社会比较对大学生公平感知的影响：主观社会经济地位的调节作用

本研究考察社会比较对大学生公平感知的影响,并探讨主观社会经济地位在其中的调节作用。控制社会比较的方向、不公平程度及有无代价等因素,结果发现,社会比较会影响大学生的公平感知,在向上社会比较条件下,大学生更愿意选择平等选项;主观社会经济地位能够调节社会比较对大学生公平感知的影响,低主观社会经济地位大学生在向下社会比较时更愿意选择平等选项。大学生具有较强的公平感知,关注自身利益是否最大化。     

A Sense of Powerlessness Fosters System Justification: Implications for the Legitimation of Authority,Hierarchy, and Government

In an attempt to explain the stability of hierarchy, we focus on the perspective of the powerless and how a subjective sense of dependence leads them to imbue the system and its authorities with legitimacy. In Study 1, we found in a nationally representative sample of U.S. employees that financial dependence on one's job was positively associated with the perceived legitimacy of one's supervisor. In Study 2, we observed that a general sense of powerlessness was positively correlated with the perceived legitimacy of the economic system. In Studies 3 and 4, priming experimental participants with feelings of powerlessness increased their justification of the social system, even when they were presented with system‐challenging explanations for race, class, and gender disparities. In Study 5, we demonstrated that the experience of powerlessness increased legitimation of governmental authorities (relative to baseline conditions). The processes we identify are likely to perpetuate inequality insofar as the powerless justify rather than strive to change the hierarchical structures that disadvantage them.     

Sugar daddies and blessers: A contextual study of transactional sexual interactions among young girls and older men

This mixed method study aimed to gather a contextual understanding of the perspectives of young girls in South Africa with regard to transactional sexual interactions between older men and young girls. Two major narratives of the “sugar daddy” phenomenon have dominated the public discourse on the topic. One emphasises the girls' vulnerability and experience of victimisation, whereas the other highlights their role as social agents with control in such interactions. In this study, the participants acknowledged the heterogeneity among partners in such interactions, which suggests that the phenomenon of “sugar daddies” cannot be explained by a simple narrative. The girls' experiences form a continuum based on the degree of their individual control and the extent of their vulnerability in such an interaction. Contextual factors and social norms influence decisions and experiences in these interactions. The study concludes that these relationships form part of the girls' daily experiences of structural violence as well as gender inequality and can be regarded as a symptom of broader societal structures and norms. Quantitative data investigate the mental health status of the participants, whereas an essentialist/realist thematic analysis of qualitative data explores experiences and perceptions of the girls.     

Dissimilarity cumulation as a procedure correcting for violations of triangle inequality

Dissimilarity on a finite set is a function that assigns to every pair of points (stimuli) a nonnengative number vanishing if and only if the two points are identical. For any two points in a finite set, the minimum of the length of all finite chains connecting these points is a quasimetric (i.e., it satisfies all metric axioms except for symmetry). The computation of the quasimetric from a dissimilarity can be viewed as a data-analytic procedure of “correcting” dissimilarities into (quasi)distances, an alternative to nonmetric Multidimensional Scaling: the procedure simply replaces the dissimilarity between any two points with the shortest length across all chains of points connecting them. It is shown in this paper that this procedure can be equivalently described as a series of recursive corrections for violations of the triangle inequality across all triples of points considered in an arbitrary order.     

Confucianism and the Lack of the Development of the Self Among Korean American Women

In this essay, I will examine how the societal attribution of women's subordinate role in society influences their psychological health and results in the undesirable effect of broken relationships. I will argue that (1) Confucianism has been a major influence in creating a subordinate role for women in Korea; (2) the societal expectation of women's subordinate role contributes to the arrest in the development of the self in women; and (3) the lack of the development of the self among women brings further broken relationships by causing in women grandiosity, low self-esteem, and a pervasive sense of shame.     

Ideologies of Diversity and Inequality: Predicting Collective Action in Groups Varying in Ethnicity and Immigrant Status

Ideological positions regarding social diversity and status inequality are examined as predictors of people's willingness to engage in collective action. Using social dominance theory and social identity theory, we hypothesized that the relationships between ideology, ethnic identification, and orientation toward collective action will vary depending on the position of one's group. Comparisons were made between four U.S. groups: White natives, White immigrants, Black/Latino natives, and Black/Latino immigrants. Groups differed in their endorsement of social diversity and social inequality, as well as in their orientation toward collective action and their ethnic group identification. For all groups, ethnic identity mediated the link between ideology and collective action, but the valence and magnitude of paths differed as a function of ethnicity and immigrant status. Social diversity was more critical for U.S. immigrants (White and Black/Latino); social inequality accounted for more variance in native-born U.S. groups (although in opposite directions for the two groups).     

Economic and social distance: Perceived income inequality negatively predicts an interdependent self‐construal

Previous research has shown that economic inequality influences how people are related with others. In this article, we suggest that perceived economic inequality influences self‐construal. Specifically, we propose that higher economic inequality leads to an independent self‐construal, whereas lower economic inequality leads to an interdependent self‐construal. Correlational data from Studies 1a and 1b revealed that people who perceive lower levels of economic inequality tend to show higher levels of interdependent self‐construal, even after controlling for social class. In Study 2, using an experimental design, we found that perceived high economic inequality leads to a more independent and less interdependent self‐construal compared to the low economic inequality condition. These results expand the literature bridging the gap between a macro‐social factor, such as economic inequality, and a micro‐social factor, such as self‐construal.     

How living in economically unequal societies shapes our minds and our social lives

In recent decades, the economies of many countries have produced increasingly unequal outcomes for the rich and poor. This economic trend has attracted interest from members of the media, public and political classes as well as researchers who are interested in its societal implications. While this research has traditionally been the purview of economists and sociologists, there has been a burgeoning growth in research that has sought to understand the psychology of economic inequality. In this review, we summarize this work, focusing on two major themes: (1) how people perceive the scale of economic inequality and appraise its significance, and (2) how living in an economically unequal environment shapes people's social lives. Together, this work affirms claims that economic inequality is ‘the defining issue of our time’ (Obama, 2013) with a great deal of destructive potential. We identify important questions that await further research attention.     

Luck egalitarianism and non-overlapping generations

This paper argues that there are good reasons to limit the scope of luck egalitarianism to co-existing people. First, I outline reasons to be sceptical about how “luck” works intergenerationally and therefore the very grounding of luck egalitarianism between non-overlapping generations. Second, I argue that what Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen calls the “core luck egalitarian claim” allows significant intergenerational inequality which is a problem for those who object to such inequality. Third, luck egalitarianism cannot accommodate the intuition that it might be required to leave future generations better off than we are, even if it would come at no cost to ourselves. Finally, I argue that following another, broader, version of luck egalitarianism would require us to level down future generations and possibly even ourselves, which is a problem for those persuaded by the levelling-down objection.