Department of Psychology, University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign, Champaign, IL 61820, USA.
J Pers Soc Psychol. 2013 Aug;105(2):247-61. doi: 10.1037/a0032895. Epub 2013 May 27.
Recent evidence suggests that perceptions of social class rank influence a variety of social cognitive tendencies, from patterns of causal attribution to moral judgment. In the present studies we tested the hypotheses that upper-class rank individuals would be more likely to endorse essentialist lay theories of social class categories (i.e., that social class is founded in genetically based, biological differences) than would lower-class rank individuals and that these beliefs would decrease support for restorative justice--which seeks to rehabilitate offenders, rather than punish unlawful action. Across studies, higher social class rank was associated with increased essentialism of social class categories (Studies 1, 2, and 4) and decreased support for restorative justice (Study 4). Moreover, manipulated essentialist beliefs decreased preferences for restorative justice (Study 3), and the association between social class rank and class-based essentialist theories was explained by the tendency to endorse beliefs in a just world (Study 2). Implications for how class-based essentialist beliefs potentially constrain social opportunity and mobility are discussed.
最近的证据表明，社会阶层的认知会影响各种社会认知倾向，从因果归因模式到道德判断。在本研究中，我们验证了以下假设：上层阶级的人比下层阶级的人更有可能认同社会阶层类别（即社会阶层是基于遗传和生物学差异的）的本质主义理论，而这些信念会降低对恢复性司法的支持——恢复性司法旨在恢复罪犯，而不是惩罚违法行为。在各项研究中，较高的社会阶层与社会阶层类别的本质主义（研究 1、2 和 4）以及对恢复性司法的支持减少（研究 4）有关。此外，操纵的本质主义信念会降低对恢复性司法的偏好（研究 3），而社会阶层与基于阶层的本质主义理论之间的关联可以用对公正世界的信仰来解释（研究 2）。讨论了基于阶层的本质主义信念如何潜在地限制社会机会和流动性的问题。
