Group Dominance, System Justification, and Hostile Classism: The Ideological Roots of the Perceived Socioeconomic Humanity Gap That Upholds the Income Gap

Abstract

Perceiving low-socioeconomic status (low-SES) groups as less human than high-SES groups contributes to justifying socioeconomic inequality. Despite this issue’s relevance, previous research has not acknowledged the possible causes of this perceived humanity gap (differences in humanity between SES groups). In this project, we focus on analysing the possible influence of hierarchy-enhancing ideological variables on this gap. To do so, in a first correlational study (N = 765), we analyse the extent to which certain ideological variables predict the perceived humanity gap between low- and high-SES groups. Our results indicate that group dominance, system justification, and hostile classism are highly predictive of the humanity gap. In a second correlational study (N = 521) we found that the perceived humanity gap, the tendency to blame low-SES groups and praise high-SES groups for their economic standings, sequentially mediated the relationship among social dominance, system justification, and hostile classism with the support of social change policies. Finally, we manipulated each ideological variable in three equivalent studies (N = 631) to test its influence on the previous pattern of mediational results. The results confirmed the ideological variables’ antecedent roles in the mediation analysis. Finally, we discuss the role of the ideological hierarchy variables in the maintenance of socioeconomic differences through (de)humanisation.