Cognitive And Emotional Evaluations Of Different Socioeconomic Classes

As China's economic inequality has increased,the issue of economic inequality has aroused strong concern from all society,and the reasons why individuals are poor or rich have aroused social debate.The wealth gap between people is widening and the emotional attitudes of different social classes towards each other are changing.Previous studies have found that economic inequality affects people's attributions of poverty and wealth,but previous research has been limited to cognitive evaluations and has not considered emotional evaluations or the impact of social class on evaluations.This study based on previous research and designs three studies to explore issues that were not considered in previous research.Study 1 explores the relationship between subjective economic inequality,social class,and cognitive and emotional evaluations of different social classes through questionnaire study.In terms of cognitive evaluations,we found that:(1)the stronger the subjective economic inequality,the higher the external evaluation of success(family,luck,society)of the high classes,middle income classes and low income classes.In terms of emotional evaluations evaluation,we found that(1)The stronger the subjective economic inequality,the stronger the feeling of pity for the middle-income class(2)The stronger the subjective economic inequality,the stronger the feeling of contempt for the low-income class.Study 2 explores whether economic inequality affects people's cognitive and emotional evaluations of different social classes and the moderating role of subjective social classes in this relationship by experimentally priming economic inequality.In terms of cognitive evaluation,we found that:(1)Participants in the high inequality condition gave high income social group higher internal evaluations(personal drive,willing to take risks,etc.);(2)The subjective social class of the participant moderates the cognitive evaluation on the low-income social group.In terms of emotional evaluations,we found that:(1)Participants in the high inequality condition elicited stronger envy emotion towards high income social group;(2)Participants in the high inequality condition elicited stronger admiration,envy and contempt emotion towards middle income social group;(3)Participants in the high inequality condition elicited stronger contempt emotion and weaker envy emotion towards low income social group;(4)The subjective social class of the participant moderates the emotional evaluation on the low-income social group.Study 3 explores whether economic inequality affects people's cognitive and emotional evaluations of different social classes(CEO class and employee class)in a company context by experimentally priming economic inequality,and explores the moderating role of subjective social class in this relationship.In terms of cognitive evaluation,we found that:(1)Participants in the high inequality condition gave CEO higher internal evaluations(personal drive,willing to take risks,etc.).In terms of emotional evaluations,we found that:(1)Participants in the high inequality condition elicited stronger envy and contempt emotion towards CEO;(2)Participants in the high inequality condition elicited stronger contempt and pity emotion towards employees.The difference in cognitive evaluation between the results of Study 1 and Study 2 and 3 may reflect the difference in cognitive evaluations effects between the subjective economic inequality measured by the questionnaire and the experimentally manipulated economic inequality.However,the three studies have consistent results on emotional evaluation,suggesting that different measures of economic inequality have no effect on emotional evaluation.In conclusion,this results finds that economic inequality significantly affects people's cognitive and emotional evaluations.At the same time,the impact of economic inequality on cognitive and emotional evaluation reflects differences in social class.This study could help in understand the differences in cognitive and emotional evaluation of different social classes under the society with increasing economic inequality.