Disentangling Social Class–based Inequality: How Social Position Affects Evaluations of Economic and Cultural Markers of Social Class

Abstract

How do the economic and cultural components of social class separately contribute to social class–based inequality? I argue that one approach to disentangle the effects of economic and cultural markers is to consider how decision-makers’ own social positions influence their evaluations of others in micro-level processes. I posit that decision-makers’ social positions influence their understandings and evaluations of the economic and cultural components of social class, giving rise to bias and inequality. In a series of original survey experiments, I manipulate the economic and cultural markers of a fictitious college applicant on subjects with elite and nonelite university degrees. The results show that the markers of social class affect individuals with elite degrees and individuals without elite degrees differently. I find that it is the cultural markers of social class, not the economic markers, that affect the judgments of evaluators with elite degrees. Applicants’ perceived competence and status help to explain the positive effect of cultural markers on evaluators with elite degrees. These results show the importance of social position and micro-level evaluation processes to help explain social class–based inequality.