‘You are a useful person’: Economic inequality leads people to approach others in an instrumental way

Abstract

AbstractEconomic inequality has been shown to increase the social distance between people. However, we proposed that people's affiliation with others in more unequal societies depends on whether the relationship is instrumental to self‐enhancement goals. The results from four experiments (total N = 823) supported our proposition. We found that economic inequality increased people's focus on the instrumental aspects of relationships (Experiment 1). In the workplace, economic inequality prompted people to choose colleagues who were instrumental in achieving their performance goals as partners (Experiment 2). Moreover, the effect could be extended to situations where there is no clear benefit. Specifically, participants in high‐inequality contexts tended to approach social targets of instrumental value more than those in low‐inequality contexts, and the effect was driven by self‐enhancement goals (Experiments 3–4). Taken together, our findings suggest that economic inequality encourages instrumental orientation in social interactions, which changes how people view relationships and interact with others.