Content uploaded by Nicolas Sommet
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Nicolas Sommet on May 27, 2024
Content may be subject to copyright.
Motivation Science
Economic Inequality and Student Outcomes: What We Know and Where to
Go From Here
Nicolas Sommet, Nele Claes, and Andrew J. Elliot
Online First Publication, May 23, 2024. https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/mot0000335
CITATION
Sommet, N., Claes, N., & Elliot, A. J. (2024). Economic inequality and student outcomes: What we know
and where to go from here.. Motivation Science. Advance online publication. https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/
mot0000335
SPECIAL ISSUE ARTICLE
Economic Inequality and Student Outcomes: What We Know and
Where to Go From Here
Nicolas Sommet
1
, Nele Claes
2
, and Andrew J. Elliot
3
1
LIVES Centre, University of Lausanne
2
CNRS, LAPSCO, Université Clermont Auvergne
3
Department of Psychology, University of Rochester
Research on the effects of exposure to economic inequality has primarily focused on adults in their everyday
lives. In this review, we argue that these effects extend to children and adolescents in their school environments.
We begin by presenting evidence that economic inequality promotes students’competitive motivations. We then
examine three critical implications of this phenomenon for understanding the associations between inequality and
students’affective, relational, and achievement outcomes. First, competitive motivations explain why economic
inequality predicts negative achievement emotions like test anxiety. However, as competition evokes not only
concern about losing, but also hope about winning, we suggest that inequality may also predict positive achieve-
ment emotions like pride. Second, competitive motivations explain why economic inequality predicts antisocial
behaviors like cheating, but also prosocial behaviors like tactical cooperation. Indeed, competition can lead stu-
dents to use either of these behaviors strategically to improve their relative performance (i.e., cheating or coop-
erating to outperform others). Third, competitive motivations explain why economic inequality does not
consistently predict achievement, but may widen the gap between students from wealthier and poorer back-
grounds. The reason is that competition does not universally increase or decrease performance, but rather has
opposing effects (beneficial for some, detrimental for others). Finally, we suggest that future studies could prior-
itize longitudinal designs and investigate mechanisms, moderators, and different segments of the inequality dis-
tribution. We conclude by highlighting the integrative nature of economic inequality research and calling for more
conceptual and empirical work to better understand how inequality shapes the minds of younger generations.
Keywords: economic inequality, competitive motivation, test anxiety, social behavior, achievement
A large body of literature indicates that exposure to contexts of eco-
nomic inequality shapes social perceptions and affects psychological
outcomes (for recent reviews, see Gobel & Carvacho, 2024;Peters
& Jetten, 2023;Sánchez-Rodríguez et al., 2023;Sommet & Elliot,
2023a;Wienk et al., 2022). Residing in a country or region character-
ized by an unequal distribution of economic resources (e.g., where there
is a large gap between low- and high-income earners) increases the
salience of economic stratification (Wilkinson, 1997), which in turn
may influence a range of affective, relational, and behavioral outcomes
(see Cheung & Lucas, 2016;Du et al., 2021;B. K. Payne et al., 2017).
Most of the literature on the psychology of economic inequality has
focused on adults in their everyday lives, while only a few studies have
examined students in educational settings (notable exceptions include
Claes et al., in press;King et al., 2024;Sommet et al., 2023).
However, it has long been argued that students are affected not just
by their immediate environments, such as classrooms, but also by
wider societal factors (Bronfenbrenner, 1986), and there is no reason
to believe that the effect of economic inequality stops at the school
gates. This article aims to connect the interdisciplinary literature on eco-
nomic inequality with educational research, with the hope of leveraging
insights from this integrative approach to invigorate and guide empiri-
cal work in education. We do so by summarizing findings on the psycho-
logical consequences of economic inequality in general, overviewing
the sparse body of existing work on economic inequality and student
outcomes, interpreting these effects through the lens of competitive
motivations, and outlining promising directions for future research.
How Economic Inequality Fosters Competitive
Motivations and Affects Outcomes
While poverty has seen a global decline over the past three
decades (Hasell et al., 2022), both income inequality and wealth
Editor’s Note. Allan Wigfield served as the action editor for this article.—
GHEG and RAW.
Allan Wigfield served as action editor.
Nicolas Sommet https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8585-1274
This work was funded by a Swiss National Science Foundation Ambizione
Fellowship granted to Nicolas Sommet (Subside PZ00P1_185979). The
authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
This research was funded in whole, or in part, by the Swiss National
Science Foundation (SNSF) [Subside PZ00P1_185979]. For the purpose
of open access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright license to
any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Nicolas
Sommet, LIVES Centre, University of Lausanne, Bâtiment Géopolis,
Bureau #5785, Quartier UNIL-Mouline, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
Email: nicolas.sommet@unil.ch
Motivation Science
© 2024 American Psychological Association
ISSN: 2333-8113 https://doi.org/10.1037/mot0000335
1
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
inequality have substantially widened in most countries around the
world (Chancel et al., 2022). For instance, in the United States,
from January 1990 to January 2023, the inflation-adjusted labor
and capital market income of the median household increased by
about 10%, whereas the income of the top decile increased by
more than 80% (Blanchet et al., 2022). In other words, although
all American households have become wealthier, the richest house-
holds have done so at a significantly faster pace. This trend is not
unique to the United States; similar patterns are observed in much
of the world, including countries from the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 2019)
1
and
developing countries (Ravallion, 2014).
Given the magnitude of this phenomenon, psychologists have
begun to extensively investigate the effects of economic inequal-
ity on individual outcomes (for early work, see de Vries et al.,
2011;Loughnan et al., 2011;Oishi et al., 2011). Empirical studies
from this literature often compare residents of countries, regions,
or cities with varying levels of inequality. Importantly, many stud-
ies in the literature, and most of the studies cited in this review,
control for an individual measure of wealth (e.g., household
income, family resources) and an aggregate measure of wealth
(e.g., gross domestic product or median income in the area of res-
idence). This means that the statistical effects of economic
inequality discussed in this review are observed after removing
the variance in outcomes that can be attributed to between-person
differences in socioeconomic status (SES) and between-context
differences in economic development.
2
Recently, Sommet and Elliot (2023a) introduced a conceptual
framework to organize the dense and complex evidence in this
area of research. This framework is based on the idea that contexts
of economic inequality shift individuals’focus toward the economic
dimension of social comparison and foster an ethos of competitive-
ness. Individuals living in more economically unequal environments
are more prone to categorize their social world into the “haves”and
the “have-nots”(Peters et al., 2022), ascribe greater importance to
personal success and achievement (Du et al., 2024), and thereby
develop competitive motivations.
It is important to note that competitive motivations can be
defined and operationalized differently across disciplines. In
behavioral economics, competitive motivations are often concep-
tualized as a preference for maximizing one’s gains compared to
others in economic games (Altman, 2023). In personality psy-
chology, they are often conceptualized as a trait reflectinganin-
ternal disposition to compete (Spence & Helmreich, 1983). In
educational psychology, they may be most precisely concep-
tualized through the lens of performance-based goals, wherein
individuals strive to approach normative competence (i.e., outper-
forming others) or to avoid normative incompetence (i.e., not
being outperformed by others; Sommet & Elliot, 2016). To
accommodate these cross-disciplinary differences, this article
adopts “competitive motivations”as an umbrella term that encom-
passes and refers to an omnibus orientation towards competition
(for relevant work, see Fülöp & Orosz, 2015;Garcia et al.,
2013;Horney, 1937/2013). However, we will later refine our con-
ceptualization by leaning more heavily on the achievement goal
framework (for foundational work, see Dweck, 1986;Elliot,
1999).
The idea that contexts of economic inequality nurture compet-
itiveness has been documented in a variety of studies. In a series
of cross-sectional studies, Sommetetal.(2019)showed that res-
idents of U.S. ZIP codes with higher levels of inequality were
more likely to view their fellow residents as competitive, which
in turn led them to endorse competitive goals, such as striving
to become wealthier than others (or, at a minimum, not becoming
poorer than others). In a large follow-up longitudinal study,
Sommet and Elliot (2023b) found that residents of U.S. counties
where income inequality had risen from 1 year to the next per-
ceived an increase in competitive motivations among the people
around them, while the reverse was not observed. In an experi-
ment, Sánchez-Rodríguez et al. (2019, Study 3) demonstrated
that asking U.S. participants to imagine a fictional society with
high versus low levels of income inequality led them to perceive
the inhabitants of the society as more competitive and to behave
more selfishly when allocating resources between themselves
and others. Further experiments replicated these findings
with populations from various countries such as Australia
(Sánchez-Rodríguez et al., 2019), China (Cheng et al., 2021),
Italy (Filippi et al., 2023), Spain (Melita et al., 2021), and the
United States (Davidai, 2023;Sommet et al., 2023;To et al.,
2023).
Research linking economic inequality to competitive motiva-
tions is important because it can account for a wide spectrum of
findings in the literature. For instance, individuals residing in
more economically unequal places have been found to work lon-
ger hours (Alexiou & Kartiyasa, 2020), take greater financial
risks (B. K. Payne et al., 2017), have an increased likelihood of
engaging in economic crimes (Weietal.,2023), and show a
heightened interest in positional goods, such as luxury brands,
which serve to signal status to others (Walasek et al., 2018).
Despite their diversity, these outcomes can all be interpreted as
reflecting how income inequality fuels motivations to keep up
with the economic competition. Specifically, they can be seen as
strategies to either maximize, maintain, or at the very least, not
diminish one’s position in the economic hierarchy. Importantly,
while these strategies are often socially undesirable, they are not
necessarily so, as inequality may predict outcomes as different
as profit-driven crime and increased working hours (for additional
research, see Hannay et al., 2021;Pazzona, 2024). It is also impor-
tant to note that these strategies are not uniformly distributed
across groups. For instance, exposure to economic inequality pre-
dicts greater economic risk-taking among individuals with lower
incomes compared to those with higher incomes (Mishra et al.,
2015), which can ironically perpetuate cycles of poverty (for rel-
evant review, see Mishra et al., 2024). For now, we will explore
whether the nexus between economic inequality and competitive
motivations holds true not only among adults in their everyday
lives but also among students in school settings. Later, we will dis-
cuss how this phenomenon may carry varied implications, some of
which can be particularly negative for those at the bottom of the
social ladder.
1
The OECD comprises 38 member countries, including numerous
European nations (such as Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Greece,
Norway, Poland, and Portugal), as well as the United Kingdom, the United
States, Mexico, Chile, Australia, Japan, Korea, Israel, and Türkiye.
