediate reward.
The results of this article show that this is true for prosocial behavior as well as for attributions about poverty (who is responsible for the situation of poor people), beliefs in meritocracy and beliefs that the world is a fair place. The higher people's educational level, the more pro-social behaviors of a certain type, such as daily help or participation in voluntary associations, they generally engage in. In addition, people in poverty are less likely to blame people for their situation and less likely to believe in meritocracy and that the world is a fair place. On the other hand, income does not have a significant relationship with prosocial behavior, but when it is related it does so in this way: the higher the income, the lower the prosocial behavior. The higher the income, the more people in poverty are blamed, the more meritocratic beliefs are displayed, and the more the world is seen as a fair place.
These results show the importance of carefully analyzing and rethinking how socioeconomic status is measured and its effects on social psychology, without denying the importance of this fundamental concept.
Reference: Moya, M. & Alcañiz-Colomer, J. (2023) The different effects of income and educational level on prosocial behaviour and related ideological variables (Los diversos efectos del nivel de ingresos y nivel educativo en la conducta prosocial y otras variables ideológicas relacionadas). International Journal of Social Psychology, 38(3), 508-540. https://doi.org/10.1080/02134748.2023.2229171
Contact: Joaquín Alcañiz Colomer (@email)