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The context of low socioeconomic status can undermine people’s motivation for financial success
Accepted Manuscript Title: The context of low socioeconomic status can undermine people’s motivation for financial success Authors: Kristin Laurin, Holly R Engstrom PII: DOI: Reference:
S2352-250X(19)30096-X https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2019.07.016 COPSYC 881
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Please cite this article as: Laurin K, Engstrom HR, The context of low socioeconomic status can undermine people’s motivation for financial success, Current Opinion in Psychology (2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2019.07.016 This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.
SES and motivation for financial success
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The context of low socioeconomic status can undermine people’s motivation for financial success
Kristin Laurin & Holly R. Engstrom
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Holly R. Engstrom can be contacted at [email protected].
Corresponding author: Kristin Laurin, [email protected] University of British Columbia Department of psychology 2136 West Mall Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4 CANADA
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This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council [file number 435-2019-0424 to the first author, and Canadian Graduate Scholarships Program—Masters Scholarships fellowship to the second author]. This agency played no direct role in the research.
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Abstract
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Why are some people poor, and why does poverty persist? One popular explanation blames society for blocking the advancement of lower socioeconomic status (SES) individuals.
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A second accuses the poor of being lazy. Here, we argue that both perspectives are missing a
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critical point. It is true that the material, social and cultural context of low SES makes it difficult for people to successfully move up the ladder, even if they try. But this same context undermines
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their motivation to try, by encouraging them to believe they lack the requisite skills, that the
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world will treat them unfairly, and that professional success comes with significant costs. We
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argue that, if overlooked, this motivational consequence can reinforce stereotypes and inequality.
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Why are some people poor? Public discourse offers two sets of answers to this question. On the one hand, there are those who believe the socioeconomic system is fair. They argue that people end up poor because they deserve it [e.g., 1,2,3,4]: They have not bothered to acquire
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useful skills, or to apply themselves to making valuable contributions to society. On the other hand, there are those who believe that our system is structurally broken. They argue that people end up poor through no fault of their own [e.g., 5,6,7]: Being born into a poor family makes
schooling less affordable and mentors harder to find, and it makes you a target for prejudice and discrimination.
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Here, we contend that both these arguments ignore an important psychological reality:
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The same broken system that gives those born poor lower odds of financial success, compared to
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those born rich, can also undermine their motivation to achieve that success in the first place [8].
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If this lack of motivation is observable to the naked eye, people may interpret it as a cause, rather than a consequence, of low socioeconomic status (or SES). In turn, this reinforces the idea that
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inequality are unnecessary.
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the system is fair, that the poor deserve their low status, and that efforts to redress economic
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1. The system is structurally broken We must begin by recognizing that the proponents of the broken system argument have a
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point: Most modern societies have structural deficits that make it harder for the poor to achieve status than it is for the wealthy to maintain it. Materially, for example, limited finances can make
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education an unaffordable luxury in many countries [9,10]. Even if they can afford it, students from lower SES backgrounds often must hold down part-time jobs to cover their tuition and expenses [11,12], making it harder for them to focus on their school work, and to take advantage of resumé-building extracurricular activities.
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Socially, in most places, more expensive homes are segregated from more affordable ones [13,14,15,16,17], meaning that people born into poverty have very different networks of relationships, compared to people born into wealth or comfort. Among other reasons, this may
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explain why the poor have fewer connections with financially successful others [18,19,20,21]. Having fewer potential mentors available to advise them makes it more difficult for lower SES individuals to attain well-paying, well-respected careers [22,23,24].
And culturally, people can readily distinguish poor from wealthy strangers, based on
subtle cues like social media pictures, or behavioral mannerisms [25, 26]. That poverty is an
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observable characteristic means people can, and often do, discriminate against the poor
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[27,28,29,30]. In so doing, they may often apply the apparently universal stereotype of the poor
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as unskilled and unintelligent [31, 32]. To use one study as an example of this discrimination in
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action, employers more quickly dismissed resumés coming from lower-class men, compared to upper-class men, even when these resumés were identical [33].