2
For examples of work on the adverse effects of poverty in the school envi-
ronment, see McLoyd (1998),Perry and Mcconney (2010), and Rutkowski
et al. (2018).
SOMMET, CLAES, AND ELLIOT
2
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
How Economic Inequality Fosters Competitive
Motivations in Students
Numerous studies in educational psychology have shown that stu-
dents are influenced by features of their local environments, ranging
from the family environment (e.g., parental practices; e.g., see
Pinquart & Ebeling, 2020) to the school environment (e.g., school
policies; Allen et al., 2018). However, students are also embedded
within broader environments such as cities, regions, or nations,
and—similar to adults—they are affected by the socioeconomic
characteristics of these environments. In this section, we begin by
discussing three mechanisms through which contexts of economic
inequality may shape students’competitive motivations, and we
then present relevant empirical evidence.
1. Students experience economic inequality first-hand.
Children are not shielded from economic contexts simply
by virtue of their age; they encounter and encode structural
and interpersonal cues of wealth and inequality in daily
life (Diaz et al., 2023;Legaspi et al., 2023). There is evi-
dence that by the age of 3, children can differentiate
between rich and poor individuals based on appearance;
by the age of 8, they possess a sophisticated enough
understanding of economic stratification to be able to
rank jobs by income; by the age of 14, they are aware of
the structural forces at play within society, which enables
them to connect inequality with economic and political
systems (for reviews, see Dickinson et al., 2023;
Elenbaas et al., 2020). Moreover, children are not blind
to the types of motivations that energize and direct adult
behavior. Starting from the ages of 3–5, children world-
wide develop a theory of mind (i.e., the ability to attribute
mental states, such as motivations, to others), and they
become increasingly attentive to social norms (e.g., how
competition is valued in society), both conforming to
and enforcing them (for a review, see Legare, 2019).
Taken together, these findings suggest that school-age
children are capable of noticing and, therefore, being
influenced by economic inequality, as well as the compet-
itive motivations that such inequality may induce among
adults.
2. Students experience economic inequality through their
parents. Economic theory suggests that economic inequal-
ity increases returns to education, creating an incentive for
parents to push their children to succeed (Doepke et al.,
2019). In simpler terms, when the gap between low- and
high-income groups widens, the stakes of climbing (or
falling from) the economic ladder become higher; this, in
turn, prompts parents to exert more pressure on their chil-
dren to perform well at school. While exposure to income
inequality does not lessen the inherent advantage that
middle- and upper-class families hold over lower-class
families in understanding, leveraging, and eventually ben-
efiting from the educational system (for a review, see
Goudeau et al., in press), the critical point is that inequality
leads parents of all classes to value academic success more
highly. Empirical evidence supports this line of reasoning,
indicating that parents in more economically unequal con-
texts allocate more financial resources to their children’s
education (D. Schneider et al., 2018), adopt a more inten-
sive parenting style (W. Schneider & Schenck-Fontaine,
2022), and place a greater emphasis on hard work
(Doepke & Zilibotti, 2019). This suggests that parents
are influenced by economic inequality in their child-
rearing practices, leading to increased pressure on their
children to succeed and potentially fostering strongercom-
petitive motivations at school.
3. Students experience economic inequality through their
teachers. Teachers are often regarded as the primary agents
of socialization in schools, imparting beliefs to students
that may persist throughout their life course (for a founda-
tional study and its 50-year follow-up, see Newcomb, 1943
and Alwin et al., 1991; for more recent work, see Sommet
et al., 2017). Like everyone else, teachers are not immune
to the effects of economic inequality, which can influence
the types of values, norms, and goals they deem important
and eventually transmit to their students. While research in
this field is still emerging, preliminary evidence suggests
that students from countries with higher levels of economic
inequality perceive their teacher as being more engaged
(Johnson et al., 2024;seealsoChiu & Chow, 2011). In
addition, national economic inequality may be associated
with stronger beliefs in meritocracy (Mijs, 2021; but see
Bartram, 2023;Morris et al., 2022), and teachers with
these meritocratic beliefs tend to foster classroom environ-
ments that emphasize the importance of outperforming
others (Darnon et al., 2023). In light of these findings, it
seems plausible that teachers in economically unequal
environments may recognize the particular importance of
relative success in a stratified society, thereby developing
practices that encourage social comparison in their class-
rooms. This could, in turn, foster competitive motivations
among students.
These three mechanisms suggest that economic inequality not
only prompts adults to be more competitive in their everyday
lives, but can also lead students to become more competitive at
school, either directly or through the influence of their parents and
teachers. Sommet et al. (2023) investigated this hypothesis in a
series of four preregistered studies. As a first step, the authors con-
ducted three observational studies using the Programme for
International Student Assessment (PISA) data sets from 2018,
2003, and 2000, involving more than 800,000 lower secondary
school students from 75, 38, and 32 countries, respectively. As
can be seen in Figure 1, the data revealed two primary findings:
(a) students from countries with greater income inequality reported
Summary
•In recent decades, global poverty has declined, but national
economic inequalities have risen
•Cross-sectional, longitudinal, and experimental evidence
demonstrate a robust contextual effect of economic inequality on
perceived competitiveness and competitive motivations
•The effect of inequality on competitive motivations may explain
why inequality exerts a main effect on working hours,
profit-driven crimes, financial risk-taking, etc.
ECONOMIC INEQUALITY IN SCHOOLS 3
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
a higher perception of competitiveness among their peers, measured
with items such as “In my school, students seem to value competi-
tion”(adapted from Murayama & Elliot, 2012); (b) students from
these countries were more likely to pursue competitive motivations
themselves, measured by performance-approach goal items such as
“I always try to do better than the other students in my class”(see
Elliot & Murayama, 2008). Although these studies do not enable
one to determine whether perceiving others as competitive causes
one to become competitive (social contagion) or if being competi-
tive leads to perceiving others as competitive (social projection),
they suggest that schools in countries with greater economic inequal-
ity are breeding grounds for competitive motivations. As a second
step, the authors conducted an experimental study where young
adults imagined going to school in a society with either low (control
condition) or high (experimental condition) economic inequality.
Similar to the findings of the observational studies, economic
inequality was associated with both higher perceived competitive-
ness and increased competitive motivations.
The Downstream Consequences of Economic Inequality
in School Settings
The research linking economic inequality to competitive motiva-
tions among students holds significant importance. It not only facil-
itates a better understanding of the downstream consequences of
economic inequality in school settings, as observed in existing stud-
ies, but also expands the range of predictions that can be drawnfrom
these studies. In this section, we examine current evidence through
the lens of competitive motivations, focusing on three types of
these downstream consequences: (a) affective consequences, (b)
relational consequences, and (c) consequences for achievement.
Theoretically, these phenomena are expected to influence students
from primary school onward. However, there is no systematic testing
on different age groups, which is why we specify the target student
population for each study referenced. Figure 2 provides a graphical
summary of the relationships discussed in this review.
Affective Consequences
There is compelling evidence linking contexts of economic
inequality to students’academic anxiety. In a recent study, King et
al. (2024) analyzed the PISA 2015 data set (N≈400,000 students
from K=51 countries). They found that lower secondary school stu-
dents from countries with higher levels of income inequality
reported greater test anxiety (sample item: “I often worry that it
will be difficult for me to take a test”). In a parallel study, Claes et
al. (in press) independently analyzed the same data set and, without
prior knowledge of King et al.’s (2024) work, observed the same pat-
tern. In addition, Claes et al. extended their analysis to the PISA
Figure 1
Perceived Competitiveness (Left Panel) and Competitive Motivations (Middle and Right Panels) at School as a Function of National Income
Inequality
Note. The outcome variables are measured using a 4-point response scale, where larger values indicate greater competitiveness. The alpha-3 country codes
represent the national averages of the outcome variables. Shaded areas denote the 95% confidence intervals. The standardized coefficients for the relationships
depicted in the left, middle, and right panels are β=.07 (p=.008), β=.17 ( p,.001), and β=.12 (p=.015), respectively. PISA =Programme for
International Student Assessment. Adapted from “Income Inequality Predicts Competitiveness and Cooperativeness at School,”by N. Sommet,
D. L. Weissman, and A. J. Elliot, 2023, Journal of Educational Psychology,115(1), pp. 173–191 (https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000731). Copyright 2023
by American Psychological Association.
Summary
•Economic inequality and adults’motivations are noticed by
children
•Economic inequality leads parents to pressure their children for
academic success
•Economic inequality may affect teachers’practices and the
values they transmit to students
•Students from more unequal countries, or those experimentally
exposed to economic inequality, perceive their peers as more
competitive and are more competitive themselves
SOMMET, CLAES, AND ELLIOT
4
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
2003 and 2012 data sets (Ns≈750,000 students from Ks=41 and
65 countries), and they found that lower secondary school students
from countries with higher levels of income inequality reported
greater domain-specific anxiety (sample item: “I often worry that
it will be difficult for me in Mathematics classes”). Importantly, in
Claes et al.’s (in press) studies, the association between economic
inequality and student anxiety was fairly substantial, with a stan-
dardized coefficient ranging from β=.15 to β=.20. Moreover,
this relationship did not differ between students from poorer
and wealthier families, suggesting that the anxiety-provoking effect
of income inequality extends across the economic spectrum.
Although the authors did not anticipate these findings, they noted
that these trends are consistent with the “status anxiety hypothesis”
(Layte & Whelan, 2014), which suggests that income inequality acts
as a contextual stressor for everyone in society, generating pervasive
concerns about relative status, social comparison, and achievement.
Given that economic inequality fosters competitive motivations in
students, the association between inequality and anxiety does not
necessarily come as a surprise. Indeed, meta-analyses have consis-
tently demonstrated that competitive motivations, such as striving
to outperform others at school, predict state anxiety (S. C. Payne
et al., 2007), particularly test anxiety (von der Embse et al., 2018).
However, this does not represent the full picture. Competition has
long been recognized as a social stressor that makes normative eval-
uation salient (Deutsch, 1949;Mussweiler, 2003;Tesser, 1988). As
such, it can evoke not only negative emotions associated with con-
cerns of losing the competition, but also positive emotions tied to
the hope of winning (for a review, see To et al., 2020). According
Figure 2
Graphical Representation of the Effect of Exposure to Contexts of Economic Inequality on Student
Competitiveness, and Its Consequences for Affect, Relationship, and Achievement
Note. See the online article for the color version of this figure.
