The psychology of social class is a branch of social psychology dedicated to understanding how social class affects individual's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. While social class has long been a subject of analysis in fields such as sociology, political science, anthropology, medicine and epidemiology, its emergence within the field of psychology is much more recent.
Defining social class
Social class is often defined inconsistently, or not at all, within the social sciences. Definitions tend to focus either on the essential properties of social class (i.e., conceptual definitions) or on how social class is measured (i.e., operational definitions). Conceptual definitions often define social class as a "cultural identity encompassing both a person's objective resources and their subjective rank relative to others." Whereas operational definitions describe social class as "a reflection of one's social position, measured by income, education, and occupation." Additionally, the terms social class and socioeconomic status are often used interchangeably as both tend focus on an individual's material or economic resources and on their social position relative to others.
Definitions of social class also vary on the extent to which they emphasize objective or subjective elements of social class. Objective definitions tend to focus on income, education, and occupation and suggest that higher social class is attained through having more money, being more educated, and having greater occupational prestige than others. Alternatively, subjective definitions focus on individuals' perceived rank relative to others and suggest that higher social class is attained through one's belief that they rank higher than others because they "perceive that they have more money, a more advanced education, and/or a more prestigious occupation than others."
While definitions of social class remain inconsistent, definitions in social psychology tend to focus on both the objective and subjective elements and most often define social class as a dimension of the self and/or a cultural identity "rooted in objective material resources and subjective perceptions of rank vis-a-vis others."
Measurements
Similar to definitions of social class, measurements of social class tend to focus on the objective and/or subjective dimensions of class.
Objective measures
Measures of objective social class in psychology have primarily focused on education, income, and/or occupation. Educational attainment is often viewed as a "gateway" to higher social class and therefore is frequently considered to be the most fundamental measure of social class. For example, advanced education leads to increased income. and access to professional networks. Someone with a four-year college degree will earn twice as much money in their lifetime as someone with a high-school degree. Income, however, provides the most direct assessment of people's access to material goods (e.g., food, clothing, and shelter) and also predicts an array of psychological variables such as well being, social trust, personality, and prosocial behavior. One's occupation also provides important signals of social class. In psychology, occupation is most often measured in the form of occupational prestige, or the admiration and respect given to a particular job in society. For example, jobs with higher occupational prestige tend to be more admired and respected within society, and are often held by those with high levels of educational attainment and usually come with higher salaries (e.g., lawyers, doctors). Alternatively, occupations with lower prestige tend to be less admired and respected in society, pay less money, and are frequently held by people who are less educated (e.g., construction workers, janitors).
Subjective measures
While objective measures such as education, income, and occupation are important indices of social class, people's subjective perceptions of where they sit relative to others has been found to impact psychological functioning above and beyond objective measures. The MacArthur Scale of Subjective Social Status is the most widely-used measure of social class rank relative to others. In this measure, people are asked to rank themselves on a ladder with 10 rungs which represent ascending levels of income, education, and occupation:"Think of this ladder as representing where people stand in the United States.