Abstract
Societal inequality is one of the defining issues of our time. The last decade has seen a marked increase in public consciousness around income inequality, in response to both major economic turmoil and a growing body of research that spells out some of the ways in which living in unequal societies does us harm. However, somewhat lacking in this discourse so far is an understanding of the ways in which income inequality changes the psychological underpinnings of our behavior and thereby affects our social lives and the fabric of society. In this chapter, we argue that social psychology has a great deal to offer those who seek this understanding, not only in terms of our theories and capacity to bridge the macro- and micro-levels but also in terms of our methodologies. We also present an overview of the contributions by researchers at the forefront of the application of social psychological approaches to inequality that this volume contains. We finish with a call to action: researching the social psychological processes that drive the effects of inequality is a timely and important endeavor, and is essential if we are to work to achieve a more positive future.
This contribution was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery grant (DP170101008).
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Jetten, J., Peters, K. (2019). Putting a Social Psychological Spotlight on Economic Inequality. In: Jetten, J., Peters, K. (eds) The Social Psychology of Inequality. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28856-3_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28856-3_1
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