Status anxiety mediates the positive relationship between income inequality and sexualization

Abstract

Income inequality generates and amplifies incentives, particularly incentives for individuals to elevate or maintain their status, with important consequences for the individuals involved and aggregate outcomes for their societies [R. G. Wilkinson, K. E. Pickett, Annu. Rev. Sociol. 35, 493-511 (2009)]. Economically unequal environments intensify men's competition for status, respect, and, ultimately, mating opportunities, thus elevating aggregate rates of violent crime and homicide [M. Daly, M. Wilson, Evolutionary Psychology and Motivation (2001)]. Recent evidence shows that women are more likely to post "sexy selfies" on social media and that they spend more on beautification in places where inequality is high rather than low [K. R. Blake, B. Bastian, T. F. Denson, et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 115, 8722-8727 (2018)]. Here we test experimentally for causal links between income inequality and individual self-sexualization and status-related competition. We show that manipulating income inequality in a role-playing task indirectly increases women's intentions to wear revealing clothing and that it does so by increasing women's anxiety about their place in the social hierarchy. The effects are not better accounted for by wealth/poverty than by inequality or by modeling anxiety about same-sex competitors in place of status anxiety. The results indicate that women's appearance enhancement is partly driven by status-related goals.

Keywords: economic inequality; self-objectification; sexualization; status anxiety.

Fig. 1.

Surface plot of the distribution of income in Bimboolean dollars of the 20th and 80th percentiles, showing the 80:20 ratio in color and contours. Data is from the World Bank (A; 12) and our experimental Bimboola replicates (B). Colors represent income inequality, with lighter color indicating higher inequality. Contours are log-transformed scores for income inequality. The World Bank percentile incomes (A) have been rescaled from PPP per US dollars to Bimboolean dollars. Our continuous Bimboola manipulation (B) provided greater coverage and independence of the 20th- and 80th-percentile values compared to those from the World Bank, while ensuring that the experimental 80:20 ratio resembled inequality in the world today.

Fig. 2.

Mediation model examining indirect effects of income inequality on revealing clothing, through status anxiety and competitor derogation, controlling for age. ***P < 0.001, ^†P < 0.10. Significant indirect path is boldface; dashed lines are not significant (ns). The model controls for the effect of age on revealing clothing and both mediators. Zero-order effect of income inequality on sexualization (c path): t(300) = −0.36, β = −0.02, P = 0.718, CI₉₅ [−0.15, 0.10]. Effect of income inequality on status anxiety (a_{status anxiety} path): t(300) = 1.78, β = 0.09, P = 0.076, CI₉₅ [−0.01, 0.20]; and competitor derogation (a_{competitor derogation} path): t(300) = −1.47, β = −0.09, P = 0.143, CI₉₅ [−0.20, 0.03]. Effect of age on status anxiety: t(300) = −1.92, β = 0.12, P = 0.056, CI₉₅ [−0.24, 0.003]; and competitor derogation: t(300) = −1.23, P = 0.221. Effect of status anxiety on sexualization (b₁ path), controlling for age, competitor derogation, and income inequality: t(298) = 3.23, β = 0.18, P = 0.001, CI₉₅ [0.07, 0.29]. Effect of competitor derogation on sexualization (b₂ path), controlling for age, status anxiety, and income inequality: t(298) = 0.91, P = 0.364. Direct effect of income inequality on revealing clothing (cʹ path), controlling for status anxiety, competitor derogation, and age: t(298) = −0.36, P = 0.718. Effect of age on revealing clothing, controlling for income inequality, sexualization, and competitor derogation: t(298) = 5.32, β = −0.29, P < 0.001, CI₉₅ [−0.40, −0.18].