Cross-country study gathers new insight about the psychology of social class
Ingrid Fadelli
contributing writer
Gaby Clark
scientific editor
Robert Egan
associate editor
Understanding the effects of social class on people's attitudes, thoughts, feelings and behaviors could have valuable implications, as it could help to tailor social and behavioral interventions around the unique psychological characteristics of target populations. Past studies have introduced and tested various theoretical predictions related to the psychology of social class, yielding a wide range of interesting findings.
Researchers at the University of Lausanne and the University of Tours-CNRS recently carried out a new large-scale study aimed at re-testing various hypotheses about how social class influences people's behavior that were found to be true in earlier works. Their findings, in Nature Human Behavior, only replicated half of the effects observed in earlier research.
"We're three long-time collaborators and friends who study the psychological consequences of social class, that is, how growing up or living with low income, little education, or a sense of being low in the social hierarchy affects the way we think, behave, and feel," Anatolia Batruch, Nicolas Sommet and Frédérique Autin, authors of the paper, told Â鶹ÒùÔº.
"Over the years, we found that many published effects in this area were hard to replicate in our own studies. As early-career researchers entering the field during the replication crisis, we saw the value of focused replication efforts to help refine theory."
As part of their recent study, Sommet, Batruch and Autin set out to systematically test 35 key findings from earlier literature across a large and diverse sample of participants who resided in four different countries. By determining what effects were replicated and which ones were not, the team hoped to inform future studies and behavioral science interventions.
"We built our own sample in Switzerland by mailing our questionnaire to randomly selected households across the country," explained the authors. "In parallel, we worked with a survey company to collect nationally representative samples in the US, France, and India. Altogether, we gathered data from over 33,000 participants. They answered an online survey, with a wide range of psychological questions about how they see themselves, their relationships with others, their thinking style, and more."
All the participants who answered the survey also took part in a short experiment. Subsequently, the researchers used statistical techniques to analyze their data and determine whether it included the same patterns reported in earlier works.
"We found that about half of the effects reported in past studies held up," said Sommet, Batruch and Autin. "For example, we confirmed that people from lower social classes feel they have less control over their lives, take fewer financial risks, and show less narcissism. However, the other half of the effects did not replicate.
"One widely accepted idea in the field is that people from lower social classes are more attuned to others (e.g., more compassionate, more generous) while those from higher classes are more self-focused. We found little support for that. Overall, people from higher social classes seemed more focused on both themselves and others."
Overall, the team's findings suggest that not all theoretical models linking social class to specific behaviors or psychological traits are valid, thus further studies are needed to reach valid conclusions. This work could then pave the way for further large-scale research testing the hypotheses that appeared not to hold up, which could inform the development of behavioral science interventions or policies targeting individuals from a specific social class.
"We now want to understand why our study did not replicate some earlier findings," added the authors. "It could be that the original results were not reliable, or it could be that society has changed. For example, people from higher social classes today might be less self-focused than they were a decade ago. It could also be that measures of orientation toward others or the self need to be adjusted to current ways of being. Future research will help us tell the difference."
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More information: Anatolia Batruch et al, Advancing the psychology of social class with large-scale replications in four countries, Nature Human Behaviour (2025).
Journal information: Nature Human Behaviour
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