Where you think you are in society (not where you actually are) matters for how you think about inequality

By Giacomo Melli, PhD candidate in sociology, University of Oxford

Imagine society as a ladder with ten rungs. Where would you place yourself? That answer reflects your subjective social status – where you see yourself in society. Importantly, this is not necessarily reflective of where you actually are. Subjective social status matters as it shapes what you believe, how you behave, and, as my new study shows, how much you care about economic inequality.

These days, economic inequality is hard to ignore. In the…

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