250391 Social class and intergroup conflict (BS) (SoSe 2014)

Societies are organized in groups that build social hierarchies. For instance, in every society there are gender hierarchies, age hierarchies, ethnic hierarchies and among other set of hierarchies. This seminar focus in the case of social class as a hierarchical organization of the society and in how social class is related with other sets of hierarchies. Does a given social class membership promote or prevent other group conflicts? How do people that belong to a high or low status group in one hierarchy behaves in a second hierarchy? Do memberships in groups that belong to different hierarchies affect each other?
The seminar will offer an overview on current research linking social class and intergroup conflict, including interclass discrimination, social class and prejudice, social class and gender, social class and ethnic discrimination, among others.

Students are expected to give a presentation and to write an essay in one of the topics of the seminar (a list of topics will be provided timely). All activities will be in English. This include lectures, discussions, readings, presentations and writing the essay. In the introductory session the topics for the presentations will be distributed.

Bibliography

Basic literature

1. Argyle, M. (1994). The psychology of social class. London: Routledge.
2. Brandt, M. J. (in press). Psychological Defensiveness as a Mechanism Explaining the Relationship Between Low Socioeconomic Status and Religiosity. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 1–25.
3. Fiske, S. T. & Markus, H. R. (2012). Facing social class. How societal rank influences interaction. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
4. Kraus, M. W., Piff, P. K., & Keltner, D. (2011). Social Class as Culture: The Convergence of Resources and Rank in the Social Realm. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20(4), 246–250. doi:10.1177/0963721411414654
5. Kraus, M. W., Piff, P. K., Mendoza-Denton, R., Rheinschmidt, M. L., & Keltner, D. (2012). Social class, solipsism, and contextualism: how the rich are different from the poor. Psychological review, 119(3), 546–72. doi:10.1037/a0028756
6. Napier, J. L., & Jost, J. T. (2008). The “Antidemocratic Personality” Revisited: A Cross-National Investigation of Working-Class Authoritarianism. Journal of Social Issues, 64(3), 595–617. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4560.2008.00579.x
7. Piff, P. K., Stancato, D. M., Côté, S., Mendoza-Denton, R., & Keltner, D. (2012). Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1–6. doi:10.1073/pnas.1118373109
8. Stephens, N. M., Markus, H. R., & Fryberg, S. a. (2012). Social class disparities in health and education: Reducing inequality by applying a sociocultural self model of behavior. Psychological review, 119(4), 723–44. doi:10.1037/a0029028
9. Stephens, N. M., Markus, H. R., & Townsend, S. S. M. (2007). Choice as an act of meaning: the case of social class. Journal of personality and social psychology, 93(5), 814–30. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.93.5.814