A Tale of Two Paupers: Polarized Perceptions of the Poor

Abstract

Attributions for poverty lead to fundamentally distinct reactions to the economically disadvantaged. While attributional beliefs have been shown to differ between individuals (e.g., on the basis of political orientation), the current research suggests that reactions to the poor are polarized within the individual perceiver. In the first three studies, participants evaluated a poor or wealthy target exhibiting either high or low work ethic. As expected, work-ethic main effects, favoring the hardworking and denigrating the lazy, significantly interacted with social class, such that differentiation for the poor was always bigger. In Study 1, perceived work ethic polarized evaluative, affective, and behavioral reactions to the poor, but not the non-poor. Study 2 replicated a similar pattern of results with a mostly lower-middle and working class non-student sample, demonstrating that this effect relates to societal status, not merely ingroup/outgroup processes. Study 3 examines some consequential implications of these biases in an evaluation of polarized social class attitudes on job candidate assessments. Studies 4-6 shift the paradigm and identify some apparent instances of polarization toward the rich and muted reaction to the poor. Theoretical implications of the results across the six studies are discussed.