ECONOMIC INEQUALITY IN SCHOOLS 5
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
to the hierarchical model of achievement motivation, the goal of
beating the competition is grounded in both a need to avoid the
shame of failure and a need to approach the pride of success, with
each motive leading to opposing downstream affective conse-
quences (Elliot & Sommet, 2023;Sommet & Elliot, 2023b).
Supporting this view, meta-analyses have consistently demonstrated
that striving to outperform others at school is not only associated
with negative achievement emotions such as worry or anxiety, but
also with positive achievement emotions such as task interest or
enjoyment (Huang, 2011;Senko & Dawson, 2017). As such, it is
possible that economic inequality not only fosters anxiety among
students, but also fosters positive emotionsassociated with the pros-
pect of winning the competition, such as eagerness, pride, and hope.
Future research needs to explore this provocative possibility.
The findings linking national economic inequality to anxiety at
school also carry implications for the decline of adolescent mental
health. There is growing evidence indicating that young people
across the world, and particularly teenage girls, are increasingly sus-
ceptible to low well-being (Marquez & Long, 2021), feelings of
loneliness (Twenge et al., 2021), and other mental health issues
(Cosma et al., 2020). Researchers have attributed this trend to a vari-
ety of factors, including the rise in digital media use (Twenge, 2020),
the decline of teenagers’opportunities for independent activity
(Gray et al., 2023), and the decrease in family stability (Sweeting
et al., 2010). Other research has linked the upsurge in adolescent
mental health problems to rising income inequality (Du et al.,
2019;Elgar et al., 2015), intensified competition for access to higher
education (Högberg, 2021), and increased schoolwork pressure
(Cosma et al., 2020). The findings described in this section support
these latter ideas: The growing gap between the rich and the poor
may have increased anxieties about achieving economic success in
life among a portion of the adolescent population, which in turn
may have contributed to a surge in the prevalence of mental health
problems. Furthermore, as meta-analytic evidence suggests that
school-aged girls are more prone to test anxiety than boys (von
der Embse et al., 2018), this explanation could also account for
why the surge in mental health problems is particularly pronounced
among girls.
Relational Consequences
In recent research, King et al. (2022) argued that the influence of
national economic inequality on status competition in society
might spill over into educational settings and diminish students’
sense of belonging in school. To investigate this idea, the authors
combined three different PISA data sets covering 65 countries,
focusing on a measure of school belonging that included items
such as “I feel like an outsider at school”(reversed) and “I feel
like I belong at school.”The authors found that lower secondary
school students in countries with higher income inequality were
more likely to report a diminished sense of belonging, an effect
that was more pronounced for students from less affluent family
backgrounds.
However, King et al.’s (2022) research had an important limita-
tion: Although the multilevel model used in the analysis ade-
quately treated students as nested within schools and countries,
it omitted the country-year level intercept, thereby not accounting
for interdependence within country-years (Fairbrother, 2014).
3
In
another paper, Sommet et al. (2023) preregistered the use of fully
specified multilevel models and examined more recent PISA data,
encompassing a broader range of countries. Sommet et al. repli-
cated the main effect of national income inequality on school
belongingness observed by King et al. (2022) when using PISA
2018 data, but not when using PISA 2000 or 2003 data.
Additionally, they did not replicate the interaction between
income inequality and family background. Taken together, these
findings suggest that the relationship between income inequality
and students’sense of belonging maynot be as robust as originally
thought and—despite its theoretical relevance—should be viewed
as preliminary.
While evidence that economic inequality disrupts school belong-
ing is limited, studies suggesting that it increases the prevalence of
antisocial behavior and impedes social behavior among students are
more compelling. Neville (2012) reported that inhabitants from
U.S. states with greater income inequality were more likely to
make academically dishonest web search queries such as “free
term papers”or visit plagiarism websites like Cheathouse or
AcaDemon. In a series of studies, Elgar et al. (2009,2019,2013)
repeatedly demonstrated that 11- to 15-year-old students from coun-
tries with greater income inequality were more often involved in
school bullying, either as perpetrators or victims, or in some
cases, both. In the same vein, Contreras et al. (2015) found that
fourth-grade and eighth-grade students from countries with higher
or rising income inequality were more likely to encounter violent
behaviors, such as theft or injury. Finally, Sum and Ba
descu
(2023) used 2015 PISA data to show that lower secondary school
students in schools with greater income inequality exhibited
worse collaborative problem solving, a skill requiring open and
effective social connection and communication (e.g., group deci-
sion making and teamwork). In sum, the literature suggests that eco-
nomic inequality is associated with cheating, bullying, aggressive
behavior, and less effective social behavior in the school
environment.
On one hand, this result is not surprising, as competitive con-
texts—such as those generally fostered by economic inequality—
are known to exact social costs in educational settings (for a meta-
analysis, see Roseth et al., 2008), while competitive motivations
often predict antisocial behavior (for a review, see Senko et al.,
2011). For instance, a large-scale crowd-sourced project involving
45 research teams and including nearly 20,000 participants
documented a small adverse effect of experimentally induced
Summary
•Students from countries with more economic inequality report
more academic anxiety
•This may only be half of the story, as competitive motivations
driven by inequality should lead to not only negative emotions
such as anxiety, but also positive emotions such as hope
•The rise in economic inequality and its relationship with anxiety
at school may partly account forthe decline in well-being among
adolescents, particularly teenage girls
3
Another common solution to address the issue of accounting for interde-
pendence within country-years is the use of year fixed-effects (Allison,
2009). For another study that identified a negative link between income
inequality and school belonging, but that also didnot fully consider the clus-
tering nature of the data, see Johnson et al. (2024).
SOMMET, CLAES, AND ELLIOT
6
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
competition on moral behavior (Huber et al., 2023). Other experi-
mental data show that adherence to self-enhancement values—
defined as the pursuit of power and personal success through norma-
tive competence—is linked to cheating in educational settings
(Pulfrey & Butera, 2013). Furthermore, a long tradition of sport psy-
chology research has demonstrated that competitive motivations pre-
dict more disengagement, unfair play, and transgressive behavior
(for a review, see Kavussanu & Al-Yaaribi, 2021). On the other
hand, antisocial behaviors represent just one of many strategies
that individuals can adopt in competitive contexts (e.g., see
Gilbert & Basran, 2019). To illustrate, while an individual motivated
to win a competition may resort to cheating as a shortcut to victory,
they may also choose to work harder, persist longer, or—counterin-
tuitively as it may seem—cooperate more.
In a study previously mentioned, Sommet et al. (2023) analyzed
two different PISA data sets and observed unexpected findings.
Contrary to their hypothesis, they found that lower secondary school
students from countries with greater economic inequality did not
report less, but rather more positive attitudes toward cooperation
with their peers. In follow-up analyses, and then in a preregistered
experimental replication, they elucidated this paradox by differenti-
ating the reasons behind cooperative behavior. They showed that
middle school students in contexts of economic inequality primarily
cooperate to boost their academic performance (sample item: “I
cooperate with my classmates because it can help me to achieve aca-
demic success”) rather than for the inherent pleasure of helping oth-
ers (sample item: “I cooperate with my classmates because
collaborating is fun”). To interpret this finding, the authors turned
to the literature on the economics of coopetition, which highlights
that economic agents in the marketplace sometimes cooperate for
strategic reasons, forming alliances with competitors to secure
a cooperative-based competitive advantage (for reviews, see
Bouncken et al., 2015;Köseog
lu et al., 2019). When applied to edu-
cational contexts, this suggests that students in unequal societies
may engage in cooperation for instrumental reasons, working
together on homework and in-class activities to outperform those
who do not participate in such collaborations. This perspective
might shed light on other counterintuitive findings, such as those
by Godfrey and Cherng (2016), who observed that inequality
could paradoxically lead 15-year-old students to be more coopera-
tive and helpful in their communities. Overall, it suggests that the
ethos of competitiveness fueled by inequality may give rise to
both antisocial behaviors and prosocial behaviors, as long as these
behaviors support personal advancement in competitive settings
(e.g., cheating to gain a competitive edge or, alternatively, finding
ad hoc allies to gain a competitive edge).
Consequences for Achievement
A number of cross-sectional studies explored the relationship
between national income inequality and academic achievement
across various grade levels (e.g., Chiu, 2015;Chiu & Chow, 2015;
Condron, 2011;Thorson & Gearhart, 2018;Workman, 2022).
Although these studies often reveal a negative association between
income inequality and academic achievement, the robustness of
these results varies depending on model specifications (e.g., the
choice of covariates, the nature of the outcome variable, and the sam-
ple used). For instance, the statistical effect of income inequality
may substantially diminish or even disappear when controlling for
national gross domestic product (Chiu, 2010) or student socioeco-
nomic status (King et al., 2024). As another example, the statistical
effect of income inequality may differ across academic disciplines:
In some cases, income inequality negatively predicts reading
achievement but not math achievement (e.g., see Workman,
2022), while at other times, it negatively predicts math achievement
but not reading achievement (e.g., see Pickett & Wilkinson, 2007;
Workman, 2023).
From a theoretical perspective, these inconsistencies might be
attributable to the intricate relationship between competitive environ-
ments, competitive motivations, and achievement. Competitive envi-
ronments, such as those promoted by income inequality, can elicit
two types of competitive motivations. First, exposure to income
inequality can trigger aversive competitive motivations, where indi-
viduals focus on preventing loss in competition (for cross-sectional
evidence, see Sommet et al., 2019; for longitudinal and experimental
evidence, see Sommet & Elliot, 2023b). These aversive motivations
can be conceptualized using performance-avoidance goals (i.e., striv-
ing to avoid being outperformed by others; Elliot, 1999), fear of fail-
ure (i.e., a desire to avoid the shame of failure; Atkinson, 1957), or
domain-general prevention focus (i.e., being concerned with main-
taining obligations and avoiding losses; Higgins, 1998). Second,
exposure to income inequality may also elicit appetitive competitive
motivations, where individuals focus on achieving future success
(Sommet & Elliot, 2023b;Sommet et al., 2019). These appetitive
motivations can be conceptualized using performance-approach
goals (i.e., striving to outperform others; Elliot, 1999), need for
achievement (i.e., a desire to approach the pride of success;
McClelland et al., 1953), or domain-general promotion focus (i.e.,
being concerned with attaining ideals and acquiring gains; Higgins,
1998).
