title: Social class rank, threat vigilance, and hostile reactivity.
abstract: Lower-class individuals, because of their lower rank in society, are theorized to be more vigilant to social threats relative to their high-ranking upper-class counterparts. This class-related vigilance to threat, the authors predicted, would shape the emotional content of social interactions in systematic ways. In Study 1, participants engaged in a teasing interaction with a close friend. Lower-class participants--measured in terms of social class rank in society and within the friendship--more accurately tracked the hostile emotions of their friend. As a result, lower-class individuals experienced more hostile emotion contagion relative to upper-class participants. In Study 2, lower-class participants manipulated to experience lower subjective socioeconomic rank showed more hostile reactivity to ambiguous social scenarios relative to upper-class participants and to lower-class participants experiencing elevated socioeconomic rank. The results suggest that class affects expectations, perception, and experience of hostile emotion, particularly in situations in which lower-class individuals perceive their subordinate rank.
authors.affiliation: University of California, San Francisco, Health Psychology Department, 3333 California St. Suite 465, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA. michael.kraus@ucsf.edu
authors.forename: Michael W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Kraus
authors.forename: E J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Horberg
authors.forename: Jennifer L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Goetz
authors.forename: Dacher
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Keltner
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001364:Awareness; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006791:Hostility; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012923:Social Class; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States; D055815:Young Adult