Previous research suggests that loss of social status adversely impacts subjective well-being. Here, we show that important factors modulating this relationship are age differences in beliefs in opportunities and upward mobility. Across two preregistered longitudinal analyses (N1 = 5,487 and N2 = 1,092; 18–89 years), we found that individuals who hold a stronger belief that they have more opportunities in the future to improve their social status are less likely to suffer from status loss. Further analyses revealed that this interaction effect can be explained by age differences in these beliefs. Specifically, younger individuals were more likely to hold opportunity and upward mobility beliefs and, thus, were better able to maintain their relative level of life satisfaction when experiencing status loss. Overall, these findings contribute to our understanding of how individuals may mitigate the detrimental consequences of status loss to their subjective well-being across the adult life span.
AdlerN. E.EpelE. S.CastellazzoG.IckovicsJ. R. (2000). Relationship of subjective and objective social status with psychological and physiological functioning: Preliminary data in healthy, White women. Health Psychology, 19(6), 586–592. https://doi.org/10.1037/0278-6133.19.6.586
2.
AndersonC.KrausM. W.GalinskyA. D.KeltnerD. (2012). The local-ladder effect: Social status and subjective well-being. Psycholoical Science, 23, 764–771. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797611434537
3.
BaltesP. B. (1987). Theoretical propositions of life-span developmental psychology: On the dynamics between growth and decline. Developmental Psychology, 23, 611–626. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.23.5.611
BoyceC. J.BrownG. D.MooreS. C. (2010). Money and happiness: Rank of income, not income, affects life satisfaction. Psychological Science, 21, 471–475. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797610362671
6.
BrandtsẗdterJ.RothermundK. (2002). The life-course dynamics of goal pursuit and goal adjustment: A two-process framework. Developmental Review, 22, 117–150. https://doi.org/10.1006/drev.2001.0539
7.
BrandtsẗdterJ.RothermundK.KranzD.KühnW. (2010). Final decentrations: Personal goals, rationality perspectives, and the awareness of life’s finitude. European Psychologist, 15, 152–163. https://doi.org/10.1027/1016-9040/a000019
8.
BusseriM. A. (2013). How dispositional optimists and pessimists evaluate their past, present and anticipated future life satisfaction: A lifespan approach. European Journal of Personality, 27(2), 185–199. https://doi.org/10.1002/per.1854
9.
BuunkA. P.PeiróJ. M.RodriguezI.BravoM. J. (2007). A loss of status and a sense of defeat: An evolutionary perspective on professional burnout. European Journal of Personality, 21, 471–485. https://doi.org/10.1002/per.627
10.
CarverC. S.ScheierM. F. (2002). Control processes and self-organization as complementary principles underlying behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 6(4), 304–315. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327957PSPR0604_05
11.
DayM. V.FiskeS. T. (2017). Movin’ on up? How perceptions of social mobility affect our willingness to defend the system. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 8, 267–274.
12.
DienerE. (2013). The remarkable changes in the science of subjective well-being. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 8, 663–666. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691613507583
EbnerN. C.FreundA. M.BaltesP. B. (2006). Developmental changes in personal goal orientation from young to late adulthood: From striving for gains to maintenance and prevention of losses. Psychology and Aging, 21, 664–678. https://doi.org/10.1037/0882-7974.21.4.664
16.
FiskeS. T. (2010). Interpersonal stratification: Status, power, and subordination. In FiskeS. T.GilbertD. T.LindzeyG. (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 941–82). John Wiley.
17.
FreundA. M. (2006). Age-differential motivational consequences of optimization versus compensation focus in younger and older adults. Psychology and Aging, 21, 240–252. https://doi.org/10.1037/0882-7974.21.2.240
18.
FreundA. M.KeilA. (2021). Adult age-related differences in appetitive and aversive associative learning. Emotion, 21(6), 1239–1251. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000860
19.
GielnikM. M.ZacherH.FreseM. (2012). Focus on opportunities as a mediator of the relationship between business owners' age and venture growth. Journal of Business Venturing, 27(1), 127–142.
20.
GilbertP. (2000). The relationship of shame, social anxiety and depression: The role of the evaluation of social rank. Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, 7, 174–189.
21.
GreenF. (2011). Unpacking the misery multiplier: How employability modifies the impacts of unemployment and job insecurity on life satisfaction and mental health. Journal of Health Economics, 30, 265–276.
22.
HavighurstR. J. (1971). Social class perspectives on the life cycle. Human Development, 14, 110–124. https://doi.org/10.1159/000271206
HeckhausenJ.WroschC.SchulzR. (2010). The motivational theory of life-span development. Psychological Review, 117, 32–60.
25.
KnightE. L.MehtaP. H. (2017). Hierarchy stability moderates the effect of status on stress and performance in humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 114, 78–83. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1609811114
26.
LachmanM. E.RöckeC.RosnickC.RyffC. D. (2008). Realism and illusion in Americans’ temporal views of their life satisfaction: Age differences in reconstructing the past and anticipating the future. Psychological Science, 19(9), 889–897. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02173.x
27.
