ECONOMIC INEQUALITY: PERCEPTION, CONSEQUENCES AND LEGITIMIZATION

The income and wealth gap between rich and poor has increased steadily since the early 1980s and has reached unprecedented levels of economic inequalities both within nations and globally. According to the latest OXFAM (2017) report, 8 billionaires now own the same wealth as the poorest 50% of the world population combined (3.6 Billion people). The fast growing scientific literature on the psychology of economic inequality documents the substantial detrimental consequences of economic inequality for society, including higher rates of physical, mental, and social problems, increased status competition, and reduced social cohesion, trust, life satisfaction and happiness. The consequences of economic inequality are particularly severe for lower-class individuals, as it reduces cognitive resources needed for rational decision-making, thus rendering individuals less capable of coping with daily needs. In this seminar course we will examine the recent psychological literature on the antecedents and consequences of economic inequality and analyze social class differences in personality, motivation and cognition. We will also identify the reasons why people often don’t engage in collective action to change the situation and why some redistribution strategies are more likely to be endorsed than others.
The course will be organized around four broad themes:
1) The social and psychological consequences of economic inequality
2) Beyond possessions: psychological differences between social classes
3) Perceiving and understanding wealth and income distribution
4) Collective action and redistributive strategies