Week 5: Power

Question 1

What is Power?

Answer 1

Asymmetric control over valued resources in a social relationship

-> captures the sense of dependence between two (or more) parties

-> Implies a group’s control over its own fate (and the fate of other groups)

Question 2

What is Power? In Intergroup relations… Dominant Group

Answer 2

Majority group/high-power

Group in society that holds position of power

Establish values and norms - typically benefit the ingroup

Enjoy certain privileges (e.g., better housing, education, income, etc.)

Question 3

What is Power? In intergroup relations… subordinate group

Answer 3

Minority group/lower-power group

Groups that are treated unequally due to membership in particular social group (e.g., ethnic, racial, religious, sexuality, gender)

Minority does not refer to size
-> e.g., dominant group in South Africa was White South Africans who make up about 10% of the population

Question 4

Power is linked to social status

Answer 4

Power -> asymmetrical control over resources

Status -> social prestige and respect

Power and status often go together and are correlated in the real world

> those with higher power tend to have higher status, e.g., social class -> combines power and hierarchical rank

Question 5

Social group memberships are associated with different levels of power, e.g., social class

Answer 5

People use social class as a tool to compare their own social standing to others

Question 6

Social Distance Theory of Power

Answer 6

Psychological distance: a sense of separation between the self and other instances (e.g., other people, events, time, place)

Social distance - separation between self and others

Power produces asymmetric social distance

Question 7

Social Distance Theory of Power - Higher vs. Lower Power

Answer 7

Those with higher power experience more social distance from others, compared to those with lower power

High-power individuals pay less attention to the mental states of others compared to low-power individuals

Having low-power is associated with being better at - e.g., reading the emotion of others, having empathic concerns over others, engaging in perspective taking

Question 8

Power as Control

Answer 8

The powerless are more likely to form complex, non-stereotypic impression of the higher-power group; this is because they pay more attention to the powerful (who control resources)

The powerful pay less attention and engage in more stereotyping of the lower-power group -> this serves to maintain the status quo

Question 9

Stereotypes of those with high- & low-power serve to justify their social positions. The stereotype content model applies to social classs:

Answer 9

• Upper class: high power and status -> more competence but low warmth (cold-but-competent)
• Lower class: low power and status -> low competence, but high warmth (incompetent-but-warm)

Question 10

Power as Control, example of Upper-Class Representation of ‘JOHN’

Answer 10

John makes $3,000,000 each year. He owns a vacation home in Hawaiii, has a private yacht, and owns three expensive sports cars.

Question 11

Power as Control, example of Middle-Class Representation of ‘JOHN’

Answer 11

John has a full-time job that pays an average salary. He owns his own home, but still has a sizable mortgage. he drives a 5-year-old car that he bought second-hand

Question 12

Power as Control, example of Lower-Class Representation of ‘JOHN’

Answer 12

John has been homeless for the past 3 years and is currently staying in a shelter. He rarely has enough money for food and sometimes will dig through trash cans to find something to eat

Question 13

Power as Control - upper, lower, and middle-class

Answer 13

Upper-class targets judged as more competent than warm

Lower-class targets judged as more warm than competent

Middle-class targets judged as equally warm and competent

Question 14

When considering contact across class lines…

Answer 14

Higher-status people tend to talk down using the competence downshift

Lower-status people tend to talk up by emphasising competence

Question 15

Social Cognition of Social Class

Answer 15

Lower class individuals favour contextual over dispositinal explanations for social events, i.e., they explain various phenomena as happening due to reasons beyond an individual’s control (external factors); this is in part because they have lower perceived social control

This makes sense because: higher class strata enjoy more opportunity - rich environments, whereas those in lower class strate face more resources - and opportunity-impoverished environments

Question 16

Perceived Social Class

Answer 16

Compared to objective social class indicators such as educaiton and occupation, subjective social class tends to be a better predictor of various life outcomes such as health and happiness -> subjective social class tends to be moderately and positively correlated with objective social class

Question 17

Estimating Pay Gaps - Kiatpongsan & Norton (2014)

Answer 17

Used surveys from 55, 2000 participants in 40 countries

Asked participants:
> how much money they thought corporate CEOs made compared with an ‘unskilled’ factory worker (estimate pay ratio)

> How much more pay they thought CEOs should make compared to the ‘unskilled’ factory worker (ideal pay ratio)

> Compared these estimates to actual pay (actual pay ratio)

The actual pay ratios were only available for 16 countries

People tend to drastically underestimate the actual pay gap and wish for a smaller pay gap

Question 18

Growing Levels of Inequality

Answer 18

The richest eight individuals own the same amount of money as 50% of the world

The richest 1% has more wealth than the combined total of 99% of the world

The richest 20% of US owns 88.9% of total wealth

Question 19

Outcomes of Inequality

Answer 19

Health and social problems are worse in more unequal countries

Index of:
- life expectancy
- Math and Literacy
- Infant Mortality
- Homicides
- Imprisonment
- Teenage Births
- Trust
- Obesity
- Mental Illness (incl. drug and alcohol addiction)
- Social Mobility

The higher the income inequality, the worse the index of health and social problems

Question 20

Perceived Inequality - are perceptions or objective indicators of inequality a better predictor of outcomes?