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2. The structurally broken system pushes three important beliefs on individuals with low
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SES
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In short, the socioeconomic system in the United States and elsewhere is broken: The poor are at a material, social and cultural disadvantage, compared to the wealthy, in the sense
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that their efforts to succeed in the professional world are less likely to pay off. But these disadvantages do not merely stack the deck against lower SES people who are striving to rise out
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of poverty—they also encourage the poor to adopt three beliefs about themselves and the world which ultimately undermine their very efforts to succeed in the first place. 2.1 Belief #1: My abilities do not measure up
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First, their material, social and cultural disadvantages can cause the poor to doubt that they are competent enough to achieve higher social status. For one thing, their social context, and specifically their limited access to successful mentors, may leave low SES people feeling lost
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when considering how to land a high-status job or get into a prestigious university [34]. For another, their material context often means that, even if lower SES individuals do know the steps they need to take, this knowledge only makes plainer that there are many obstacles in their way. For example, if they know that an unpaid internship or an education at a prestigious private
school would help them land a better job, they likely recognize that their finances place these
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assets out of their reach [35,36]. Thus, low SES people may doubt their ability to get ahead either
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because they do not know the steps required, or because when they do they are painfully aware
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of their inability to take these steps.
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Finally, their cultural context means that low SES individuals who enter university— often touted as the primary route to rising above one’s birth station—often feel a mismatch
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between their interdependent, community-oriented self-concept and the university’s emphasis on
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independence and individual uniqueness [37,38]. This mismatch lowers their confidence in their
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abilities [39]. This confidence may take a further hit from pervasive stereotypes that portray low SES people as lazy and unskilled [31,32,40,41]. These stereotypes can make low SES people feel
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they do not fit in academically [42] and induce stereotype threat [43]. Low SES individuals sometimes even internalize these stereotypes in an effort to legitimize their social system [44].
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They tend—like most other people—to want to believe that they live in a fair world where skilled and hardworking people are rewarded with success [45,46]. Since they find themselves at the bottom of the hierarchy, one of way of maintaining their belief that society is fair is assuming that they must lack what it takes to get to the top.
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2.2 Belief #2: Even if my abilities did measure up, they would not be fairly rewarded Second, their material, social and cultural disadvantages can cause the poor to doubt that what competence they do feel they have will be recognized and rewarded. Low SES individuals
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are frequent targets of stereotyping and discrimination [27,47,48], and because of how lowincome and high-income neighborhoods are segregated, low SES individuals are also likely to
witness more such discrimination compared to high SES individuals [49]. This gives them good reason to doubt that the world is a fair place where everyone gets what they deserve [50,51,52]. Indeed, recent research in our lab supports the idea that the poor doubt others will treat them
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fairly: Even when high and low SES individuals see themselves as equally competent, high SES
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individuals are more confident that others will recognize this competence [53].
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Further compounding this issue, perceiving discrimination—or any form of pervasive
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injustice—is particularly damaging for low status individuals’ confidence that their efforts will be rewarded. When low status individuals learn about injustice, they worry about unfair
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treatment and feel less motivated, because they assume that this general social injustice has
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implications for them, personally. High status individuals can learn about injustice without
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suffering similar consequences [54]. In other words, even if a higher SES individual did happen to witness as much injustice as most lower SES individuals do, these experiences might roll right
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off her back, leaving unscathed her trust that the world will treat her fairly—even if she recognizes others might not be so fortunate.
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2.3 Belief #3: Socioeconomic success is not particularly valuable Third, their material, social and cultural disadvantages can cause the poor to doubt that
financial success is a reward worth pursuing. For one thing, the cultural context of low SES individuals is one where they experience discrimination in status-relevant domains, like schools
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[e.g., 27,28] and the workplace [e.g., 30,55]. This may lead them to disengage from these domains [56,57,58]: That is, they may begin to see these status-relevant domains as unimportant, and to dismiss even the meaningful feedback they receive there.
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For another, low SES individuals are often raised in an interdependent, communityoriented fashion that de-emphasizes the individualistic goal of improving their own status
[59,60,61]. This cultural orientation also leads low SES individuals to be uncomfortable with politically manipulating others to obtain high status, which in turn prompts them to devalue achieving a high rank in their organizational hierarchy [62].
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Finally, from a social standpoint, low SES individuals may prioritize preserving the
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identity that they share with their friends and family, who are likely to also be low SES [16,63].