LachmanM. E.WeaverS. L. (1998). The sense of control as a moderator of social class differences in health and well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(3), 763–773. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.74.3.763
28.
LangF. R.WeissD.GerstorfD.WagnerG. G. (2013). Forecasting life satisfaction across adulthood: Benefits of seeing a dark future?Psychology and Aging, 28, 249–61. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0030797
29.
LayteR.WhelanC. T. (2014). Who feels inferior? A test of the status anxiety hypothesis of social inequalities in health. European Sociological Review, 30, 525–535. https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcu057
30.
MajorB.KaiserC. R.O'BrienL. T.McCoyS. K. (2007). Perceived discrimination as worldview threat or worldview confirmation: Implications for self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(6), 1068–1086. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.92.6.1068
31.
MarrJ. C.ThauS. (2014). Falling from great (and not so great) heights: How initial status position influences performance after status loss. Academy of Management Journal, 57, 223–248. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2011.0909
32.
MendelsonT.ThurstonR. C.KubzanskyL. D. (2008). Arousal and stress: Affective and cardio-vascular effects of experimentally-induced social status. Health Psychology, 27(4), 482–489.
33.
NeeleyT. B. (2013). Language matters: Status loss and achieved status distinctions in global organizations. Organization Science, 24, 476–497. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1120.0739
34.
PettitN. C.MarrJ. C. (2020). A trajectories based perspective on status dynamics. Current Opinion in Psychology, 33, 233–237.
35.
PettitN. C.YongK.SpataroS. E. (2010). Holding your place: Reactions to the prospect of status gains and losses. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46, 396–401. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2009.12.007
36.
RedheadD.ChengJ. T.DriverC.FoulshamT.O’GormanR. (2019). On the dynamics of social hierarchy: A longitudinal investigation of the rise and fall of prestige, dominance, and social rank in naturalistic task groups. Evolution and Human Behavior, 40, 222–234. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2018.12.001
37.
RobertsonD. A.WeissD. (2017). In the eye of the beholder: Can counter-stereotypes change perceptions of older adults.’Social Status? Psychology and Aging, 32, 531–542. https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0000186
38.
SagioglouC.ForstmannM.GreitemeyerT. (2019). Belief in social mobility mitigates hostility resulting from disadvantaged social standing. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 45, 541–556. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167218789073
ScheepersD.EllemersN.SintemaartensdijkN. (2009). Suffering from the possibility of status loss: Physiological responses to social identity threat in high status groups. European Journal of Social Psychology, 39, 1075–1092.
41.
ShaneJ.HeckhausenJ. (2017). It’s only a dream if you wake up: Young adults’ achievement expectations, opportunities, and meritocratic beliefs. International Journal of Psychology, 52, 40–48. https://doi.org/10.1002/ijop.12408
42.
SteptoeA.BreezeE.BanksJ.NazrooJ. (2013). Cohort profile: The English longitudinal study of ageing. International Journal of Epidemiology, 42, 1640–1648. https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dys168
43.
TajfelH.TurnerJ. C. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In AustinW. G.WorchelS. (Eds.), The social psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 33–47). Brooks/Cole.
44.
TanJ. J. X.KrausM. W.CarpenterN. C.AdlerN. E. (2020). The association between objective and subjective socioeconomic status and subjective well-being: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 146, 970–1020. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000258
WeissD.GreveW.KunzmannU. (2022). Responses to social inequality across the life span: The role of social status and upward mobility beliefs. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 46, 261–277. https://doi.org/10.1177/01650254221089615
47.
WeissD.KunzmannU. (2020). Longitudinal changes in subjective social status are linked to changes in positive and negative affect in midlife, but not in later adulthood. Psychology and Aging, 35, 937–947. https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0000572
48.
WeissD.SczesnyS.FreundA.M. (2016). Wanting to get more or protecting one’s assets: age-differential effects of gain versus loss perceptions on the willingness to engage in collective action. Journals of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 2, 254–264. https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbu098
WroschC.HeckhausenJ.LachmanM. E. (2000). Primary and secondary control strategies for managing health and financial stress across adulthood. Psychology and Aging, 15(3), 387–399. https://doi.org/10.1037/0882-7974.15.3.387
51.
WroschC.JobinJ.ScheierM. F. (2017). Do the emotional benefits of optimism vary across older adulthood? A life span perspective. Journal of Personality, 85(3) 388–397. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12247
52.
WroschC.ScheierM. F. (2020). Adaptive self-regulation, subjective well-being, and physical health: The importance of goal adjustment capacities. Advances in Motivation Science, 7, 199–238.
53.
ZacherH.FreseM. (2009). Remaining time and opportunities at work: Relationships between age, work characteristics, and occupational future time perspective. Psychology and Aging, 24(2), 487–493.
54.
ZacherH.HeusnerS.SchmitzM.ZwierzanskaM. M.FreseM. (2010). Focus on opportunities as a mediator of the relationships between age, job complexity, and work performance. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 76(3), 374–386.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
