The Social Psychology of Inequality: Perceptions, Emotions, and Justifications In Turbulent Times

This regular session invites papers that explore how psychological processes shape the way people interpret and make sense of inequality across different countries amid today’s rapidly changing social contexts.

The gap between the objective realities individuals experience and their subjective perceptions is widening, generating various forms of social tension. For example, despite rising income inequality and declining intergenerational mobility (Chetty et al. 2017; Piketty and Saez 2014), both of which suggest a diminishing role of individual merit, recent studies have documented a paradoxical rise in meritocratic beliefs around the world (Mijs 2018). This raises important questions about how individuals interpret and justify inequality, particularly amid today’s turbulent social context of rising economic inequalities, growing social conflicts, and intensifying political polarization.

We welcome any topics related to the social psychology of inequality. Topics can include, but are not limited to:

(1) How individuals’ perceptions, attitudes, values, and emotions serve to reinforce or alleviate social inequalities

(2) How social inequality is reproduced through everyday interactions

(3) Psychological processes underlying the justification of various forms of inequality across countries

(4) The unequal development of psychological resources and their consequences

(5) How new technologies (e.g., generative AI) are transforming our understanding of and responses to social disparities

This session will offer valuable insights for scholars interested in the psychological mechanisms of social inequality. We encourage submissions on any related topics.