Importantly, Murayama and Elliot (2012) reported meta-analytic
evidence showing that competitive environments exert opposing
effects on achievement through these processes. On one hand, com-
petition may lead individuals to strive to avoid normative incompe-
tence (e.g., not being among the worst students in their class), which
results in a threat-based response characterized by anxietyand resig-
nation, and in turn hinders performance (e.g., exam score). On the
other hand, competition can lead individuals to strive to approach
normative competence (e.g., being among the best students in
their class), resulting in a challenge-based response characterized
by eagerness and persistence, thereby enhancing performance.
Importantly, the meta-analysis did not reveal differences across
age groups (i.e., 18 years old or younger vs. older than 18 years)
or the type of performance domain (i.e., sports vs. work vs. school;
for additional evidence, see Elliot et al., 2018; for reviews, see Elliot,
2020;Murayama et al., 2021). Therefore, it is plausible that income
Summary
•More research is needed on the link between economic inequality
and school belonging
•There is cross-sectional evidence linking economic inequality to
antisocial behaviors commonly associated with competition,
such as cheating, bullying, and violence in schools
•But there is more to the story, as inequality may predict both
antisocial (e.g., cheating) and prosocial (e.g., tactical
cooperation) behaviors, provided they help in outperforming
others
ECONOMIC INEQUALITY IN SCHOOLS 7
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
inequality contributes to both aversive and appetitive competitive
motivations in school, each with opposing effects on achievement.
At this point, the key remaining question is: When does economic
inequality, together with the competitive context it fosters, impair
achievement, and when might it paradoxically improve it?
According to the biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat
(for reviews, see Blascovich, 2013;Jamieson, 2017;Seery, 2013),
individuals facing a social stressor like competition can respond in
one of two ways. If their resources are insufficient for meeting the
stressor, they appraise the situation as a threat, which can lead to
intrusive thoughts and interfere with achievement. Conversely, if
their resources are sufficient, they appraise the situation as a chal-
lenge, which frees up working-memory capacity and facilitates
achievement. Consistent with this perspective, Claes et al. (in
press) analyzed a series of PISA data sets and demonstrated that
the association between national income inequality and academic
achievement was moderated by parental economic resources.
Specifically, the authors found that in countries with higher levels
of income inequality, the achievement gap between middle school
students from families with fewer economic resources (e.g., smaller
houses and no cars) and those from families with greater economic
resources tended to widen. This can be interpreted as showing that
under conditions of greater economic inequality and intense compe-
tition in society, students from economically advantaged back-
grounds feel more challenged and tend to thrive in school, while
those from disadvantaged backgrounds feel more threatened and
struggle.
However, Claes et al.’s (in press) research uncovered further
complexities. The authors found that the association between
national income inequality and academic achievement was also
moderated by parental cultural resources, but in a different direc-
tion than originally anticipated. Specifically, they found that in
countries with higher levels of income equality, the achievement
gap between middle school students from families with fewer cul-
tural resources (e.g., fewer books at home) and those from families
with greater cultural resources tended to widen. Importantly, in an
independent study, Wang and Wu (2023) also found that the more
economically equal a country is, the larger the difference in aca-
demic achievement between middle school students with more cul-
tural capital (e.g., whose families possess more educational
resources, more works of art, and more books) and students with
less cultural capital.
In summary, contexts of greater economic inequality seem to
advantage students from wealthier families over those from poorer
families, whereas greater economic equalityseems to advantage stu-
dents from more educated families over those from less educated
families. Put differently, economic inequality seemingly feeds
inequality of opportunity at school based on parental wealth,
whereas economic equality seemingly feeds inequality of opportu-
nity based on parental education and cultural resources. One possible
explanation is that in contexts of greater economic inequality, the
economic dimension is more critical in defining one’s place in the
hierarchy, leading students from wealthier families to feel more
capable to cope with academic demands and achieve success; con-
versely, in contexts of greater economic equality, the cultural back-
ground might supplant economic background as the key dimension
defining the social hierarchy, leading students from more educated
families to feel more capable to cope with academic demands and
achieve success.
Directions for Future Research
In this integrative review, we have conducted a comprehensive
examination of the emerging literature on the psychological conse-
quences of economic inequality in schools. A central proposition
guiding our review is that the competitive motivations prompted
by contexts of economic inequality may explain a range of conse-
quences on students’affect (e.g., test anxiety), relationships (e.g.,
antisocial behaviors, as well as tactical prosocial behaviors to gain
an advantage in academic competition), and achievement (e.g.,
with economic inequality favoring students whose parents occupy
more advantageous positions within the economic hierarchy). In
this final section, we offer two sets of suggestions for expanding
the methodological and theoretical scope of this important literature.
Methodological Considerations
A major methodological limitation of the current literature is the
high prevalence of cross-sectional studies. Of all the existing obser-
vational studies on the psychology of economic inequality focusing
on students, we are aware of only two that have used a longitudinal
design (i.e., Workman, 2022,2023). This overreliance on cross-
sectional designs is problematic for three reasons.
1. Limited power to detect contextual statistical effects. Many
cross-sectional studies testing the effect of economic
inequality are based on comparisons involving a limited
number of clusters, sometimes just around 30 countries
(e.g., Chiu & Chow, 2015). Although such cross-national
samples may seem large at first glance, one must remember
that economic inequality is measured at the cluster level,
which means a study involving 30 countries effectively
examines only 30 data points. When the higher-level sample
size is this small, the statistical power necessary to detect
contextual effects becomes critically low (Arend &
Schäfer, 2019;Sommet & Morselli, 2021), and reduces
the likelihood of documenting replicable effects (e.g., see
Button et al., 2013).
2. Overly broad level of geographic aggregation. Second,
nearly all cross-sectional studies in the literature measure
economic inequality at broad levels of geographic aggrega-
tion, such as U.S. states or nations (for exceptions using
local inequality estimates, see Sum&Ba
descu, 2023;
Workman, 2022). While individuals can make fairly accu-
rate guesses about the level of economic inequality in
their immediate surroundings (e.g., their county, their ZIP
Summary
•Cross-national research usually shows a negative link between
inequality and achievement
•But these findings are not always consistent, which may be due to
competition fueling both aversive and appetitive competitive
motivations, with opposing effects on achievement
•In contexts of economic inequality, the achievement gap widens
between students from wealthier and poorer families
•But in contexts of economic equality, the achievement gap
widens between students from more versus less educated families
showing that one form of inequality of opportunity is replaced
with another
SOMMET, CLAES, AND ELLIOT
8
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
code, their cities; see Johnston & Newman, 2016), we know
that they struggle to accurately perceive the magnitude of
inequality at larger scales (Gimpelson & Treisman, 2018;
Willis et al., 2022), which creates observational error and
noise in the data.
3. Limited ability to draw causal inference. Third and finally,
cross-sectional designs inherently grapple with the third-
variable problem. Countries that differ in terms of economic
inequality often vary on other factors, which can be chal-
lenging or even impossible to control for statistically
(Westfall & Yarkoni, 2016), such as historical legacy, cul-
tural background, or sociopolitical structures (for relevant
research, see Hiilamo & Kangas, 2014). As a result, the
risk of higher-level confounding in these studies is consid-
erable and important.
To address these challenges, future research would do well to use
repeated cross-sectional designs (e.g., by combining multiple PISA
data sets; Högberg et al., 2021)
4
or longitudinal designs (e.g., by
using the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002; Bozick et al.,
2007). Specifically, temporal data enables researchersto: (a) increase
the higher-level sample size, as it involves several clusters per year
rather than just one; (b) use local rather than global clusters (e.g., intra-
school inequality; Sum&Ba
descu, 2023), as national panel data sets
can for instance be merged with school district inequality estimates;
and (c) better approach causality, as repeated measurements allow
the examination of the psychological effects of changes in inequality
over time among students within a specific location, thereby avoiding
comparisons between vastly different places.
Theoretical Considerations
From a theoretical perspective, future studies would benefitfrom
adopting a more systematic approach to understanding how (media-
tors), when (moderators), and where (which part of the distribution)
economic inequality affects affective, relational, or achievement-
based outcomes among students.
1. In search of psychological mediators accounting for the dual
effects of economic inequality. While previous psychological
reviews have focused on mechanisms like social trust or status
anxiety to explain the adverse effects of income inequality (e.g.,
Buttrick & Oishi, 2017), we propose that competitive motiva-
tions are critical to understanding the full range of psychological
effects of inequality, whether they are detrimental, neutral, or
even beneficial. Specifically, we believe that the achievement
goal framework is a promising approach to operationalize com-
petitive motivations and gain a comprehensive understanding
of this wide array of consequences. The achievement goals
framework distinguishes between mastery goals (master a
task; improve over time) and—as mentioned above—two
types of performance goals: performance-avoidance goals
(not be outperformed by others) and performance-approach
goals (outperform others). Most importantly for us, the nomo-
logical network for performance goals is well-established, as
meta-analyses demonstrate that (a) performance-avoidance
goals predict undesirable outcomes such as low self-efficacy,
self-handicapping, negative affect, and cheating, whereas (b)
performance-approach goals predict desirable outcomes such
as high self-efficacy and self-regulation, but also undesirable
outcomes such as negative affect and cheating (Fritz et al.,
2023;Huang, 2011,2016;Schwinger et al., 2022;Senko &
Dawson, 2017). Connecting this literature to the literature on
the psychology of income inequality, we contend that contexts
of inequality can prompt performance-avoidance goals
(Sommetetal.,2019), which in school settings can lead to
greater anxiety (King et al., 2024), but may also extend to
other undesirable outcomes, including negative self-talk, disen-
gagement, and even school dropout (for supporting evidence,
see Kearney & Levine, 2016). Concurrently, we argue that con-
texts of inequality can also prompt performance-approach goals
(Sommetetal.,2019), which in school settings can lead to
engaging in tactical cooperation to succeed (Sommetetal.,
2023), but may also extend to a mixture of undesirable and
desirable outcomes, including challenge seeking, active class
participation, and academic dishonesty.
2. In search of moderators differentiating those who suffer and
those who paradoxically benefit from economic inequality.
Economic inequality is often viewed as a purely destructive
societal force (e.g., see Wilkinson & Pickett, 2017), yet we
know that not all individuals are inequality-averse
(Starmans et al., 2017). Economic inequalities can some-
times harm psychological well-being, such as for those fac-
ing financial scarcity (Sommet et al., 2018) or those
generally lower in socioeconomic status (who face a “dou-
ble disadvantage”;Odgers & Adler, 2018, p. 129).
