Sticky Social Class: A Dynamic Perspective on Subjective Social Class in the Workplace

Academy of Management Proceedings · 2025-07-01

Recent work examines the initial experiences of the upwardly mobile at work (i.e., workers from lower-class backgrounds who enter upper-class contexts), aligning with an increasing focus on diversifying white-collar organizations. Yet, prior work has largely failed to consider how these changes in social class affect people’s beliefs about themselves over time. In cross-sectional and longitudinal data (N = 4,335), we explore whether the upwardly mobile’s subjective class identification and sense of fit with their new social class change over time to match those from higher-class backgrounds. We find that upwardly mobile alumni of elite-educational institutions tend to experience similar employment and income outcomes as their upper-class peers, yet experience often life-long gaps in identification and fit. In a Pilot, we find evidence that the upwardly mobile maintain their lower-class identity and experience less identification and fit in their new upper-class context, even after many decades. We build on these findings using a longitudinal approach (Study 1) and a large, cross-sectional survey with alumni of an elite professional school (Study 2). Rather than seamlessly transitioning to their new upper-class contexts, these results suggest that the psychological effects of the upwardly mobile’s social class background are relatively sticky and linger over time.

Social Class

2025-05-01 · 2 citations

Social class begins with inequalities in material resources, but its influences on psychology and behavior are vast ... This widening social class divide—and its corresponding assumptions of differential value or worth—is not only morally questionable; it has become a threat to the social fabric and institutions that sustain society.

Professors’ “feminine” behavioral cues in the classroom close gender gaps in participation.

Journal of Experimental Psychology General · 2025-11-24

Record numbers of women students have enrolled in graduate business programs-a path to greater career prospects. Yet gender disparities in grades and career outcomes persist. Research suggests that one reason why they persist is because business schools are-and have been historically-male-dominated with cultures characterized by masculine defaults. These cultures regard stereotypically masculine characteristics and behaviors (e.g., being assertive and competitive) as neutral, necessary, or standard. In business school settings, we investigate whether there are gender disparities in a critical aspect of students' experiences: classroom participation. In an observational field study of 3,159 students across 76 Master of Business Administration classrooms, we find a gender gap in actual student participation behavior. Importantly, however, our findings indicate that this gap is not inevitable. Using thin-slice impressions of professors' behaviors during classroom interactions, we find that when professors diverge from the masculine default by exhibiting "feminine" behavioral cues (e.g., subtle other-oriented behaviors), the gender participation gap closes. In a second, preregistered experiment, we provide causal evidence that professors' behavioral cues affect student participants' anticipated participation by shaping their experiences of inclusion. Our findings highlight that, in male-dominated settings, shifting professors' behavioral cues away from masculine defaults has the potential to create more equitable spaces. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

What causes social class disparities in education? The role of the mismatches between academic contexts and working-class socialization contexts and how the effects of these mismatches are explained.

Psychological Review · 2024-07-18 · 43 citations

magnify social class disparities in education. This integrated model has the potential to reshape research and discourse on social class and education. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

The Strengths of People in Low-SES Positions: An Identity-Reframing Intervention Improves Low-SES Students’ Achievement Over One Semester

2024-06-17 · 1 citations

Students from low socioeconomic-status (SES) backgrounds such as first-generation and low-income students are often portrayed as deficient, lacking in skills and potential to succeed at university. We hypothesized that such representations lead low-SES students to see their SES-identity as a barrier to success and impair achievement. If so, reframing low-SES students’ identity as a source of strength may help them succeed. Testing this hypothesis, we developed a highly scalable online-exercise. In Experiment 1 (N=214), this SES-identity-reframing exercise helped low-SES students to see their SES-identity more as a source of success, and boosted their performance in an academic task by 13%. In Experiment 2, a large randomized-controlled intervention field-experiment with 786 students, we implemented the identity-reframing intervention in a university’s online-learning-program. This improved low-SES students’ grades over the semester. Acknowledging the strengths low-SES students bring to university settings can help these students access their strengths and apply them to schooling.

The Strengths of People in Low-SES Positions: An Identity-Reframing Intervention Improves Low-SES Students’ Achievement Over One Semester

Social Psychological and Personality Science · 2024-10-20 · 11 citations

Students from low-socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds such as first-generation or low-income students are often portrayed as deficient, lacking in skills and potential to succeed at university. We hypothesized that such representations lead low-SES students to see their SES-identity as a barrier to success and impair achievement. If so, reframing low-SES students’ identity as a source of strength may help them succeed. Testing this hypothesis in a highly scalable form, we developed an online low-SES-identity-reframing exercise. In Experiment 1 ( N = 214), this exercise helped low-SES students to see their SES-identity more as a source of success and boosted their performance on an academic task by 13%. In Experiment 2, a large randomized-controlled intervention field experiment ( N = 786), we implemented the identity-reframing intervention in a university’s online learning program. This improved low-SES students’ grades over the semester. Recognizing the strengths low-SES students bring to university can help students access these strengths and apply them to schooling.

Taking a social‐class‐in‐context perspective on the psychology of social class

Journal of Social Issues · 2024-11-14 · 8 citations

Abstract Social class researchers in social psychology have pushed the field to become more focused on and attentive to the critical role of sociocultural contexts. In this article, we label and articulate the key ingredients of the approach that many social psychological researchers have come to use: what we refer to as a social‐class‐in‐context perspective . This perspective means attending to the contextual differences in resources that create social class differences in psychology and behavior. We also suggest some additional steps that researchers can take to become even more attentive to and responsive to the important role of contexts in creating social class. As a first step, we suggest the importance of adopting a definition of social class that directly explicates its relationship to similar constructs, such as power and status, and also links it to the contexts that produce it. Second, building on this definition of social class, we then describe the importance of taking a multi‐level approach to understanding how different social class contexts shape psychology and behavior. Finally, we articulate the important implications and future directions that emerge from intentionally adopting this perspective.

Interdependent behavior only benefits employees from working-class backgrounds when it is both enacted and valued.

Journal of Experimental Psychology General · 2024-01-16 · 7 citations

= 2,566), we find that they do not. We theorize and document that this is because there is often a decoupling between enacting interdependent behavior and whether such behavior is valued as part of being a "good" employee. We find that employees from working-class backgrounds only experience a cultural match and its benefits (e.g., sense of fit, high retention intentions) when interdependent behaviors are both enacted and valued. In contrast, when interdependent behaviors are enacted but not valued, employees from working-class backgrounds experience a cultural mismatch. Furthermore, we find that this pattern is unique to employees from working-class backgrounds: Employees from middle-class backgrounds report similar fit and retention regardless of whether there is a coupling of enacted and valued interdependent behavior. Taken together, our results suggest that it is critical to examine multiple elements of culture simultaneously (e.g., both enacted and valued behavior) to fully understand and predict the consequences of cultural (mis)match. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Technoeconomic Evaluation of Alternatives for TTHM Compliance in Class A Reuse Effluent

Proceedings of the Water Environment Federation · 2024-10-01

The benefits of difference-education interventions in lower-resourced institutions.

Journal of Experimental Psychology General · 2023-11-30 · 5 citations

were unique compared to a social-belonging intervention. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).