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To continue to feel their community deserves respect [64], low SES individuals may come to
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value the kinds of blue-collar jobs their friends and family hold, seeing them as more honest and decent than white-collar jobs [65]. In addition, they may fear rejection from their community if
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they pursue status [66], or feel guilty for surpassing their family members [67,68]. For all these
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reasons, high SES people may value academic and career achievement more highly, leading low
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SES people to associate these goals with the outgroup and therefore devalue them to preserve their positive ingroup identity.
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3. These three beliefs are lethal for motivation In short, the material, social and cultural context of poverty causes people to doubt their
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skills, to doubt that what skills they do know they possess will be fairly rewarded, and to doubt that financial success is a valuable end to pursue. This combination of beliefs is precisely the one the least likely to produce motivation for socioeconomic success [69,70,71,72]. To be motivated to climb the social hierarchy, a person must believe she has the abilities necessary to do so, she
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must believe that her abilities will be justly noticed and rewarded with status, and she must believe this status reward is worth pursuing. In the absence of any one of those beliefs, let alone all of them, people cannot be motivated: They cannot fuel the engine that would drive them to
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devote time and energy to schooling or training, to apply for job after job, or to put in extra hours in hopes of getting a promotion. 4. Conclusion
Of course, a great many individuals born into poverty are able to overcome these motivational barriers, and muster the will to work hard to lift themselves out of poverty
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[73,74,75,76,77,78]. Our analysis highlights what an impressive feat this is. The more
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psychologically typical response should be to turn away from professional goals and devote
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one’s time instead to other pursuits: family, for example, or community.
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The existence of these motivational barriers compounds the effects of the broken system in two ways. First, they make it more difficult for lower SES individuals to devote sustained
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effort towards pursuing greater status, and thus less likely they will achieve it. Second, these
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barriers and their demotivating effect reinforce the first popular explanation we noted for why
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the poor are poor: If their demotivation is observable in their behavior, many may interpret it as laziness. That is, many may look at the world around them and conclude that all is well, because
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they see instances of people with lower SES not trying very hard to achieve conventional professional success. These instances, though, represent at best a correlation. We should not
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jump from that correlation to the causal conclusion that people end up poor because they do not try hard to climb the social hierarchy. Rather, we must consider the possibility that people do not try hard to climb the social hierarchy because they are poor.
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Declaration of interests
☒ The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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☐The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered
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as potential competing interests:
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https://doi.org/10.1177/0743558403258856
S2352-250X(19)30096-X https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2019.07.016 COPSYC 881
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Please cite this article as: Laurin K, Engstrom HR, The context of low socioeconomic status can undermine people’s motivation for financial success, Current Opinion in Psychology (2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2019.07.016 This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.
SES and motivation for financial success
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The context of low socioeconomic status can undermine people’s motivation for financial success
Kristin Laurin & Holly R. Engstrom
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Holly R. Engstrom can be contacted at [email protected].
Corresponding author: Kristin Laurin, [email protected] University of British Columbia Department of psychology 2136 West Mall Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z4 CANADA
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This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council [file number 435-2019-0424 to the first author, and Canadian Graduate Scholarships Program—Masters Scholarships fellowship to the second author]. This agency played no direct role in the research.
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Abstract
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Why are some people poor, and why does poverty persist? One popular explanation blames society for blocking the advancement of lower socioeconomic status (SES) individuals.
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A second accuses the poor of being lazy. Here, we argue that both perspectives are missing a
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critical point. It is true that the material, social and cultural context of low SES makes it difficult for people to successfully move up the ladder, even if they try. But this same context undermines
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their motivation to try, by encouraging them to believe they lack the requisite skills, that the
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world will treat them unfairly, and that professional success comes with significant costs. We
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argue that, if overlooked, this motivational consequence can reinforce stereotypes and inequality.
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Why are some people poor? Public discourse offers two sets of answers to this question. On the one hand, there are those who believe the socioeconomic system is fair. They argue that people end up poor because they deserve it [e.g., 1,2,3,4]: They have not bothered to acquire
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useful skills, or to apply themselves to making valuable contributions to society. On the other hand, there are those who believe that our system is structurally broken. They argue that people end up poor through no fault of their own [e.g., 5,6,7]: Being born into a poor family makes
schooling less affordable and mentors harder to find, and it makes you a target for prejudice and discrimination.
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Here, we contend that both these arguments ignore an important psychological reality:
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The same broken system that gives those born poor lower odds of financial success, compared to
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those born rich, can also undermine their motivation to achieve that success in the first place [8].
