Social systems and inequality

Hierarchy-enhancing (HE) process

• Processes, procedures, and values that directly or indirectly serve to maintain group dominance, hierarchy, and/or inequality

Hierarchy-Attenuating (HA) processes

• Processes, procedures, and values that directly or indirectly serve to attenuate group dominance, hierarchy, and/or inequality 

Power

• The relative ability to meet and influence others to get what one needs/wants or create deficits in needs of others 

Types of power

1. Harm and/or its threat

2. Control of resources

3. Knowledge

4. Legitimacy (violence) ~ what is okay and what is not okay to do 

5. Commitment from others (asymmetrical responsibilities) 

Social dominance orientations (SDO)

• An enduring generalized preference for hierarchy and inequality

  • But also for distinct emotional profiles ~ high SDO show less empathy compared to low SDO 

• Preference for gender, race, or class hierarchy

• SDO positively correlates with racism, sexism, dehumanization

• Low status groups can also be high in SDO 

Divergent career choices as a function of SDO

• Whereas low SDO people are more likely to obtain careers in HA (non-profit sector) institutions, high SDO are more likely obtain careers in HE (criminal justice/ law enforcement) institutions

 SDO and policy/procedural preferences

1. High SDO are more likely to hire applicants with a history of racism, compared to low SDO

2. High SDO more likely to prefer legacy admissions over affirmative action admissions-compared to low SDO

3. High SDO are more likely to allocate resources based on merit versus need, compared to low SDO

Hierarchy-enhancing legitimizing myths

• Factors that provide moral or intellectual justification for group based inequality 

Majority group prejudice and allocation of resources

• Majority group members are more likely to be biased against, allocate less resources, and support removal of minority group members as a function of assimilation preferences

Segregation and institutional outcomes

• Education (amount of resources), employment opportunities (availability of stable and secure jobs), environmental quality of life (landfills, dumpsters), opportunities for health living (grocery stores, fresh fruit) 

Using powerful or advantaged groups as the norm

• Powerful or advantaged groups are often viewed as the standard for what is “appropriate” behavior

• This occurs as a mental schema (sometimes) for both members of the advantaged and disadvantaged groups  

Misperceptions of inequality (Hauser and Norton, 2017)

1. People routinely underestimate the level of inequality between groups

   • Both advantaged and disadvantaged groups

2. Misperceptions of inequality are associated with (lack of) support for policies that redistribute resources to disadvantaged groups

Failure to think about privilege

• People in privileged are more likely to think in individual terms than in terms of their privilege group-based identity 

  • Operates for race/ethnicity, class, gender, and sexual orientation

  • As a result, people in privileged groups often react with anger and oppose group-based policies to alleviate inequality

Existence bias

• Individuals show a bias to evaluate existing policies, procedures, and practices as good, right, and the way things ought to be

Longevity bias

• Tendency to assume that longstanding states of the world are better and more right than more recent counterparts

Decision-making under socio-economic threat (Sheehy-Skeffington, 2019) 

• Relative to those who have more wealth, those with less wealth exhibit:

  • Less control over life outcomes

  • A psychological shift to short-term goals, over long-term goals

  • Cognitive resources become focused on tasks that address immediate needs

Stereotype threat

• For members of a stereotype group highly invested in the domain, the threat of being judged and treated stereotypically or possibly fulfilling the stereotype leads them to perform worse in the domain 

• Only applies to those highly motivated to do well in the domain

• A situational threat rooted in stereotypes of a social system or society

Stigmatization

• Occurs when a person possesses (or is believed to possess) some attribute or characteristic that conveys an identity is devalued in a particular social context

  • This is about self-awareness of a devalued identity

  • Can be chronic (within a society): race/ethnicity or gender

  • Can be situational or context-dependent: coming from specific place 

Within identity-threatening situations, those with a devalued identity can report ~ Results:

• Lower self esteem, achievement, and health outcomes (e.g., anxiety; blood pressure)

Social dilemmas

occur when the members of a group, culture, or society are in potential conflict over the creation and use of shared public goods

Public goods

benefits that are shared by a community at large and that everyone in the group has access to, regardless of whether or not they have personally contributed to the creation of goods

Harvesting dilemma

social dilemma leads people to overuse an existing public good

Contribution dilemma

occurs when the short-term costs of a behavior lead individuals to avoid performing it, and this may prevent the long-term benefits that would have occurred if the behaviors had been performed