Answer 20

It’s not just about objective inequality - perceptions of inequality predicts detrimental outcomes just as well as objective inequality… and sometimes it is even a better predictor.

Other findings show that the perceived fairness of inequality better predicts outcomes than perceptions of inequality itself.

Question 21

Wealth Categorisation - the fit hypothesis

Answer 21

Higher inequality makes wealth a more fitting social category to understand the social world

Conclusion - archival evidence demonstrates that when economic inequality was higher, so too was the tendency for books and media publications to refer to wealth categories.

Question 22

Wealth Categorisation - How to manipulate inequality and social class?

Answer 22

Participants often have very strong a priori beliefs of levels of inequality in their societies.

So… Peters et al., 2022 examined whether people in societies with higher inequality were - more likely to refer to wealth categories when describing their social world; more likely to value information about others’ wealth

Participants always assigned to middle-income group

Question 23

Wealth Categorisation - Number of participants that mention wealth groups in high vs. low inequality conditions

Answer 23

Finding:
participants who were placed in a more unequal society were more likely to spontaneously mention wealth groups in their written description of life in that society

Question 24

Wealth Categorisation - the likelihood of mentioning wealth-related attributes in high vs. low inequality conditions

Answer 24

Findings: participants who were placed in a more unequal society were more likely to indicate that it was important to know about a stranger’s economic status when trying to understand what they are like as a person

Question 25

Wealth Categorisation - Number of Participants that mention wealth groups in high vs. low inequality conditions

Answer 25

Findings:
Participants who were placed in a more unequal society were more likely to spontaneously mention wealth groups in their written descriptions of life in that society

Question 26

Wealth Categorisation - The likelihood of mentioning wealth-related attributes in high vs. low inequality conditions

Answer 26

Finding:
Participants who were placed in a more unequal society were more likely to indicate that it was important to know about a stranger’s economic status when trying to understand what they are like as a person

Question 27

Wealth Categorisation - Conclusions and Implications

Answer 27

Higher inequality enhances social categorisation along class lines
- when inequality is greater, people will make greater references to wealth categories in their language
- they are also more likely to stereotype people based on their social class
- this supports the fit hypothesis

Question 28

Other Outcomes of Inequality

Answer 28

Inequality can also have a range of downstream consequences

Greater perceived inequality leads to:
- feeling poor
- greater desire for wealth
- greater desire for status
- enhanced perception of others as competitive and individualistic

Question 29

Intergroup Helping

Answer 29

• Helping is universally viewed as desirable and prosocial behaviour
• Yet, asking and receiving help tends to denote lower power
• Helping and being helped reflect and reinforce power hierarchy between the helper and recipient

Question 30

Intergroup Helping - traditional focus of helping research has been on the individual, not the group, but…

Answer 30

When helper’s and recipients’ social identities are salient, helping relations should be analysed as a intergroup interaction

Question 31

Intergroup helping relations between structurally unequal groups involve mechanism that could reinforce or challenge existing inequality

Answer 31

Receiving help could threaten social identity
- self-esteem affected -> reinforce stereotypes that disadvantaged group cannot make it on their own

• seeking and receiving help from members of a higher status group may carry with it the stigma of inferiority and dependency

Question 32

Types of Helping

Answer 32

Autonomy-oriented help: providing the recipients with the tools to solve their problems on own. Implies viewing recipients with agency and efficacy.

Dependency-oriented help: providing the recipients with the full solution to the problem. Implies viewing the recipients as unable to contribute towards solving their own problems, thereby reinforcing dependency.

Question 33

When we view intergroup helping dynamics through lens of group-based power, we expect:

Answer 33

High-power groups to provide more dependency-oriented help towards low-power groups -> offering dependency-oriented help associated with more paternalistic beliefs

Low-Power groups to seek and receive autonomy-oriented help from high-power groups

Question 34

Intergroup Helping - Households were randomly selected to receive cash or vouchers targeted communities living in poverty

Answer 34

Cash-transfers viewed as more autonomy-oriented compared to vouchers - > provided freedom to recipients to choose how to spend their money

Cash recipients also reported feeling more empowered and having more life improvements compared to voucher recipients