However, economic inequalities can also improve well-
being, such as for those who reject egalitarian norms
(Rözer & Kraaykamp, 2013) or those generally higher in
socioeconomic status (who generally, by symmetry, may
experience some sort of double advantage; Bartram,
2022). While identifying students who struggle in unequal
environments is crucial for understanding their vulnerabil-
ity, identifying those who may paradoxically thrive in
these environments is important for understanding how
inequality perpetuates itself (i.e., disadvantaging some
while favoring others). As previously discussed, educa-
tional research has begun to uncover factors that moderate
the association between economic inequality and psycho-
logical outcomes among students. For instance, King et al.
(2022) provided preliminary evidence that the detrimental
effect of economic inequality on school belonging may be
stronger among lower secondary school students with
lower socioeconomic status (but, again, see Sommet et al.,
2023). As another example, Claes et al. (in press) showed
that economic inequality could increase the relative advan-
tage of lower secondary school students from wealthier fam-
ilies in terms of achievement. While these findings require
further confirmation, future research would do well to
more systematically investigate moderators of the psycho-
logical effects of economic inequality (for an in-depth
review focusing on the interaction between income inequal-
ity and socioeconomic status in predicting behavioral
4
Other cross-national datasets focused on primary or secondary school
students exist, such as the Trends in International Mathematics and Science
Study or the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (for an exam-
ple of research using these datasets, see Scheeren & Bol, 2022).
ECONOMIC INEQUALITY IN SCHOOLS 9
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
outcomes among youth, see Browman et al., 2019).
Potential moderators might include, but are not limited to,
variables like perceived social mobility, sense of control,
evaluative pressure, or task difficulty (for related sugges-
tions, see Murayama & Elliot, 2012).
3. Considering different parts of the economic distribution in
examining the effects of inequality. Nearly all of the extant
research on economic inequality examines the influence of
overall inequality on focal outcomes without consideration
of specific segments of the economic distribution.
However, conceptually, the lower portion of the income or
wealth distribution (from the bottom to the middle) and
the upper portion of the distribution (from the middle to
the top) focus on very different economic groups that likely
have very different psychological experiences (De Maio,
2007;Jachimowicz et al., 2023). For example, bottom-to-
middle inequality may prompt avoidance goal pursuit aimed
at evading poverty, whereas middle-to-top inequality may
prompt approach goal pursuit aimed at becoming wealthy,
and these pursuits likely have very different implications
for affect, cognition, and behavior. A few studies in the lit-
erature have begun to attend to this distribution issue and
discovered important differences (e.g., Blesch et al., 2022;
Tang et al., 2023). For example, Tan et al. (2020) found a
negative relationship between inequality and subjective
well-being in the bottom-to-middle part of the income
inequality distribution, and a positive relationship in the
middle-to-top part of the distribution. We believe it will
be fruitful for future empirical work to incorporate this
“place-in-the-distribution”issue into research with students
in schools.
Conclusions
In introducing this review, we indicated our desire to incorporate
ideas on the psychology of inequality from the economic domain
into the education domain. This integration fits nicely within the
overall tradition of research on income inequality which is inherently
integrative to its core. Indeed, work in this field is admirably multi-
disciplinary, drawing on insights from diverse disciplines such as
economics (Alesina et al., 2004), sociology (Van de Werfhorst &
Salverda, 2012), political science (Gunderson, 2022), social epide-
miology (Kawachi & Subramanian, 2014), and, of course, psychol-
ogy (K. Payne, 2018;Peters & Jetten, 2023;Sánchez-Rodríguez et
al., 2023). As psychologists, our unique contribution to this area
of research lies in unraveling the psychological mechanisms under-
lying these effects: How a macro-level economic phenomenon—the
shape of the income or wealth distribution—gets inside the heads of
individuals to influence their affect, cognition, and behavior. Given
the breadth and importance of this question, it is no surprise that psy-
chologists from many subdisciplines are engaged in this line of
inquiry, including social psychology (Cheung & Lucas, 2016) and
economic psychology (Ruggeri et al., 2022), but also personality
psychology (de Vries et al., 2011), organizational psychology
(Muggleton et al., 2022), and evolutionary psychology (Blake &
Brooks, 2019). Herein we identify an underappreciated and
understudied subdiscipline—educational psychology—and sound
the call for more conceptual and empirical work in this area.
Extensive research in educational psychology demonstrates how
school policies, teacher practices, and classroom climates can culti-
vate competitive motivations among students (Bardach et al., 2020;
Berson & Oreg, 2016;Daumiller et al., 2022). Our review examined
how a broader structural predictor, namely economic inequality, may
transform schools into hotbeds of competitive motivation and influ-
ence students’affective, relational, and achievement-related out-
comes. We hope that future research will delve deeper and wider
into these issues, advancing our understanding of how economic
inequality shapes the minds of young generations to come.
References
Alesina, A.,Di Tella, R., &MacCulloch, R. (2004). Inequalityand happiness:
Are Europeans and Americans different? Journal of Public Economics,
88(9–10), 2009–2042. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2003.07.006
Alexiou, C., & Kartiyasa, A. (2020). Does greater income inequality cause
increased work hours? New evidence from high income economies.
Bulletin of Economic Research,72(4), 380–392. https://doi.org/10.1111/
boer.12226
Allen, K., Kern, M. L., Vella-Brodrick, D., Hattie, J., & Waters, L. (2018).
What schools need to know about fostering school belonging: A meta-
analysis. Educational Psychology Review,30(1), 1–34. https://doi.org/10
.1007/s10648-016-9389-8
Allison, P. D. (2009). Fixed effects regression models. SAGE Publications.
Altman, M. (2023). Handbook of research methods in behavioural econom-
ics: An interdisciplinary approach. Edward Elgar.
Alwin, D. F., Cohen, R. L., & Newcomb, T. M. (1991). Political attitudes
over the life span: The Bennington women after fifty years. University of
Wisconsin Press.
Arend, M. G., & Schäfer, T. (2019). Statistical power in two-level models: A
tutorial based on Monte Carlo simulation. Psychological Methods,24(1),
1–19. https://doi.org/10.1037/met0000195
Atkinson, J. W. (1957). Motivational determinants of risk-taking behavior.
Psychological Review,64(6, Pt.1), 359–372. https://doi.org/10.1037/
h0043445
Bardach, L., Oczlon, S., Pietschnig, J., & Lüftenegger, M. (2020). Has
achievement goal theory been right? A meta-analysis of the relation
between goal structures and personal achievement goals. Journal of
Educational Psychology,112(6), 1197–1220. https://doi.org/10.1037/
edu0000419
Bartram, D. (2022). Does inequality exacerbate status anxiety among higher
earners? A longitudinal evaluation. International Journal of Comparative
Sociology,63(4), 184–200. https://doi.org/10.1177/00207152221094815
Bartram, D. (2023). Does belief in meritocracy increase with inequality? A
reconsideration for European countries. The British Journal of
Sociology,74(5), 763–780. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.13042
Berson, Y., & Oreg, S. (2016). The role of school principals in shaping child-
ren’s values. Psychological Science,27(12), 1539–1549. https://doi.org/
10.1177/0956797616670147
Blake, K. R., & Brooks, R. C. (2019). Status anxiety mediates the positive
relationship between income inequality and sexualization. Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences,116(50), 25029–25033. https://
doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1909806116
Summary
•Future research would benefit from using repeated cross-
sectional or longitudinal designs to better approach causality in
studying the psychology of economic inequality at schools.
•Future research would benefit from exploring mediators,
moderators, and different types of distribution to better
understand the dual effects of economic inequality.
SOMMET, CLAES, AND ELLIOT
10
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
Blanchet, T., Saez, E., & Zucman, G. (2022). Real-time inequality.https://
realtimeinequality.org/
Blascovich, J. (2013). Challenge and threat. In A. Elliot (Ed.), Handbook of
approach and avoidance motivation (pp. 431–446). Psychology Press.
Blesch, K., Hauser, O. P., & Jachimowicz, J. M. (2022). Measuring inequal-
ity beyond the Gini coefficient may clarify conflicting findings. Nature
Human Behaviour,6(11), 1525–1536. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-
022-01430-7
Bouncken, R. B., Gast, J., Kraus, S., & Bogers, M. (2015). Coopetition: A
systematic review, synthesis, and future research directions. Review of
Managerial Science,9(3), 577–601. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11846-
015-0168-6
Bozick, R., Lauff, E., & Wirt, J. (2007). Education Longitudinal Study of
2002 (ELS: 2002): A first look at the initial postsecondary experiences
of the high school sophomore class of 2002. National Center for
Education Statistics.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1986). Ecology of the family as a context for human
development: Research perspectives. Developmental Psychology,22(6),
723–742. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.22.6.723
Browman, A. S., Destin, M., Kearney, M. S., & Levine, P. B. (2019). How
economic inequality shapes mobility expectations and behaviour in disad-
vantaged youth. Nature Human Behaviour,3(3), 214–220. https://doi.org/
10.1038/s41562-018-0523-0
Button, K. S., Ioannidis, J. P., Mokrysz, C., Nosek, B.A., Flint, J., Robinson,
E. S., & Munafò, M. R. (2013). Power failure: Why small sample size
undermines the reliability of neuroscience. Nature Reviews
Neuroscience,14(5), 365–376. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3475
Buttrick, N. R., & Oishi, S. (2017). The psychological consequences of
income inequality. Social and Personality Psychology Compass,11(3),
Article e12304. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12304
Chancel, L., Piketty, T., Saez, E., & Zucman, G. (2022). World inequality
report 2022. Harvard University Press.
Cheng, L., Hao, M., & Wang, F. (2021). Beware of the ‘bad guys’: Economic
inequality, perceived competition, and social vigilance. International Review
of Social Psychology,34(1), Article 9. https://doi.org/10.5334/irsp.497
Cheung, F., & Lucas, R. E. (2016). Income inequality is associated with
stronger social comparison effects: The effect of relative income on life sat-
isfaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,110(2), 332–341.
https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000059
Chiu, M. M. (2010). Effects of inequality, family and school on mathematics
achievement: Country and student differences. Social Forces,88(4),
1645–1676. https://doi.org/10.1353/sof.2010.0019
Chiu, M. M. (2015). Family inequality, school inequalities, and mathematics
achievement in 65 countries: Microeconomic mechanisms of rent seeking
and diminishing marginal returns. Teachers College Record: The Voice of
Scholarship in Education,117(1), 1–32. https://doi.org/10.1177/0161468
11511700105
Chiu, M. M., & Chow, B. W.-Y. (2011). Classroom discipline across
forty-one countries: School, economic, and cultural differences. Journal
of Cross-Cultural Psychology,42(3), 516–533. https://doi.org/10.1177/
0022022110381115
Chiu, M. M., & Chow, B. W.-Y. (2015). Classmate characteristics and stu-
dent achievement in 33 countries: Classmates’past achievement, family
socioeconomic status, educational resources, and attitudes toward reading.
