Believing that your socioeconomic position could decline in the future may itself reduce well-being by increasing anxiety about social status, according to research published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Expectations of moving up the ladder, by contrast, had weaker and less consistent effects.
Social mobility describes movement up or down the socioeconomic ladder, which can involve changes in income, employment and social standing. Much of the previous research has focused on the promise of upward mobility. But the prospect of moving in the opposite direction may be especially important at a time when some people in wealthy countries expect to experience lower living standards than previous generations.
The researchers focused on status anxiety, or worry about one’s position in the socioeconomic hierarchy. This can include concerns about losing status, failing to advance or being left behind compared with other people. Because anticipated downward mobility represents the possibility of losing resources and social standing, the researchers proposed that it could increase status anxiety and consequently reduce well-being.
Led by Davide Melita of the University of Granada in Spain, the researchers conducted four studies involving 2,819 people in Spain and the United States. The first two were surveys, while the final two were experiments designed to determine whether changing people’s expectations about their socioeconomic future could actually affect status anxiety.
Study 1 surveyed 216 full-time U.S. workers (average age 39; 49% women) about their beliefs regarding mobility in American society as a whole, such as whether most people now earn less than the previous generation. Those who believed downward mobility was more common reported greater status anxiety, which was in turn associated with lower life satisfaction, poorer perceived health and more depressive symptoms. Beliefs about upward mobility were not linked to status anxiety.
Study 2 surveyed 1,536 people in Spain (51% women), recruited to resemble the national population, using single questions about whether participants expected their own socioeconomic status to improve or worsen. Expecting one’s own status to worsen was associated with greater status anxiety and lower life satisfaction. Unexpectedly, expecting one’s status to improve was also associated with greater status anxiety, although it was directly linked to higher life satisfaction as well. The authors suggest that strong expectations of change in either direction may bring uncertainty about the future.
The researchers then tested the relationship experimentally. In Study 3, 472 Spanish university students (average age 22; 70% women) imagined starting a new life in a fictional society called Bimboola. Everyone began in the middle-income group, but participants were randomly told they had good chances of moving up, staying in the same group or moving down, while the level of inequality in the society was held constant.
Participants told they were likely to move down reported more status anxiety than those told they were likely to stay put, although the difference was small. In exploratory analyses, that increased anxiety in turn predicted lower satisfaction with their imagined life in Bimboola. Being told they were likely to move up, however, did not affect status anxiety.
Study 4 repeated the experiment with 595 employed Americans recruited online, and here the manipulation had much stronger effects on participants’ expectations. Prospects of moving down increased status anxiety, while prospects of moving up reduced it, and these changes in anxiety carried through to life satisfaction in Bimboola in opposite directions. The negative effect of anticipated decline was larger than the positive effect of anticipated advancement.
Across the four studies, the pattern for downward mobility was notably consistent: believing that one’s socioeconomic position could worsen was associated with greater status anxiety and, through that anxiety, lower well-being. By contrast, the results for upward mobility varied between studies, and only the U.S. experiment found that prospects of moving up reduced status anxiety and indirectly increased life satisfaction.
Melita and colleagues summarized, “our findings suggest that both upward and downward beliefs influence well-being through status anxiety, but the effects of downward mobility beliefs are stronger and more consistent.” The authors argue that policies aimed at improving well-being should not only expand opportunities for upward mobility but also protect vulnerable groups from economic downturns, for example by strengthening social safety nets.
Some limitations should be noted. The first two studies were correlational, and Study 2 measured mobility expectations with single questions. The experiments involved an imaginary society rather than actual unemployment, income loss or downward mobility, and they measured satisfaction with life in that imaginary society rather than participants’ real lives.
The researchers also noted that cultural circumstances could influence people’s reactions to the scenarios. The Spanish experiment involved young adults in a country with high youth unemployment, who may be skeptical about upward mobility, while Americans tend to overestimate how much mobility exists.
The study, “Prospects of Downward Mobility Cause Status Anxiety and Life Dissatisfaction,” was authored by Davide Melita, Matthias S. Gobel, Juan Matamoros-Lima, Rosa Rodríguez-Bailón and Guillermo B. Willis.