Culture and Inequality on Well-Being: Meritocratic Culture Moderates the Relation between Income Inequality and Subjective Well-Being

• In Event: 20420 - Section on Sociology of Culture Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 1: Culture, Cognition, and Beliefs

Abstract

Societal meritocratic culture, as an externalized form of share beliefs that success is achieved through hard work rather than luck or connections, is widely theorized to negatively impact people’s subjective well-being. Individual meritocratic belief, as a marker of internalized cultural orientation, is documented to positively correlate with subjective well-being. Meanwhile, a competing hypothesis concerning meritocratic culture has not been explored empirically. In this study, I argue that meritocratic culture negatively affects subjective well-being, with income inequality amplifying this effect. Using a correlated random-effects model with random slopes and cross-national data from the 7th wave of the World Values Survey spanning 2017 to 2022 (72,030 individuals across 49 societies), this study reveals two key findings. First, meritocratic culture is negatively related to subjective well-being. Second, this relationship is amplified by income inequality. This study advances the literature on the relationship between meritocratic beliefs and subjective well-being, as well as the literature on the influence of shared beliefs on individual lives, by proposing that public endorsement of meritocratic beliefs negatively impacts individual well-being, particularly in the presence of greater income inequality.

Author

• Chanki Yoo, University of Massachusetts-Amherst