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The Desire for Social Status and Economic Conservatism among Affluent Americans

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2020

ADAM THAL Open the ORCID record for ADAM THAL [Opens in a new window]
ADAM THAL*
Affiliation:
Yale University
*
*Adam Thal, Postdoctoral Associate, Yale University, adam.thal@yale.edu.
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Abstract

Affluent Americans have disproportionate influence over policymaking and often use their power to advance conservative economic policies that increase inequality. I show that this behavior is partially driven by affluent Americans’ desire for social status. First, I use a new survey scale to show that affluent Americans’ desire for social status strongly predicts their level of economic conservatism. Second, I test my theory experimentally in the context of social media. On sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, affluent Americans compete for social status by sharing curated versions of their lives that highlight their upper-class lifestyle. When I randomly assign affluent Americans to experience this status competition, it causes them to become more economically conservative. The results help us understand the social and psychological origins of economic conservatism among affluent Americans, and provide the first evidence that social media encourages political behaviors that are conducive to inequality.

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Type
Research Article
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American Political Science Review , Volume 114 , Issue 2 , May 2020 , pp. 426 - 442
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2020 

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Footnotes

I thank Tali Mendelberg, Jacob Hacker, Martin Gilens, Ali Valenzuela, Omar Wasow, Greg Huber, Al Fang, Patrick Tucker, Scott Bokemper, Michael Donnelly, Benjamin Page, and the anonymous reviewers for helpful feedback. I also thank participants at the Princeton American Politics Graduate Research Seminar, the Yale American Politics and Public Policy Workshop, and the Identity Politics Research Group for their suggestions. Replication files are available at the American Political Science Review Dataverse: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/GL2WN8.

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