How do we assign ourselves social status? A cross-cultural test of the cognitive averaging principle |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Pathology, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Columbus, OH 43210;2. Department of Medicine, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Columbus, OH 43210;3. Department of Surgery, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Columbus, OH 43210;1. Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Durham, NC 27705, USA;2. Veterans Affairs Mid-Atlantic Region Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center, Durham, NC 27705, USA;3. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27705, USA;4. Health Services Research and Development, Durham VA Medical Center, Durham, NC 27705, USA;5. Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27705, USA;6. Duke Global Health Institute, Duke University, Durham, NC 27705, USA;1. Department of Sociology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA;2. Department of Sociology, The Ohio State University, USA;3. Department of Women''s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, The Ohio State University, USA;4. Department of Sociology, The University of Texas at Austin, USA;5. Population Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin, USA |
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| Abstract: | Subjective social status (SSS), or one’s perceived social standing, is linked robustly to mental and physical health and is thought to be determined in part by a cognitive average of one’s past, present and expected socioeconomic status. However, this averaging principle awaits a formal test. Further, cultures differ with regard to how they perceive and discount time. In this study, I draw upon cross-sectional data from the United States and Japan (2005 MIDUS non-Hispanic whites and 2008 MIDJA), which measured subjective status in terms of one’s perceived standing within a personally defined community. I compare equal and unequal cognitive averaging models for their goodness of fit relative to a traditional present-based model. Socioeconomic status is assessed broadly, in terms of past, present and expected overall work and financial situations. In the United States, averaging models do not fit the data consistently better than a present-based model of SSS. However, in Japan, averaging models do fit SSS consistently better. These fit conclusions are robust to controlling for negative affect. |
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| Keywords: | Social status SES Cognition Culture United States Japan |
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