Journal of Educational Psychology,107(1), 152–169. https://doi.org/10
.1037/a0036897
Claes, N., Smeding, A., Carre, A., & Sommet, N. (in press). The social class
test gap: A worldwide investigation of the role of academic anxiety and
income inequality in standardized test score disparities. Journal of
Educational Psychology.
Condron, D. J. (2011). Egalitarianism and educational excellence:
Compatible goals for affluent societies. Educational Researcher,40(2),
47–55. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X11401021
Contreras, D., Elacqua, G., Martinez, M., & Miranda, Á. (2015). Income
inequality or performance gap? A multilevel study of school violence in
52 countries. Journal of Adolescent Health,57(5), 545–552. https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2015.08.002
Cosma, A., Stevens, G., Martin, G., Duinhof, E. L., Walsh, S. D.,
Garcia-Moya, I., Költo
, A., Gobina, I., Canale, N., Catunda, C., Inchley,
J., & de Looze, M. (2020). Cross-national time trends in adolescent mental
well-being from 2002 to 2018 and the explanatory roleof schoolwork pres-
sure. Journal of Adolescent Health,66(6), S50–S58. https://doi.org/10
.1016/j.jadohealth.2020.02.010
Darnon, C., Jury, M., Goudeau, S., & Portex, M. (2023). Competitive and
cooperative practices in education: How teachers’beliefs in school meri-
tocracy are related to their daily practices with students. Social
Psychology of Education,26(6), 1789–1805. https://doi.org/10.1007/
s11218-023-09824-9
Daumiller, M., Fasching, M. S., Steuer, G., Dresel, M., & Dickhäuser, O.
(2022). From teachers’personal achievement goals to students’percep-
tions of classroom goal structures: Via student-oriented goals and specific
instructional practices. Teaching and Teacher Education,111, Article
103617. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2021.103617
Davidai, S. (2023). Economic inequality fosters the belief that success is
zero-sum. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. Advance online
publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672231206428
De Maio, F. G. (2007). Income inequality measures. Journal of
Epidemiology & Community Health,61(10), 849–852. https://doi.org/10
.1136/jech.2006.052969
Deutsch, M. (1949). A theory of co-operation and competition. Human
Relations,2(2), 129–152. https://doi.org/10.1177/001872674900200204
de Vries, R., Gosling, S., & Potter, J. (2011). Income inequality and person-
ality: Are less equal US states less agreeable? Social Science & Medicine,
72(12), 1978–1985. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.03.046
Diaz, B., May, S., & Seider, S. (2023). Black and latinx adolescents’developing
understandings about poverty, inequality, and opportunity. Applied
Developmental Science,27(2), 115–135. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888691
.2022.2040361
Dickinson, J., Leman, P. J., & Easterbrook, M. J. (2023). Children’s develop-
ing understanding of economic inequality and their place within it. British
Journal of Developmental Psychology,41(2), 81–98. https://doi.org/10
.1111/bjdp.12446
Doepke, M., Sorrenti, G., & Zilibotti, F. (2019). The economics of parenting.
Annual Review of Economics,11(1), 55–84. https://doi.org/10.1146/
annurev-economics-080218-030156
Doepke, M., & Zilibotti, F. (2019). Love, money, and parenting: How eco-
nomics explains the way we raise our kids. Princeton University Press.
Du, H., Chen, A., Chi, P., & King, R. B. (2021). Income inequality reduces
civic honesty. Social Psychological and Personality Science,12(4), 537–
543. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550620929495
Du, H., Chi, P., & King, R. B. (2019). Economic inequality is associated with
long-term harm on adolescent well-being in China. Child Development,
90(4), 1016–1026. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13253
Du, H., Götz, F. M., King, R. B., & Rentfrow, P. J. (2024). The psychological
imprint of inequality: Economic inequality shapes achievement and power val-
ues in human life. Journal of Personality,92(1), 222–242. https://doi.org/10
.1111/jopy.12758
Dweck, C. S. (1986). Motivational processes affecting learning. American
Psychologist,41(10), 1040–1048. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.41
.10.1040
Elenbaas, L., Rizzo, M. T., & Killen, M. (2020). A developmental-science
perspective on social inequality. Current Directions in Psychological
Science,29(6), 610–616. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721420964147
Elgar, F. J., Craig, W., Boyce, W., Morgan, A., & Vella-Zarb, R. (2009).
Income inequality and school bullying: Multilevel study of adolescents
in 37 countries. Journal of Adolescent Health,45(4), 351–359. https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2009.04.004
ECONOMIC INEQUALITY IN SCHOOLS 11
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
Elgar, F. J., Gariepy, G., Dirks, M., Walsh, S. D., Molcho, M., Cosma, A.,
Malinowska-Cieslik, M., Donnelly, P. D., & Craig, W. (2019).
Association of early-life exposure to income inequality with bullying in
adolescence in 40 countries. JAMA Pediatrics,173(7), Article e191181.
https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2019.1181
Elgar, F. J., Pförtner, T.-K., Moor, I., De Clercq, B., Stevens, G. W. J. M., &
Currie, C. (2015). Socioeconomic inequalities in adolescent health 2002–
2010: A time-series analysis of 34 countries participating in the Health
Behaviour in School-aged Children study. The Lancet,385(9982),
2088–2095. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(14)61460-4
Elgar, F. J., Pickett, K. E., Pickett, W., Craig,W., Molcho, M., Hurrelmann, K.,
& Lenzi, M. (2013). School bullying, homicide and income inequality: A
cross-national pooled time series analysis. International Journal of Public
Health,58(2), 237–245. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-012-0380-y
Elliot, A. J. (1999). Approach and avoidance motivation and achievement
goals. Educational Psychologist,34(3), 169–189. https://doi.org/10
.1207/s15326985ep3403_3
Elliot, A. J. (2020). Competition and achievement outcomes: A hierarchical
motivational analysis. Motivation Science,6(1), 3–11. https://doi.org/10
.1037/mot0000164
Elliot, A. J., Jury, M., & Murayama, K. (2018). Trait and perceived environ-
mental competitiveness in achievement situations. Journal of Personality,
86(3), 353–367. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12320
Elliot, A. J., & Murayama, K. (2008). On the measurement of achievement
goals: Critique, illustration, and application. Journal of Educational
Psychology,100(3), 613–628. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.100.3.613
Elliot, A. J., & Sommet, N. (2023). Integration in the achievement motivation
literature and the hierarchical model of achievement motivation.
Educational Psychology Review,35(3), Article 77. https://doi.org/10
.1007/s10648-023-09785-7
Fairbrother, M. (2014). Two multilevel modeling techniques for analyzing
comparative longitudinal survey datasets. Political Science Research and
Methods,2(1), 119–140. https://doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2013.24
Filippi, S., Salvador Casara, B. G., Pirrone, D., Yerkes, M., & Suitner, C.
(2023). Economic inequality increases the number of hours worked and
decreases work–life balance perceptions: Longitudinal and experimental
evidence. Royal Society Open Science,10(10), Article 230187. https://
doi.org/10.1098/rsos.230187
Fritz, T., González Cruz, H., Janke, S., & Daumiller, M. (2023). Elucidating
the associations between achievement goals and academic dishonesty: A
meta-analysis. Educational Psychology Review,35(1), Article 33.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-023-09753-1
Fülöp, M., & Orosz, G. (2015). State of the artin competition research. In R.
A. Scott, M. C. Buchmann, & S. M. Kosslyn (Eds.), Emerging trends in
the social and behavioral sciences: An interdisciplinary, searchable,
and linkable resource (pp. 1–16). John Wiley & Sons.
Garcia, S. M., Tor, A., & Schiff, T. M. (2013). The psychology of competi-
tion: A social comparison perspective. Perspectives on Psychological
Science,8(6), 634–650. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691613504114
Gilbert, P., & Basran, J. (2019). The evolution of prosocial and antisocial
competitive behavior and the emergence of prosocial and antisocial lead-
ership styles. Frontiers in Psychology,10, Article 610. https://doi.org/10
.3389/fpsyg.2019.00610
Gimpelson, V., & Treisman, D. (2018). Misperceiving inequality. Economics
& Politics,30(1), 27–54. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecpo.12103
Gobel, M. S., & Carvacho, H. (2024). The dynamic socioecological model of
economic inequality and psychological tendencies: A cycle of mutual con-
stitution. Social and Personality Psychology Compass,18(1), Article
e12875. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12875
Godfrey, E. B., & Cherng, H.-Y. S. (2016). The kids are all right? Income
inequality and civic engagement among our nation’s youth. Journal of
Youth and Adolescence,45(11), 2218–2232. https://doi.org/10.1007/
s10964-016-0557-4
Goudeau, S., Stephens, N. M., Markus, H. R., Darnon, C., Croizet, J.-C., &
Cimpian, A. (in press). What causes social class disparities in education?
The role of the mismatches between academic contexts and working-class
socialization contexts and how the effects of these mismatches are
explained. Psychological Review.
Gray, P., Lancy, D. F., & Bjorklund, D. F. (2023). Decline in independent
activity as a cause of decline in children’s mental well-being: Summary
of the evidence. The Journal of Pediatrics,260(2), Article 113352.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpeds.2023.02.004
Gunderson, J. R. (2022). When does income inequality cause polarization?
British Journal of Political Science,52(3), 1315–1332. https://doi.org/
10.1017/S0007123421000053
Hannay, J. W.,Payne, B. K., & Brown-Iannuzzi, J. (2021). Economic inequal-
ity and the pursuit of pleasure. Social Psychological and Personality
Science,12(7), 1254–1263. https://doi.org/10.1177/19485506211015049
Hasell, J., Roser, M., Ortiz-Ospina, E., & Arriagada, P. (2022). Poverty. Our
World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/poverty
Higgins, E. T. (1998). Promotion and prevention: Regulatory focus as a moti-
vational principle. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social
psychology (Vol. 30, pp. 1–46). Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/
S0065-2601(08)60381-0
Hiilamo, H., & Kangas, O. (2014). Cherry picking: How sensitive is the rela-
tionship between inequality and social problems to country samples?
International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy,34(11/12), 771–
792. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSSP-12-2013-0118
Högberg, B. (2021). Educational stressors and secular trends in school stress
and mental health problems in adolescents. Social Science & Medicine,
270(4), Article 113616. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113616
Högberg, B., Petersen, S., Strandh, M., & Johansson, K. (2021).
