The influence of signs of social class on compassionate responses to people in need

A field experiment ( N = 4,536) examined how signs of social class influence compassionate responses to those in need. Pedestrians in two major cities in the United States were exposed to a confederate wearing symbols of relatively high or low social class who was requesting money to help the homele...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Frontiers in psychology Vol. 13; p. 936170
Main Authors: Callaghan, Bennett, Delgadillo, Quinton M., Kraus, Michael W.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Frontiers Media S.A 25.08.2022
Subjects:
compassion
economic inequality
emotion
person perception
Psychology
social class
socioeconomic status
ISSN:1664-1078, 1664-1078
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:A field experiment ( N = 4,536) examined how signs of social class influence compassionate responses to those in need. Pedestrians in two major cities in the United States were exposed to a confederate wearing symbols of relatively high or low social class who was requesting money to help the homeless. Compassionate responding was assessed by measuring the donation amount of the pedestrians walking past the target. Pedestrians gave more than twice (2.55 times) as much money to the confederate wearing higher-class symbols than they did to the one wearing lower-class symbols. A follow-up study ( N = 504) exposed participants to images of the target wearing the same higher- or lower-class symbols and examined the antecedents of compassionate responding. Consistent with theorizing, higher-class symbols elicited perceptions of elevated competence, trustworthiness, similarity to the self, and perceived humanity compared to lower-class symbols. These results indicate that visible signs of social class influence judgments of others’ traits and attributes, as well as in decisions to respond compassionately to the needs of those who are suffering.
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This article was submitted to Emotion Science, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology
Edited by: James Kirby, The University of Queensland, Australia
Reviewed by: Kelly Kirkland, The University of Melbourne, Australia; Kelsey Perrykkad, Monash University, Australia
ORCID: Bennett Callaghan, orcid.org/0000-0001-6227-7708; Quinton M. Delgadillo, orcid.org/0000-0001-6320-4965
ISSN:1664-1078
1664-1078
DOI:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.936170