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If this lack of motivation is observable to the naked eye, people may interpret it as a cause, rather than a consequence, of low socioeconomic status (or SES). In turn, this reinforces the idea that
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inequality are unnecessary.
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the system is fair, that the poor deserve their low status, and that efforts to redress economic
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1. The system is structurally broken We must begin by recognizing that the proponents of the broken system argument have a
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point: Most modern societies have structural deficits that make it harder for the poor to achieve status than it is for the wealthy to maintain it. Materially, for example, limited finances can make
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education an unaffordable luxury in many countries [9,10]. Even if they can afford it, students from lower SES backgrounds often must hold down part-time jobs to cover their tuition and expenses [11,12], making it harder for them to focus on their school work, and to take advantage of resumé-building extracurricular activities.
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Socially, in most places, more expensive homes are segregated from more affordable ones [13,14,15,16,17], meaning that people born into poverty have very different networks of relationships, compared to people born into wealth or comfort. Among other reasons, this may
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explain why the poor have fewer connections with financially successful others [18,19,20,21]. Having fewer potential mentors available to advise them makes it more difficult for lower SES individuals to attain well-paying, well-respected careers [22,23,24].
And culturally, people can readily distinguish poor from wealthy strangers, based on
subtle cues like social media pictures, or behavioral mannerisms [25, 26]. That poverty is an
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observable characteristic means people can, and often do, discriminate against the poor
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[27,28,29,30]. In so doing, they may often apply the apparently universal stereotype of the poor
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as unskilled and unintelligent [31, 32]. To use one study as an example of this discrimination in
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action, employers more quickly dismissed resumés coming from lower-class men, compared to upper-class men, even when these resumés were identical [33].
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2. The structurally broken system pushes three important beliefs on individuals with low
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SES
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In short, the socioeconomic system in the United States and elsewhere is broken: The poor are at a material, social and cultural disadvantage, compared to the wealthy, in the sense
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that their efforts to succeed in the professional world are less likely to pay off. But these disadvantages do not merely stack the deck against lower SES people who are striving to rise out
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of poverty—they also encourage the poor to adopt three beliefs about themselves and the world which ultimately undermine their very efforts to succeed in the first place. 2.1 Belief #1: My abilities do not measure up
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First, their material, social and cultural disadvantages can cause the poor to doubt that they are competent enough to achieve higher social status. For one thing, their social context, and specifically their limited access to successful mentors, may leave low SES people feeling lost
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when considering how to land a high-status job or get into a prestigious university [34]. For another, their material context often means that, even if lower SES individuals do know the steps they need to take, this knowledge only makes plainer that there are many obstacles in their way. For example, if they know that an unpaid internship or an education at a prestigious private
school would help them land a better job, they likely recognize that their finances place these
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assets out of their reach [35,36]. Thus, low SES people may doubt their ability to get ahead either
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because they do not know the steps required, or because when they do they are painfully aware
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of their inability to take these steps.
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Finally, their cultural context means that low SES individuals who enter university— often touted as the primary route to rising above one’s birth station—often feel a mismatch
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between their interdependent, community-oriented self-concept and the university’s emphasis on
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independence and individual uniqueness [37,38]. This mismatch lowers their confidence in their
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abilities [39]. This confidence may take a further hit from pervasive stereotypes that portray low SES people as lazy and unskilled [31,32,40,41]. These stereotypes can make low SES people feel
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they do not fit in academically [42] and induce stereotype threat [43]. Low SES individuals sometimes even internalize these stereotypes in an effort to legitimize their social system [44].
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They tend—like most other people—to want to believe that they live in a fair world where skilled and hardworking people are rewarded with success [45,46]. Since they find themselves at the bottom of the hierarchy, one of way of maintaining their belief that society is fair is assuming that they must lack what it takes to get to the top.
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2.2 Belief #2: Even if my abilities did measure up, they would not be fairly rewarded Second, their material, social and cultural disadvantages can cause the poor to doubt that what competence they do feel they have will be recognized and rewarded. Low SES individuals
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are frequent targets of stereotyping and discrimination [27,47,48], and because of how lowincome and high-income neighborhoods are segregated, low SES individuals are also likely to
witness more such discrimination compared to high SES individuals [49]. This gives them good reason to doubt that the world is a fair place where everyone gets what they deserve [50,51,52]. Indeed, recent research in our lab supports the idea that the poor doubt others will treat them
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fairly: Even when high and low SES individuals see themselves as equally competent, high SES
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individuals are more confident that others will recognize this competence [53].