Determinants of declining school belonging 2000–2018: The case of
Sweden. Social Indicators Research,157(2), 783–802. https://doi.org/10
.1007/s11205-021-02662-2
Horney, K. (1937/2013). The neurotic personality of our time. Routledge.
Huang, C. (2011). Achievement goals and achievement emotions: A meta-
analysis. Educational Psychology Review,23(3), 359–388. https://
doi.org/10.1007/s10648-011-9155-x
Huang, C. (2016). Achievement goals and self-efficacy: A meta-analysis.
Educational Research Review,19(1), 119–137. https://doi.org/10.1016/j
.edurev.2016.07.002
Huber, C., Dreber, A., Huber, J., Johannesson, M., Kirchler, M., Weitzel, U.,
Abellán,M.,Adayeva,X.,Ay,F.C.,Barron,K.,Berry,Z.,Bönte,W.,Brütt,
K., Bulutay, M., Campos-Mercade, P., Cardella, E., Claassen, M. A.,
Cornelissen, G., Dawson, I. G. J., …Holzmeister, F. (2023). Competition
and moral behavior: A meta-analysis of forty-five crowd-sourced experi-
mental designs. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
120(23), Article e2215572120. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2215572120
Jachimowicz, J. M., Davidai, S., Goya-Tocchetto, D., Szaszi, B., Day, M. V.,
Tepper, S. J., Phillips, L. T., Mirza, M. U., Ordabayeva, N., & Hauser, O.
P. (2023). Inequality in researchers’minds: Four guiding questions for
studying subjective perceptions of economic inequality. Journal of
Economic Surveys,37(5), 1534–1561. https://doi.org/10.1111/joes.12507
Jamieson, J. P. (2017). Challenge and threat appraisals. In A. J. Elliot, C.
S. Dweck, & D. Yeager (Eds.), Handbook of competence and motivation:
Theory and application (Vol. 2, pp. 175–191). Guilford Press.
Johnson, G. R., Allen, K.-A., & Gallo Cordoba, B. (2024). Where does cul-
ture belong at school? Exploring the role of individualism and power dis-
tance in school belonging across cultures. Current Psychology,43, 13492–
13527. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-05280-y
Johnston, C. D., & Newman, B. J. (2016). Economic inequality and US pub-
lic policy mood across space and time. American Politics Research,44(1),
164–191. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X15588361
Kavussanu, M., & Al-Yaaribi, A. (2021). Prosocial and antisocial behaviour
in sport. International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology,19(2),
179–202. https://doi.org/10.1080/1612197X.2019.1674681
SOMMET, CLAES, AND ELLIOT
12
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
Kawachi, I., & Subramanian, S. (2014).Income inequality. In L. F. Berkman,
I. Kawachi, & M. M. Glymour (Eds.), Social epidemiology (Vol. 126, pp.
126–152). Oxford University Press.
Kearney, M. S., & Levine, P. B. (2016). Income inequality, social mobility,
and the decision to drop out of high school. Brookings Papers on
Economic Activity,2016(1), 333–396. https://doi.org/10.1353/eca.2016
.0017
King, R. B., Cai, Y., & Elliot, A. J. (2024). Income inequality is associated
with heightened test anxiety and lower academic achievement: A cross-
national study in 51 countries. Learning and Instruction,89, Article
101825. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2023.101825
King, R. B., Chiu, M. M., & Du, H. (2022). Greater income inequality, lower
school belonging: Multilevel and cross-temporal analyses of 65 countries.
Journal of Educational Psychology,114(5), 1101–1120. https://doi.org/10
.1037/edu0000736
Köseog
lu, M. A., Yildiz, M., Okumus, F., & Barca, M. (2019). The intellec-
tual structure of coopetition: Past, present and future. Journal of Strategy
and Management,12(1), 2–29. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSMA-07-2018-
0073
Layte, R., & Whelan, C. T. (2014). Who feels inferior? A test of the status
anxiety hypothesis of social inequalities in health. European
Sociological Review,30(4), 525–535. https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcu057
Legare, C. H. (2019). The development of cumulative cultural learning.
Annual Review of Developmental Psychology,1(1), 119–147. https://
doi.org/10.1146/annurev-devpsych-121318-084848
Legaspi, J. K., Pareto, H. G., Korroch, S. L., Tian, Y., & Mandalaywala, T.
M. (2023). Do American children automatically encode cues to wealth?
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology,234, Article 105706. https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2023.105706
Loughnan, S., Kuppens, P., Allik, J., Balazs, K., de Lemus, S., Dumont, K.,
Gargurevich, R., Hidegkuti, I., Leidner, B., Matos, L., Park, J., Realo, A.,
Shi, J., Sojo, V. E., Tong, Y.-y., Vaes, J., Verduyn, P., Yeung, V., &
Haslam, N. (2011). Economic inequality is linked to biased self-perception.
Psychological Science,22(10), 1254–1258. https://doi.org/10.1177/
0956797611417003
Marquez, J., & Long, E. (2021). A global decline in adolescents’subjective
well-being: A comparative studyexploring patterns of change in the life sat-
isfaction of 15-year-old students in 46 countries. Child Indicators Research,
14(3), 1251–1292. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-020-09788-8
McClelland, D. C., Atkinson, J. W., Clark, R. A., & Lowell, E. L. (1953). The
achievement motive. Appleton-Century-Crofts.
McLoyd, V. C. (1998). Socioeconomic disadvantage and child development.
American Psychologist,53(2), 185–204. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-
066X.53.2.185
Melita, D., Willis, G. B., & Rodríguez-Bailón, R. (2021). Economic inequal-
ity increases status anxiety through perceived contextual competitiveness.
Frontiers in Psychology,12, Article 1895. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg
.2021.637365
Mijs, J. J. (2021). The paradox of inequality: Income inequality and belief in
meritocracy go hand in hand. Socio-Economic Review,19(1), 7–35.
https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwy051
Mishra, S., Fogg, C., & Deminchuk, J. (2024). Competition and risk-taking.
In S. M. Garcia, A. Tor, & A. J. Elliot (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of the
psychology of competition (pp. 373–397). Oxford University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190060800.013.16
Mishra, S., Hing, L. S. S., & Lalumiere, M. L. (2015). Inequality and risk-
taking. Evolutionary Psychology,13(3), Article 1474704915596295.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1474704915596295
Morris, K., Bühlmann, F., Sommet, N., & Vandecasteele, L. (2022). The par-
adox of local inequality: Meritocratic beliefs in unequal localities. The
British Journal of Sociology,73(2), 421–460. https://doi.org/10.1111/
1468-4446.12930
Muggleton, N., Trendl, A., Walasek, L., Leake, D., Gathergood, J., & Stewart,
N. (2022). Workplace inequality is associated with status-signaling
expenditure. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,119(15),
Article e2115196119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2115196119
Murayama, K., & Elliot, A. J. (2012). The competition-performance relation:
A meta-analytic review and test of the opposing processes model of com-
petition and performance. Psychological Bulletin,138(6), 1035–1070.
https://doi.org/10.1037/a0028324
Murayama, K., Elliot, A. J., & Jury, M. (2021). Motivational dynamics
underlying competition: The opposing processes model of competition
and performance. In A. Tor, S. Garcia, & A. J. Elliot (Eds.), The Oxford
handbook of psychology of competition ( pp. 189–209). Oxford
University Press.
Mussweiler, T. (2003). Comparison processes in social judgment:
Mechanisms and consequences. Psychological Review,110(3), 472–
489. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.110.3.472
Neville, L. (2012). Do economic equality and generalized trust inhibit academic
dishonesty? Evidence from state-level search-engine queries. Psychological
Science,23(4), 339–345. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797611435980
Newcomb, T. M. (1943). Personality and social change; attitude formation
in a student community. Dryden Press.
Odgers, C. L., & Adler, N. E. (2018). Challenges for low-income children in
an era of increasing income inequality. Child Development Perspectives,
12(2), 128–133. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12273
OECD. (2019). Under pressure: The squeezed middle class.
Oishi, S., Kesebir, S., & Diener, E. (2011). Income inequality and happiness.
Psychological Science,22(9), 1095–1100. https://doi.org/10.1177/
0956797611417262
Payne, B. K., Brown-Iannuzzi, J. L., & Hannay, J. W. (2017). Economic
inequality increases risk taking. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences,114(18), 4643–4648. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1616453114
Payne, K. (2018). The broken ladder: How inequality affects the way we
think, live, and die. Penguin.
Payne, S. C., Youngcourt, S. S., & Beaubien, J. M. (2007). A meta-analytic
examination of the goal orientation nomological net. Journal of Applied
Psychology,92(1), 128–150. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.92.1.128
Pazzona, M. (2024). Revisiting the income inequality-crime puzzle. World
Development,176, Article 106520. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev
.2023.106520
Perry, L. B., & Mcconney, A. (2010). Does the SES of the school matter? An
examination of socioeconomic status and student achievement using PISA
2003. Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education,
112(4), 1137–1162. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811011200401
Peters, K., & Jetten, J. (2023). How living in economically unequal societies
shapes our minds and our social lives. British Journal of Psychology,
114(2), 515–531. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12632
Peters, K., Jetten, J., Tanjitpiyanond, P., Wang, Z., Mols, F., & Verkuyten, M.
(2022). The language of inequality: Evidence economic inequality
increases wealth category. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin,
48(8), 1204–1219. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672211036627
Pickett, K. E., & Wilkinson, R. G. (2007). Child wellbeing and income
inequality in rich societies: Ecological cross sectional study. BMJ,
335(7629), Article 1080. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.39377.580162.55
Pinquart, M., & Ebeling, M. (2020). Parental educational expectations and
academic achievement in children and adolescents—A meta-analysis.
Educational Psychology Review,32(2), 463–480. https://doi.org/10
.1007/s10648-019-09506-z
Pulfrey, C., & Butera, F. (2013). Why neoliberal values of self-enhancement
lead to cheating in higher education: A motivational account.
