The Social Perception of Social Class: An Integrative Review

Abstract

Social class profoundly affects people in a wide range of ways, leaving its mark on individuals’ behaviour, cognition, experiences and outcomes. Social class also plays a role in social perception, and, in this review, I provide a snapshot of the current body of knowledge related to the social perception of social class. Specifically, I review research examining accuracy and bias in social-class perceptions from nonverbal cues, in addition to the consequences of these perceptions. Altogether, perceivers show some accuracy in judging individuals’ social class from various nonverbal cues, indicating that nonverbal behaviour provides signal to individuals’ social class and that perceivers can detect this. A large body of evidence simultaneously highlights substantial bias in social-class perceptions, with social-class stereotypes meaningfully affecting impressions. Finally, research illustrates the broad range of consequences of social-class perceptions, perhaps most importantly in the domain of competence and hiring judgments, which can serve to perpetuate inequality.