Economic Inequality and Meritocracy Separate Us: Psychosocial Correlates and Consequences of Economic Disparity and Meritocracy on Social Fragmentation (DE-M€RIT) (PID2022-140252NB-I00). Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación. 2023-2026. Main Researcher: Rosa Rodríguez-Bailón.
We hope that the present project will help to advance knowledge fundamentally on two issues: 1) people’s idea of meritocracy, its dimensions, its most important components, as well as a way of measuring it that is valid and adapted to the Spanish context; and 2) a better understanding of the psychosocial consequences of economic inequality and the meritocratic beliefs that sometimes accompany it. Although social epidemiology, economics and sociology have already developed theoretical models on the subject, they have not explored in depth the psychosocial processes that explain its consequences or the psychosocial effects of ED and meritocracy on social relations. Most of the empirical evidence developed so far has been obtained through correlational studies. Thus, in the present project we aim to fill this gap and help to understand some of the psychosocial mechanisms that allow us to explain and predict the observed effects of inequality and meritocracy as causal factors. This will perhaps allow us to develop a coherent theoretical model that we hope can have an impact not only in Social Psychology, but in all social sciences that study the effects of economic inequality and meritocracy.
The results of this project could be useful in the development of social programmes and policies aimed at preventing and alleviating the negative consequences of economic inequality and meritocracy in the labour, educational and societal spheres in general. Also, by informing about the pernicious consequences that economic inequality and meritocracy can have on individuals, it could motivate political and social programmes aimed at reducing the existing level of inequality or the harmful application of the principles of meritocracy.
Therefore, we hope that the results of this project will have an impact on the development of theoretical models to understand the consequences of economic inequality and meritocracy, both in Spain -one of the most unequal EU countries- and in other countries with high levels of inequality (such as some of the Latin American countries in which we will also carry out some studies). Social psychology can provide useful knowledge and methodology on the effects of economic inequality and meritocracy for at least two reasons. First, because it allows us to study basic, intra-individual psychological processes and macro-social processes at the same time. This gives us the opportunity to study economic inequality and meritocratic beliefs from a broad and multidimensional explanatory framework. Second, by employing a variety of methodologies, mainly correlational and experimental, it allows us to explore in depth the relationships between economic inequality and meritocracy and other psychosocial processes of relevance when addressing the improvement of the well-being of individuals (i.e. the social fragmentation that can be caused), as well as the establishment of causal relationships between economic inequality and its correlates.