Study finds upper-class people attribute achievements to hard work when faced with evidence of class privilege

A study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that upper middle- to upper-class people tend to be unaware of their class privilege. When shown evidence of said privilege, they were more likely to provide merit-based excuses focused on personal struggle and hard work.“In short, social class provides privilege: those at the upper end of the income and education distributions garner unearned advantages, based on their class status alone,” explained L. Taylor Phillips, Assistant Professor at NYU and coauthor Brian S. Lowery.A series of experiments recruited hundred...

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