Psychological Science,24(11), 2153–2162. https://doi.org/10.1177/
0956797613487221
Ravallion, M. (2014). Income inequality in the developing world. Science,
344(6186), 851–855. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1251875
Roseth, C. J., Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (2008). Promoting early ado-
lescents’achievement and peer relationships: The effects of cooperative,
ECONOMIC INEQUALITY IN SCHOOLS 13
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
competitive, and individualistic goal structures. Psychological Bulletin,
134(2), 223–246. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.134.2.223
Rözer, J., & Kraaykamp, G. (2013). Income inequality and subjective well-
being: A cross-national study on the conditional effects of individual
and national characteristics. Social Indicators Research,113(3), 1009–
1023. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-012-0124-7
Ruggeri, K., Panin, A., Vdovic, M., Veckalov, B., Abdul-Salaam, N.,
Achterberg, J., Akil, C., Amatya, J., Amatya, K., Andersen, T. L.,
Aquino, S. D., Arunasalam, A., Ashcroft-Jones, S., Askelund, A. D.,
Ayacaxli, N., Sheshdeh, A. B., Bailey, A., Barea Arroyo, P., Mejía, G.
B., …García-Garzon, E. (2022). The globalizability of temporal discount-
ing. Nature Human Behaviour,6(10), 1386–1397. https://doi.org/10
.1038/s41562-022-01392-w
Rutkowski, D., Rutkowski, L., Wild, J., & Burroughs, N. (2018). Poverty and
educational achievement in the US: A less-biased estimate using PISA
2012 data. Journal of Children and Poverty,24(1), 47–67. https://
doi.org/10.1080/10796126.2017.1401898
Sánchez-Rodríguez, Á., Rodríguez-Bailón, R., & Willis, G. B. (2023). The
economic inequality as normative information model (EINIM).
European Review of Social Psychology,34(2), 346–386. https://doi.org/
10.1080/10463283.2022.2160555
Sánchez-Rodríguez, Á., Willis, G. B., Jetten, J., & Rodríguez-Bailón, R.
(2019). Economic inequality enhances inferences that the normative cli-
mate is individualistic and competitive. European Journal of Social
Psychology,49(6), 1114–1127. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2557
Scheeren, L., & Bol, T. (2022). Gender inequality in educational perfor-
mance over the school career: The role of tracking. Research in Social
Stratification and Mobility,77, Article 100661. https://doi.org/10.1016/j
.rssm.2021.100661
Schneider, D., Hastings, O. P., & LaBriola, J. (2018). Income inequality and
class divides in parental investments. American Sociological Review,
83(3), 475–507. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122418772034
Schneider, W., & Schenck-Fontaine, A. (2022). Growing up unequal:
Objective and subjective economic disparities andauthoritarian parenting.
Child Abuse & Neglect,130(Pt. 4), Article 105332. https://doi.org/10
.1016/j.chiabu.2021.105332
Schwinger, M., Trautner, M., Pütz, N., Fabianek, S., Lemmer, G.,
Lauermann, F., & Wirthwein, L. (2022). Why do students use strategies
that hurt their chances of academic success? A meta-analysis of anteced-
ents of academic self-handicapping. Journal of Educational Psychology,
114(3), 576–596. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000706
Seery, M. D. (2013). The biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat:
Using the heart to measure the mind. Social and Personality Psychology
Compass,7(9), 637–653. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12052
Senko, C., & Dawson, B. (2017). Performance-approach goal effects depend
on how they are defined: Meta-analytic evidence from multiple educa-
tional outcomes. Journal of Educational Psychology,109(4), 574–598.
https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000160
Senko, C., Hulleman, C. S., & Harackiewicz, J. M. (2011). Achievement goal
theory at the crossroads: Old controversies, current challenges, and new
directions. Educational Psychologist,46(1), 26–47. https://doi.org/10
.1080/00461520.2011.538646
Sommet, N., & Elliot, A. J. (2016). Achievement Goals. In V. Zeigler-Hill &
T. K. Shackelford (Eds.), Encyclopedia of personality and individual dif-
ferences (pp. 1–4). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10
.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_484-1
Sommet, N., & Elliot, A. J. (2023a). A competitiveness-based theoretical
framework to study the psychology of income inequality. Current
Directions in Psychological Science,32(4), 318–327. https://doi.org/10
.1177/09637214231159563
Sommet, N., & Elliot, A. J. (2023b). Opposing effects of income inequality
on health: The role of perceived competitiveness. European Journal of
Social Psychology,53(1), 61–77. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2884
Sommet, N., Elliot, A. J., Jamieson, J. P., & Butera, F. (2019). Income
inequality, perceived competitiveness, and approach-avoidance motiva-
tion. Journal of Personality,87(4), 767–784. https://doi.org/10.1111/
jopy.12432
Sommet, N., & Morselli, D. (2021). Keep calm and learn multilevel linear
modeling: A three-step procedure using SPSS, Stata, R, and MPlus.
International Review of Social Psychology,34(1), Article 24. https://
doi.org/10.5334/irsp.555
Sommet, N., Morselli, D., & Spini, D. (2018). Income inequality affects the
psychological health of only the people facing scarcity. Psychological
Science,29(12), 1911–1921. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797618798620
Sommet, N., Pillaud, V., Meuleman, B., & Butera, F. (2017). The socializa-
tion of performance goals. Contemporary Educational Psychology,49,
337–354. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2017.03.008
Sommet, N., Weissman, D. L., & Elliot, A. J. (2023). Income inequality pre-
dicts competitiveness and cooperativeness at school. Journal of
Educational Psychology,115(1), 173–191. https://doi.org/10.1037/
edu0000731
Spence, J. T., & Helmreich, R. L. (1983). Achievement-related motives and
behaviors. In J. T. Spence (Ed.), Achievement and achievement motives:
Psychological and sociological approaches (pp. 10–74). Freeman.
Starmans, C., Sheskin, M., & Bloom, P. (2017). Why people prefer unequal
societies. Nature Human Behaviour,1(4), Article 0082. https://doi.org/10
.1038/s41562-017-0082
Sum, P. E., & Ba
descu, G. (2023). Collaboration and socio-economic
inequality: Estimating the effects of intra-school and inter-school inequal-
ity on collaborative problem-solving skills. International Journal of
Educational Development,102, Article 102843. https://doi.org/10.1016/j
.ijedudev.2023.102843
Sweeting, H., West, P., Young, R., & Der, G. (2010). Can we explain increases
in young people’s psychological distress over time? Social Science &
Medicine,71(10), 1819–1830. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2010
.08.012
Tan, J., Jachimowicz, J., Smerdon, D., & Hauser,O. (2020). Opposing effects
of economic inequality concentrated at the top or bottom of the income dis-
tribution on subjective well-being.https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/5rcmz
Tang, C. K., Macchia, L., & Powdthavee, N. (2023). Income is more protec-
tive against pain in more equal countries. Social Science & Medicine,333,
Article 116181. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.116181
Tesser, A. (1988). Toward a self-evaluation maintenance model of social
behavior. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychol-
ogy (pp. 181–227). Academic Press.
Thorson, G. R., & Gearhart, S. M. (2018). The adverse effects of economic
inequality on educational outcomes: An examination of PISA scores,
2000–2015. World Affairs,181(3), 286–306. https://doi.org/10.1177/
0043820018799425
To, C., Kilduff, G. J., & Rosikiewicz, B. L. (2020). When interpersonal com-
petition helps and when it harms: An integration via challenge and threat.
Academy of Management Annals,14(2), 908–934. https://doi.org/10
.5465/annals.2016.0145
To, C., Wiwad, D., & Kouchaki, M. (2023). Economic inequality reduces
sense of control and increases the acceptability of self-interested unethical
behavior. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,152(10), 2747–
2774. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001423
Twenge, J. M. (2020). Why increases in adolescent depression may be linked
to the technological environment. Current Opinion in Psychology,32,89–
94. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2019.06.036
Twenge, J. M., Haidt, J., Blake, A. B., McAllister, C., Lemon, H., & Le Roy,
A. (2021). Worldwide increases in adolescent loneliness. Journal of
Adolescence,93(1), 257–269. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence
.2021.06.006
Van de Werfhorst, H. G., & Salverda, W. (2012). Consequences of economic
inequality: Introduction to a special issue. Research in Social Stratification
and Mobility,30(4), 377–387. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rssm.2012.08.001
SOMMET, CLAES, AND ELLIOT
14
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
von der Embse, N., Jester, D., Roy, D., & Post, J. (2018). Test anxiety effects,
predictors, and correlates: A 30-year meta-analytic review. Journal of
Affective Disorders,227,483–493. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2017.11.048
Walasek, L., Bhatia, S., & Brown, G. D. (2018). Positional goods and the
social rank hypothesis: Income inequality affects online chatter about
high- and low-status brands on Twitter. Journal of Consumer
Psychology,28(1), 138–148. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcpy.1012
Wang, J., & Wu, Y. (2023). Income inequality, cultural capital, and high
school students’academic achievement in OECD countries: A moderated
mediation analysis. The British Journal of Sociology,74(2), 148–172.
https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-4446.12997
Wei, C., Dang, J., Liu, L., Li, C., Tan, X., & Gu, Z. (2023). Economic inequal-
ity breeds corrupt behaviour. British Journal of Social Psychology,62(2),
949–971. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12610
Westfall, J., & Yarkoni, T. (2016). Statistically controlling for confounding
constructs is harder than you think. PLoS ONE,11(3), Article e0152719.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0152719
Wienk, M. N., Buttrick, N. R., & Oishi, S. (2022). The social psychology of
economic inequality, redistribution, and subjective well-being. European
Review of Social Psychology,33(1), 45–80. https://doi.org/10.1080/
10463283.2021.1955458
Wilkinson, R. G. (1997). Comment: Income, inequality, and social cohesion.
American Journal of Public Health,87(9), 1504–1506. https://doi.org/10
.2105/AJPH.87.9.1504
Wilkinson, R. G., & Pickett, K. E. (2017). The enemy between us: The psy-
chological and social costs of inequality. European Journal of Social
Psychology,47(1), 11–24. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2275
Willis, G. B., García-Sánchez, E., Sánchez-Rodríguez, Á., García-Castro, J.
D., & Rodríguez-Bailón, R. (2022). The psychosocial effects of economic
inequality depend on its perception. Nature Reviews Psychology,1(5),
301–309. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-022-00044-0
Workman, J. (2022). Inequality begets inequality: Income inequality and
socioeconomic achievement gradients across the United States. Social
Science Research,107, Article 102744. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.
2022.102744
Workman, J. (2023). Income inequality and student achievement: Trends
among US States (1992–2019). Educational Review,75(5), 871–893.
https://doi.org/10.1080/00131911.2021.1974349
Received December 19, 2023
Revision received March 23, 2024
Accepted March 25, 2024 ▪
ECONOMIC INEQUALITY IN SCHOOLS 15
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
A preview of this full-text is provided by American Psychological Association.
Content available from Motivation Science
This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