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Further compounding this issue, perceiving discrimination—or any form of pervasive
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injustice—is particularly damaging for low status individuals’ confidence that their efforts will be rewarded. When low status individuals learn about injustice, they worry about unfair
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treatment and feel less motivated, because they assume that this general social injustice has
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implications for them, personally. High status individuals can learn about injustice without
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suffering similar consequences [54]. In other words, even if a higher SES individual did happen to witness as much injustice as most lower SES individuals do, these experiences might roll right
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off her back, leaving unscathed her trust that the world will treat her fairly—even if she recognizes others might not be so fortunate.
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2.3 Belief #3: Socioeconomic success is not particularly valuable Third, their material, social and cultural disadvantages can cause the poor to doubt that
financial success is a reward worth pursuing. For one thing, the cultural context of low SES individuals is one where they experience discrimination in status-relevant domains, like schools
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[e.g., 27,28] and the workplace [e.g., 30,55]. This may lead them to disengage from these domains [56,57,58]: That is, they may begin to see these status-relevant domains as unimportant, and to dismiss even the meaningful feedback they receive there.
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For another, low SES individuals are often raised in an interdependent, communityoriented fashion that de-emphasizes the individualistic goal of improving their own status
[59,60,61]. This cultural orientation also leads low SES individuals to be uncomfortable with politically manipulating others to obtain high status, which in turn prompts them to devalue achieving a high rank in their organizational hierarchy [62].
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Finally, from a social standpoint, low SES individuals may prioritize preserving the
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identity that they share with their friends and family, who are likely to also be low SES [16,63].
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To continue to feel their community deserves respect [64], low SES individuals may come to
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value the kinds of blue-collar jobs their friends and family hold, seeing them as more honest and decent than white-collar jobs [65]. In addition, they may fear rejection from their community if
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they pursue status [66], or feel guilty for surpassing their family members [67,68]. For all these
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reasons, high SES people may value academic and career achievement more highly, leading low
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SES people to associate these goals with the outgroup and therefore devalue them to preserve their positive ingroup identity.
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3. These three beliefs are lethal for motivation In short, the material, social and cultural context of poverty causes people to doubt their
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skills, to doubt that what skills they do know they possess will be fairly rewarded, and to doubt that financial success is a valuable end to pursue. This combination of beliefs is precisely the one the least likely to produce motivation for socioeconomic success [69,70,71,72]. To be motivated to climb the social hierarchy, a person must believe she has the abilities necessary to do so, she
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must believe that her abilities will be justly noticed and rewarded with status, and she must believe this status reward is worth pursuing. In the absence of any one of those beliefs, let alone all of them, people cannot be motivated: They cannot fuel the engine that would drive them to
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devote time and energy to schooling or training, to apply for job after job, or to put in extra hours in hopes of getting a promotion. 4. Conclusion
Of course, a great many individuals born into poverty are able to overcome these motivational barriers, and muster the will to work hard to lift themselves out of poverty
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[73,74,75,76,77,78]. Our analysis highlights what an impressive feat this is. The more
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psychologically typical response should be to turn away from professional goals and devote
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one’s time instead to other pursuits: family, for example, or community.
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The existence of these motivational barriers compounds the effects of the broken system in two ways. First, they make it more difficult for lower SES individuals to devote sustained
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effort towards pursuing greater status, and thus less likely they will achieve it. Second, these
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barriers and their demotivating effect reinforce the first popular explanation we noted for why
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the poor are poor: If their demotivation is observable in their behavior, many may interpret it as laziness. That is, many may look at the world around them and conclude that all is well, because
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they see instances of people with lower SES not trying very hard to achieve conventional professional success. These instances, though, represent at best a correlation. We should not
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jump from that correlation to the causal conclusion that people end up poor because they do not try hard to climb the social hierarchy. Rather, we must consider the possibility that people do not try hard to climb the social hierarchy because they are poor.
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Declaration of interests
☒ The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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☐The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered
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as potential competing interests:
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