Low SES people better at reading others' emotions

Jackpine Radical

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Tue Nov-23-10 05:59 PM
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Low SES people better at reading others' emotions

The new issue of the Association for Psychological Science's journal
*Psychological Science* includes an article: "Social Class,
Contextualism, and Empathic Accuracy."

The authors are Michael W. Kraus, Stephane Cote, and Dacher Keltner.

Here's how the article begins:

Social class (socioeconomic status, or SES) permeates social life,
determining participation in social institutions (Oakes & Rossi, 2003),
preferences for artistic and cultural symbols (Bourdieu, 1985), and
vulnerability to health and mood-related problems (Adler et al., 1994).

So pervasive are the influences of social class that it is emerging as a
cultural variable of interest to social scientists (e.g., Mahalingam,
2003; Nisbett, 2009). Despite these developments, little is known about
how social class shapes interpersonal interactions--and, in particular,
emotion processes.

Examining how social class shapes emotion is important for uncovering
the psychological processes that underlie the differential life
circumstances of lower- and upper-class individuals.

In three studies, we examined how social class influences empathic
accuracy--the ability to accurately infer the emotions of other
individuals (Ickes, Stinson, Bissonnette, & Garcia, 1990).

Relative to upper-class individuals, lower-class individuals are more
engaged with others in their social environments (Kraus & Keltner, 2009)
and focus to a greater extent on the external, contextual forces that
influence their life outcomes (Kraus, Piff, & Keltner, 2009; Snibbe &
Markus, 2005).

In light of these findings, we predicted that lower-class individuals
would demonstrate greater empathic accuracy than upper-class individuals.

Another excerpt:

In three studies, lower-class individuals (compared with upper-class
individuals) received higher scores on a test of empathic accuracy
(Study 1), judged the emotions of an interaction partner more accurately
(Study 2), and made more accurate inferences about emotion from static
images of muscle movements in the eyes (Study 3).

Moreover, the association between social class and empathic accuracy was
explained by the tendency for lower-class individuals to explain social
events in terms of features of the external environment.

Here's how the General Discussion section starts:

Lacking resources and control, lower-class individuals tend to focus on
the external, social context to understand events in their lives.

As a result, they orient to other people to navigate their social
environments.

One prediction that follows from these tendencies is that lower-class
individuals should be more accurate judges of the emotions of others
than upper-class individuals are. In three studies that tested this
hypothesis using measures of both objective and subjective SES, lower-
class individuals, relative to their upper-class counterparts, scored
higher on a measure of empathic accuracy (Study 1), judged the emotions
of a stranger more accurately (Study 2), and inferred emotions more
accurately from subtle expressions in the eyes (Study 3).

Throughout our investigation, these associations held after accounting
for two constructs shown in previous research to correlate with empathic
accuracy: gender and trait agreeableness.

Moreover, we found in Study 2 that a focus on the external context
explains the association between social class and empathic accuracy.

Another excerpt:

Finally, the findings relating social class to empathic accuracy have
potentially profound implications for how social inequality affects
close relationships.

In fact, the greater social engagement exhibited by lower-class
individuals in past research (Kraus & Keltner, 2009) may spring from a
similar need to perceive the external environment accurately in order to
be responsive to it.

Empathic accuracy may mediate influences of class on relationship
quality, commitment, and satisfaction.

It is also interesting to speculate about the costs of heightened
empathic accuracy for overall health and well-being, particularly
because lower-class individuals tend to experience chronically elevated
levels of negative emotion and negative mood disorders (e.g., Gallo &
Matthews, 2003).