Investigating the Impact of Social-Class Cultures on Social Cognition

人类社会的一个共同属性是人们被划分为不同的社会阶层。在美国，我们常说“工人阶级”、“中产阶级”或“上层阶级”。社会阶层的一种观点考虑一个人在社会等级中的相对地位，社会阶层反映了经济资源、教育和职业的差异。另一种观点认为，社会阶层反映了人们在价值观、思想、行为和人生观方面的差异。无论其起源如何，了解社会阶层的存在是很重要的，因为在就业、教育和成就方面的许多重要结果都与一个人的社会阶层有关。例如，一个有趣的差异是阶级之间的“道德鸿沟”，即观察到社会地位较高的人往往比其他人更容易违反道德规范。目前的研究开发了一种社会认知模型来解释这种差异。与其将不讨人喜欢的社会价值观归因于富人（例如，贪婪），本研究中开发的模型考虑的是一个人的社会阶层如何影响对他人的基本看法。具体来说，提出的模型将一系列与阶级相关的现象与“动机相关性”的评估联系起来——也就是说，对他人对自己当前目标和福祉的重要性的快速和自发的判断。该模型表明，与高阶层的感知者相比，不同的相关性评估导致低阶层的个体更多地关注他人，将他人视为身体上更接近的人，并且更容易推断他人的信仰和欲望。这些社会认知过程可能是之前观察到的各种领域的社会阶级差异的原因，包括经济繁荣、教育成就和职业成果。一系列的六项研究将测试假设的社会阶层的社会认知影响。眼球追踪和沉浸式虚拟现实技术将被用来研究社会底层和社会上层人士如何在现实环境中部署他们的视觉注意力。一组实验将检验下层和上层感知者之间的注意差异是否会延伸到听觉注意。其他实验试图了解社会阶层如何影响视觉感知模式——具体来说，下层感知者是否比上层个体更突出、更接近他人。一个有待验证的假设是，高阶层的感知者，由于他们长期倾向于判断他人的相关性较低，所以不太容易推断出他人的想法和感受。最后一个实验将试图通过“文化启动”技术来建立社会阶层文化的因果作用，该技术提示多个社会阶层的成员（例如，第一代大学生）采用他们基于阶级的世界观中的一种或另一种。在研究中获得的知识将有助于找到减少工人阶级个人在高等教育和其他“门户环境”中面临的障碍的方法，从而促进成就、向上流动和经济增长。

One common attribute of human societies is the distribution of people into different social classes. In the United States, we often speak of the "working class," the "middle class," or the "upper class." One view of social class considers a person's relative position within a social hierarchy, with social class reflecting differences in financial resources, education, and occupations. Another view treats social class as reflecting differences among people in their values, ideas, practices, and outlooks on life. Regardless of their origin, the existence of social classes is important to understand, because many important outcomes in employment, education, and achievement are linked to a person's social class. One interesting difference, for example, is the "ethics gap" between classes -- the observation that higher-class individuals tend to break ethical norms more frequently than others. The current research develops a social-cognitive model to account for such differences. Rather than attributing unflattering social values to the rich (e.g., greed), the model developed in this research considers how one's social class might shape basic perceptions of others. Specifically, the proposed model links a diverse array of class-related phenomena to appraisals of "motivational relevance" -- that is, to rapid and spontaneous judgments of others' significance for one's current goals and well-being. The model suggests that divergent relevance appraisals lead lower-class individuals to pay more attention to other people, to see others as physically closer, and to more readily infer others' beliefs and desires, as compared to higher-class perceivers. These social-cognitive processes may be responsible for previously observed social class differences in a variety of areas, including economic prosperity, educational achievement, and occupational outcomes.A series of six studies will test the hypothesized social-cognitive effects of social class. Eye-tracking and immersive virtual reality technology will be leveraged to examine how lower- and higher-class individuals deploy their visual attention in real-world contexts. One set of experiments will examine whether attentional differences between lower-class and higher-class perceivers extend to auditory attention. Other experiments seek to understand how social class affects patterns of visual perception -- specifically, whether lower-class perceivers see other people as more salient and physically closer than do higher-class individuals. One hypothesis to be tested is that higher-class perceivers, because of their chronic tendency to judge other people as low in relevance, are less able to readily infer what others are thinking and feeling. A final experiment will seek to establish the causal role of social class cultures through a "cultural priming" technique that cues members of multiple social classes (e.g., first-generation college students) to adopt one or the other of their class-based worldviews. The knowledge gained in the research will help identify ways of reducing the barriers that working-class individuals face in higher education and other "gateway contexts" -- thus promoting achievement, upward mobility, and economic growth.