Perceptions of upward social mobility: The role of culture, social class and meritocratic beliefs

• Main Author: TANG, Bek Wuay
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2019
• Subjects: social mobility; estimation bias; beliefs; meritocracy; social class; Organization Development; Sociology of Culture
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/etd_coll/255; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1258&context=etd_coll
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Perceptions of social mobility affect how people evaluate their society and influence support for policies to reduce income inequality. Although prior research has shown that Americans tend to overestimate upward social mobility (Alesina, Stantcheva, & Teso, 2018; Davidai & Gilovich, 2015; Kraus & Tan, 2015), this has not been demonstrated in a non-Western context. The primary goal of this research was to investigate if past findings of overestimations of social mobility would be replicated on a culturally different and non-Western sample (i.e. Singaporeans). A secondary goal was to examine factors that affect mobility perceptions in this sample and uncover possible mechanisms to account for the existing mixed findings on how mobility perceptions vary. The results showed that overall, Singaporean undergraduate students underestimated intergenerational social mobility. Mobility perceptions was also found to be higher among those with lower parental education and greater self-enhancement bias. Furthermore, congruence between prescriptive and descriptive meritocratic beliefs mediated the effect of parental education on mobility estimates, such that higher mobility perceptions were linked to lower parental education via higher belief congruence. Although previous research suggest that social class might influence estimates of intergenerational and intragenerational social mobility differently, the current research did not find evidence for moderation by type of mobility estimates. Discussion focused on the effect of different social class indicators on mobility estimates for college samples and the differences in how individuals might perceive intergenerational and intragenerational social mobility.