The Great Recession impacted class identity

Class identity, which is how individuals view their economic and social positions in relation to others, has wide-ranging effects on people's well-being, thoughts, and behavior. Previous studies have shown that people who identify with a higher class have better physical and emotional health, tend to vote more conservatively, and have a more optimistic view of society.

Yet there have been few studies examining how large-scale economic change affects class identity. A new study published in Psychological Science led by Stephen Antonoplis, a UC Riverside assistant professor of psychology, showed that the 2008 recession, or Great Recession, caused people to identify with a lower class, and this was a long-lasting effect.

Antonoplis' study contrasts with previous research in this area indicating that class identity is fairly stable over relatively long periods of time. Past analyses that did show shifts focused on short-term changes, especially those brought about by manipulations in the way the study subjects were asked to categorize themselves.

Antonoplis said those studies typically used a "MacArthur ladder," a visual tool with 10 rungs representing different levels of resources such as money, education, and job quality. People on the top rung have the most resources, and those on the lowest rung have the least. One manipulation is to describe to different subject groups only the lowest or highest rung and ask them where they would place themselves. It turns out people tend to rate themselves a little higher when comparing themselves only to the lowest rung, and conversely, a little lower when thinking about only the highest.

However, this effect is transient, said Antonoplis, and can change within just a few minutes. In contrast, his study focused on whether changes in class identity could last longer. His analyses, which utilized four large datasets that tracked the class identity of about 165,000 people over decades, showed that the changes he observed with the Great Recession were indeed long-term, lasting for years.

Antonoplis stressed that the study only showed changes in class identity and did not examine how these corresponded to objective measures of losses in people's resources. He explained that class identity is a self-perception that is highly personal.

"Invariably, there's someone in a study who reports an income of something like $200,000, yet identifies as lower class," he said.

In addition to the recession's material impacts, Antonoplis believes media messaging may have increased people's tendency to identify with lower classes. He observed that headlines during the era of the Great Recession were highly threatening and suggested that people's economic positions were falling precipitously and permanently. One example was, "When Greatness Slips Away"; and another was, "As Unemployment Rises, Kids' Future Dims." Such headlines were widespread across different news sources including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Antonoplis said the study identifies an additional pathway through which recessions might harm individuals. In addition to negative economic effects, the Great Recession has been linked to increases in adverse health outcomes for Americans. Perceived loss of status may be one reason for this.

He said future research will explore how changes in people's class identity have impacted their health, as well as contributed to changes in the U.S. political landscape since the recession. These findings carry global implications since the U.S. Great Recession helped cause recessions in other countries.

Antonoplis said increasing awareness of how historical events such as recessions affect people psychologically and impact their lives could help people be more resilient to them.

"Most of the social implications of the study is probably about creating an accurate public memory," Antonoplis said. "It can be very confusing going through something like a big recession, and sometimes it's helpful to know that we've been through it before and what to expect."

Antonoplis added that the study might offer insight into the possible harm being caused by the "vibecession," which is a term that describes the feelings of insecurity many Americans are having right now about the nation's economy despite its strong overall performance. He thinks it is possible that issues related to inflation, cost-of-living, and media reporting on these changes could be leading to psychological and physical stress.

Contributors to Antonoplis' study were Juan Eduardo Garcia-Cardenas, Eileen K. Graham, and Daniel K. Mroczek at Northwestern University.